Tableau Data Integration

Tableau may be a great data visualization tool but it has very limited functionality for data blending and data integration. Worse, most customers misunderstand "self service business intelligence concept" and think that they will get Tableau and without any data integration they can connect to the databases and create visualization (customers are actually made to believe this with Tableau's sales pitch).

Unfortunately, most business data is stored in complex relational database management systems or ERP which is very difficult, if not impossible to connect directly. Thus, many companies buying self service business intelligence solution realize that they cannot use it effectively due to this limitation.

Solution for this Tableau data integration problem is developing a  data integration with a non-Tableau application which is purpose built for this function. This data integration layer will simplify, consolidate and usually enrich the complex transactional data and will make it available for business users to easily develop visualizations. It will also transfer the query load from transactional system to this intermediary stage so the dashboards will also work faster. Such intermediary Tableau data integration layer became more crucial in the big data age.

Since Tableau deploys ease of use of "Drag-and-Drop", ideally the data integration system should also have the same drag-and drop capability and free of scripting. Luckily there are drag-and-drop data integration software out there and some are open source such as Pentaho.

There are drag-and-drop data integration software out there and some are open source such as Pentaho.

You can download Tableau Data Integration Services brochure to find out more : Enterprise Tableau Data Integration and Management Paper.

If you are having problems in Tableau data integration and data management, an expert Tableau services help may be very useful. In this case you should choose a Tableau consultancy firm, which will guide you in the process and implement the actual Tableau data integration layer.

Self-service Business Intelligence for Commercial Property Leasing

Commercial Real Estate Leasing is an extremely competitive sector of the Real Estate Industry and the players are required to be imaginative and have information at their fingertips to avail of the opportunities that arise as well as quickly respond to government, economic and market pressures that might challenge their business models. Having market and business metrics at the tips of your fingers therefore becomes a necessity.

Interactive Business Intelligence gives Commercial Real-estate professionals number of benefits:

• Allows you to have a data based strategy for real estate portfolio optimization.
• Provides a broad spectrum of self-service, easy to use business intelligence tools with customizable levels of access,
• reporting or analytics per user.
• Allows for both internal and external performance measurement and benchmarking.
• Interactive BI breaks down multidimensional Data mashups with beautiful, rich data visualizations that support your
• natural ability to spot patterns.

Download the white paper here for a step-by-step introduction to Self-service Business Intelligence for Commercial Property Leasing.

Supply Chain - Inventory and Product Availability Dashboard Demo by Qlik Sense

This Supply Chain - Inventory and Product Availability Dashboard demo application provides visibility into inventory levels (in-store, depot, and in transit) and potential insights into availability through out of stock measures and sales information. Lack of availability can mean lost potential sales. Too much inventory creates excess costs.

The demo app is designed to give visibility into the Retail environment to Consumer Products companies. The source data is the Retailer who makes information available from their store EPOS and depot systems to the Consumer Goods company.

This demo gives consumer goods company and any retailers a picture of product stock levels in store, depot and in transit, as well as sales analysis. The app supports Consumer Products companies in their effort through allowing users to reduce out-of-stocks and lost sales potential, as well as identifying potential alternative sources of replenishment.

This data can be viewed at the multiple levels and locations, in providing Consumer Products companies with detailed insights to support key business processes such as forecasting, demand and supply management.

This Qlik Sense demo is available online and you can access it by filling Data Analytics with Qlik Demo/App Request Form (select "Supply Chain - Inventory and Product Availability Dashboard Demo by Qlik Sense" in drop down).

This Qlik Sense supply chain, inventory and product availability dashboard demo illustrates how you can use Qlik Sense to potentially gain insights through visualizations and try to optimize inventory and availability not just one side of the equation.

About Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense analytics software is a business intelligence tool designed for the enterprise. Developed by Qlik, the company behind popular QlikView Business Intelligence Platform, Qlik Sense makes visual dashboard creation simple and intuitive, but doesn’t stop there. Qlik Sense also makes it easy to explore the data so you can understand what’s happening and why. Ask questions. Follow your intuition. Seamlessly navigate vast amounts of data from multiple sources. Then share your insights visually and accurately with other users directly or through the cloud.

Microsoft Power BI Desktop

Microsoft’s cloud-based business analytics tool, Power BI, came out with a brand new addition in late July 2015, Power BI Desktop. Officially named Power BI Designer, this free desktop tool aims business analysts and can be used to analyze data in a wide range of data sources. Power BI is also capable of ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) and can cleanse, transform and model interrelationships between the data; explore the resulting mashed up datasets.

