Introduction

It's time to produce some numbers. In our BI journey, we have walked through the installation, configuration, and creation of a project, and there was not a single number involved. I appreciate your patience reading the first few chapters; now we start looking at what the reports look like and where the results come from. Because, after all, everything we do ends up in a bottom line total.

Note

A Sales Manager once asked me "What is this all about: Business Intelligence?". I politely answered, "It's about taking informed decisions...you know, managing with accurate information, etc.", "Ok, I got the 'business' part," he replied, "but why 'intelligence'? It's just stupid numbers!"

I don't need to remind you that not-so-stupid numbers are the ultimate goal of a BI project (yes, I know, flashing out iPads is also fun), and it is extremely important to know where numbers come from, why they look good or bad.

Chances are that parts of your deliverables will be PowerPointed in a board...