Design and implementation of a tracking system for a business intelligence tool

Companies are introducing Business Intelligence (BI) systems to support decision-makers in their decision-making process. Due to the rapid changes in the internal and external conditions of current economic life, the demands placed on information as a production factor are growing.

However, the widespread use of BI systems in companies still has some disadvantages and cannot fully fulfil user requirements. Due to the high complexity of using these systems, less than 30% of potential users can fully benefit from BI systems. Business users (managers) can use dashboards or standard reports predefined by power users (IT staff or analysts). The use of such BI tools is less complex; the business users can contact the power users if they have questions or need further information. This communication between business and power users has consequences. On the one hand, the large number of requests from business users can put a strain on power users. On the other hand, business users may have to wait a long time to get the information they need. As a result, the value of the information provided is reduced. To reduce the communication between business and power users, a new BI system architecture is designed to enable self-service functions. The basic idea behind this architecture is to transfer the knowledge of the power users to the business users.

The aim of this thesis is to design and prototype a new tracking mechanism to record the interactions of power users while using the BI tools. In order to achieve this goal, the front end (user interface) of various BI tools (also open source possible) should first be analysed in order to create a catalogue of possible interactions between power users and BI tools. Then, if a web-based BI tool is available, the tracker module can be realised as a browser plug-in. Alternatively, it is also possible to choose an open source BI tool such as Pentaho and extend it with the tracking functionality. The output of these modules can be a log file of the interaction of the power users. Download description as PDF file.

M.Sc. Safwan Sulaiman
Prof Dr Jorge Marx Gómez
Dr Joachim Kurzhöfer