Microsoft Power BI Desktop can create interactive reports and dashboards with simple drag and drops and these reports can then be published to the Power BI service for use by end users.

As Microsoft announced earlier in 2015, users will be able to choose between two versions of Power BI – a free service and a paid one (Power BI Pro), which comes with additional features and data capacity, costing US$9.99 per user per month.

Microsoft indeed has a very powerful platform offering for business intelligence but it has been relatively weak in presentation layer of BI. The new Power BI Desktop, which also first time in Microsoft's BI journey freed presentation from MS Excel, may well change that. Power BI online services are also quite easy to use. You can setup an account with your work email and immediately enjoy free services. Paid service as seen above is also not expensive and only comes at US$9.99 per user per month.

Currently the platform is only on cloud and no option to install it in-house. This will definitely prevent a lot of companies to seriously adapt it but its free entry price, ease of use and minimum setup requirements, it will probably be a very powerful cloud based self-service BI platform.

You can watch a 3 minutes Getting Started with the Power BI Desktop below.

Free Tableau Demo in Singapore for manufacturing

Tableau Software has recently released their brand new data visualization platform version, Tableau 9.0 in April and in June officially released the new version in Singapore. If you are keen to try out this mind blowing self-service business intelligence platform, you can download a free Tableau download (14-days trial) and also watch this 23 minute full demo of the platform, Getting Started with Tableau.

For those in Singapore, Knowledge Management Solutions, an official Tableau Software partner based in Singapore (with offices in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Jakarta) is conducting a full 1.5 hour demo of Tableau on 31st July 2015 - 9:30am - 11am in Singapore Management University campus.

You can see the details and form to register here : Tableau for Business Users Event.

This Tableau 9.0 demo for Business Users event is regularly conducted and this session targets manufacturing. Still, it is offers a demo for every one including non-manufacturing industries to experience how Tableau can help them to make sense of their data.

Tableau for Business Users offers a 1.5 hour Tableau demo in Singapore.

Introduction to Qlik Sense in Singapore

Qlik has recently intoduced its brand new product, Qlik Sense, and as a Qlik partner, Knowledge Management Solutions is starting a series of apps build events in the upcoming months to introduce this exiting new product.

Known as "Build Your First Data Visualization Dashboard in half-day", this 4 hours free Qlik Sense introduction offers a hands-on experience with this new self-service Business Intelligence solution. Qlik Sense free desktop application will be used in the session so there is not license cost at all.

The apps build session is on 9th January 2015 between 10:00 AM and 14:00 PM and will cover a hands-on session where you will build your first Qlik Sense Business Intelligence Dashboard with a Qlik Sense expert. See below for details and to register.

Build Your First Data Visualization Dashboard in half-day!
Data Analytics with Qlik Sense

You are invited to join Knowledge Management Solutions Pte Ltd for Data visualization by Qlik Sense Desktop Session.

The hands-on approach allows you to build a Qlik Sense application that integrates real data from several different sources and presents it in dashboards, analyses and reports.  Qlik Sense Business Intelligence dashboards allow organizations to analyze data quickly.  Its intuitive user interface means there’s no need for canned reports, dashboard widgets, or templates to get started. Through Qlik Sense’s disruptive, in-memory associative approach, business users have experiences unprecedented success and satisfaction.

Qlik Sense

Who should attend?
Business people, General Managers, Analysts, Operations Managers, IT Managers, HR Managers, Finance Managers, Marketing Managers, Sales Managers, Service Managers, etc.

What you will learn during the hands-on session:
You will build your first Qlik Sense Business Intelligence Dashboard.


This training will be provided by our key consultants who on average have more than 15 years of experience in Business Intelligence and Analytics.

Seats are limited hence we encourage you to register early to secure your seat(s).

Date: 6th March 2015 (Let us know if this date does not work for you. We will inform you for the next event).
Time: 10 am to 2 pm (registration starts at 9:45 am)

Venue:  9 Temasek Boulevard #17-02, Suntec Tower Two S(038989), Singapore
Agenda:
1. Introduction to Qlik Sense Business Intelligence
2. Create your Business Intelligence Application with Qlik Sense
Tea Break
3. Data extraction from different sources
4. Data modeling
5. Design of graphs and charts
6. Build your advanced dashboard (Analytics and Reporting)

If you would like to join us kindly send an email to levent@kms-world.com with your name, designation, company, and official email and phone details or click below to register.

