Business Intelligence, What’s in It
for Me?
Faron Kincheloe, Baylor University
So What is BI Anyway?
BI (Business Intelligence) is an umbrella term to
describe a set of concepts and methods to
improve decision-making by using fact-based
support systems.
Source: Wikipedia
Evolution of BI
• What happened to my Data Warehouse?
• Was it really a data warehouse?
• Diverse definitions
– Archived data
– Transactional reporting center
– Data Mart
Evolution of BI
• BI was there all along
• Shift from past to present and future
– Dashboards
– Analytics
– Forecasting
Data Subjects in Institutional BI
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Recruits
Applicants
Enrolled Students
Degrees Awarded
Retention
Employees
Financial
– Aid awards
– Tuition revenue
– Expenses vs. Budget
Typical Information Formats
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Drillable Cubes
Stored Processes
Static Reports (PDF)
Interactive Excel Documents
Links to other web resources
Automated updates
How Does BI Impact IR?
• Make our jobs easier, right?
– Self-service for users
• Questions get tougher
• Exposes data issues
– Cleaner data
• More organized data for IR
• Ongoing maintenance
• Users are hungry for more!
Questions?
Faron_Kincheloe@baylor.edu