Qlik Sense has been launched on September 17th 2014 a few months after its free desktop application was released. Qlik Sense is built on the QIX Associative Data Indexing engine, the second generation of Qlik’s proven and patented engine technology. Associative data engine leaves data associations to Qlik Sense platform which frees users from IT stuff like writing queries or connecting filters and charts with each other. On top of this, Qlik Sense also offers a drag-and-drop application development environment which allows business users to develop their small to medium size BI applications without relying too much on it.

Below you can watch an introduction video.

Jedox 5.1 Data-driven Modelling

Since version 5.1, European business intelligence (BI) software provider Jedox offers a powerful data-driven modeling feature, Jedox users can create an entire OLAP model with existing data at the click of a button, with the model immediately available for analysis, reporting and planning tasks. This new Jedox 5.1 data-driven modeling feature uniquely combines the content depth of classic OLAP tools and the simplicity of state-of-the-art data discovery software.

How data driven modelling works? First, you start with your existing data in Excel. With one click, you create a Jedox in-memory cube. You can now immediately report, plan and collaborate across your organization. This works by automatically generating a sophisticated load (ETL) script to read your data from Excel. The ETL you can edit, extend, and schedule in order to refresh your data as often as you need. The result is you can instantly take any Excel data and immediately use this live through Jedox anywhere.

Since this feature will quickly create a JEDOX model, the data and the interface will be immediately exported to Jedox Web which will open the data to mobile access in a few minutes.

This powerful concept is best demonstrated then writing about. Watch below video for a very nice demonstration from Jedox AG.

Qlik Sense Pricing

Qlik has launched its long awaited product named Qlik Sense. Composed of Qlik Sense, a governed, server-based data visualization and discovery application, and Qlik Sense Desktop, a free Windows desktop self-service data visualization application, the new suite enables server side BI development and distribution, drag-and-drop visualization, smart search and data storytelling.

Qlik Sense pricing is also completely overhauled. The licensing in Qlik Sense (Server) is based on tokens, which are used to allocate access passes that allow users to access Qlik Sense. Token-based licensing model of Qlik Sense is to provide greater flexibility for license management. Qlik Sense tokens can be allocated to named users, or leveraged across multiple login sessions for one or more users. With the token-based licensing model, customers can deploy multiple servers, across multiple geographies, to optimize for performance and availability without paying any additional costs.

Qlik Sense pricing has not been publicly published yet so we cannot write the prices here. If you are in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia, you can contact us through levent@kms-world.com because in this regions we can help you to understand pricing. For other countries,if you are interested in to find out more about Qlik Sense token pricing and Qlik Sense server pricing, you engage with a local Qlik account manager.

Here are also some useful pages to explore Qlik Sense more:

• Qlik Sense vs QlikView
• What is Qlik Sense?
• QlikView 12 - Release date and overview
• Qlik launced full Qlik Sense Product

Also check out these Qlik Sense Resources
Learning Qlik Sense	Qlik Sense for Beginners

Qlik launced full Qlik Sense Product

The wait is over. Qlik, one of the leading data discovery solution provider, has launched Qlik Sense, its device-independent, self-service visualization and discovery product engineered for enterprise-class governance and performance. Qlik Sense product suite is composed of Qlik Sense, a governed, server-based data visualization and discovery application and Qlik Sense Desktop, free Windows desktop self-service data visualization application.

Here is the full press release from Qlik :

Qlik, a leader in data discovery, today introduced general availability of Qlik Sense, the first device-independent, self-service visualization and discovery product engineered for enterprise-class governance and performance.  Built on a modern architecture and powered by the patented, industry-proven Qlik data indexing engine, Qlik Sense gives users the unrestricted ability to create personalized data analyses and explore the relationships that exist in data to reveal connections instantly. Qlik Sense is designed to serve audiences equally without compromise: business users gain the intuitive experience they need, developers gain boundless possibilities for what they can create and IT gains centralized control for management and governance.

Just as Qlik disrupted the business intelligence (BI) industry to pioneer the data discovery category, the company is now leading the next transformation as the category matures to governed, user-driven creation with the launch of Qlik Sense. According to Gartner, Inc.’s 2014 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform report , “By 2015, enterprise buyers of BI platforms will predominantly purchase platforms that support both strong and broad business-user-accessible data discovery capabilities and IT-driven enterprise features for data reuse, governance, security and scalability.”

“Our vision for Qlik Sense builds on our belief that anyone in an organization should be able to easily create dynamic dashboards to explore their data to uncover meaningful insights,” said Lars Björk, Qlik CEO. “When we set out to create Qlik Sense, we envisioned a world where every knowledge worker, from any device, could rapidly create visually rich analytics to explore theories, prove hypothesis, or discover new trends that can change the trajectory of their business.”

“We have been very impressed with Qlik Sense so far.  For us, simplicity of delivery is key, and it allows us to accelerate the delivery of actionable analytics to the right people at the right time,” said Perry Willis, Head of Information Technology EMEA at Colliers International. “Although we have strong QlikView skills in the IT team, so creation of applications is easy, Qlik Sense allows even greater creation flexibility so we can do more, faster. The synergy we are rapidly developing by using both QlikView and Qlik Sense is helping us provide our Real Estate advisors across 40 countries in EMEA smarter analytics solutions.”

Qlik Sense is the first offering to deliver self-service BI based on a server-side development and distribution model. Whereas most products require separate developer licenses and leverage the traditional approach of develop and publish, Qlik Sense empowers every user with the full capability to create, customize, or extend visualizations from any device, at any point in time.

“The problem with self-service BI has always been that you either get rich BI capability with weak usability, or a very approachable product with limited analysis capability,” said Anthony Deighton, Qlik CTO and Senior Vice President of Products. “With Qlik Sense, we set out to change that. That’s why we built Qlik Sense on the second generation of our patented associative data indexing engine, but gave it a rich, modern visualization front-end that is intuitive, yet powerful.”

Qlik Sense offers the first server side development and distribution model for self-service BI.

Smart Search and Smart Visualizations Accelerate Time to Insight
Qlik Sense lets users create apps through a drag-and-drop experience that delivers relevant analysis, interactive reports, and dashboards critical to decision-making and operations. Users can freely explore their intuition since they are not limited to predefined paths they must follow or questions they must formulate ahead of time. The Qlik associative data indexing engine allows users to easily expose relationships among data dimensions, uncovering insights that would have been hidden in traditional hierarchical, query-based data models. This provides users with the freedom to explore data at any point in their analysis.

Smart Search allows a user to simply type words or numbers to begin analysis of a data set. When a user types in a search string, Smart Search connects the dots, uncovering data relationships and information in locations that might otherwise be unnoticed. In addition, intuitive Smart Visualizations uncover all the relationships between data dimensions, revealing insights that would have been hidden in traditional data models. These cues help users explore patterns by dynamically updating and highlighting new information and associations.

Qlik Sense offers Drag-and-drop visualizations 

Anytime, Anywhere Collaboration Enables Broader Knowledge Sharing

Qlik Sense puts the social and collaborative experience front and center.  Workgroups and teams can collaborate by collectively sharing analyses anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Its touch-driven interface and responsive design automatically adapts visualizations for the best possible experience on any device.

Data Storytelling allows multiple users, on any device to share their insights at a point in time in presentation format. Users can add commentary and narrative and drill down directly from the presentation to Qlik Sense to answer questions on the fly. This helps to drive communication of insight and facilitates group discovery.

Enterprise-Class Governance and Security Provides Centralized Control

With Qlik Sense, users can build their own visualizations from a centralized library of pre-built data sets, expressions, and visualizations to ensure consistent use of data and values.  Its modern architecture allows new capabilities for governance and manageability to support workgroup and distributed enterprise environments, including license allocation and usage monitoring in an easy-to-use interface that saves time and simplifies troubleshooting. It also enables IT to implement enterprise-level security requirements with a flexible security-rules engine that offers granular control for progressive development with powerful audit and logging.

In addition, Qlik Sense supports robust data integration to transform and combine multiple, disparate data sources and provide seamless analysis across them, including fast calculations, associative exploration, and search. Its open and powerful APIs give developers the ability to embed Qlik Sense into web pages and custom applications, and extend core capabilities to meet custom needs.

Availability and Pricing

Qlik Sense is available today. The Company has also introduced a new, more flexible token-based licensing model for Qlik Sense to provide greater flexibility for license management. Qlik Sense tokens can be allocated to named users, or leveraged across multiple login sessions for one or more users. With the token-based licensing model, customers can deploy multiple servers, across multiple geographies, to optimize for performance and availability without paying any additional costs. For more pricing information, contact Qlik or one of its registered partners.

In addition to offering the complete Qlik Sense offering for interactive visualization, Qlik will continue to offer its market-proven platform, QlikView®, to provide application development that enables analysts with minimal development expertise to build and publish powerful analytical applications. Qlik Sense Desktop, (www.qlik.com/us/explore/products/qlik-sense/desktop) will also continue to be available as a free download.