Post on 13-Jan-2016
© 2008 IBM Corporation
®
IBM Cognos Business Viewpoint
Miguel Garcia - Solutions Architect
What is Business Viewpoint?
What can Business Viewpoint do?
What are the Features in Business Viewpoint?
Who will be Using Business Viewpoint?
Which Cognos products work with Business Viewpoint?
What is the difference between Business Viewpoint and MDM
Questions
Goals
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What is Business Viewpoint?
Business Viewpoint is designed to be a centralized repository of specific dimensions which are used across FPM (Financial Performance Management) and BI.
It allows users the responsibility to manage dimensions in their areas of domain responsibility.
It uses workflows, proposed changes and additions to dimensions which are approved and validated before being distributed throughout the enterprise
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What is Business Viewpoint… Business Viewpoint uses 6 components
– Studio, a Web-based interface where the creation and editing of new dimension, hierarchies, workflows and attributes occur.
– A client software installed on each machine that requires integration with the following component:TM1, Analyst, Contributor, Transformer, etc…
– A server which contains the application’s logic, web elements and manages the repository.
– An Excel component, users can work with data offline, and import their results to Business Viewpoint Studio.
– A Command Line Interface (CLI), The CLI can be used to perform Business Viewpoint Client tasks without accessing the standard interface.
– Web Service, provides the ability to automate Business Viewpoint tasks. This includes the ability to import data from various contributing sources, export data to various targets, create dimension versions, etc
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Business Viewpoint Architecture
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Create and Maintain– Create, import, edit, manage,
compare dimensions, hierarchies and attributes
– Employ reusable lists and dynamic hierarchies
– Assemble multiple hierarchies, current and future views, and versions
– Notify interested parties by role as changes occur
Business users visualize create and relate
dimensions, with flexibly to add any number of
attributes
Business users maintain any and all dimensions, attributes and hierarchies
What can Business Viewpoint do?
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Govern and Collaborate
– Audit who makes changes and what changes are made
– Apply version control with ability to roll back
– Assign security for dimensions, users and user roles
– Review lineage of maintenance history back to the source
– Retain all work in central dimension store
Assign specifics roles and areas of responsibility
across the business community
Manage nominations, approvals and versions with business workflow
What can Business Viewpoint do…
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Share and Synchronize
– publish selected changes, or provide subscription services, to authorized applications
– Leverage pre-built integration across Cognos performance management system
– Open API and web services for 3rd parties
MDMSolutions
Application Systems
Data Warehouse
Import / Export
Integration Services
Co
gn
os
8
Bu
sin
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s V
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Common dimensions shared across business community
IT
BusinessBI and Performance Management
Cognos BI Cognos FPM 3rd Party
Published Snapshot
Dimension Store
IT provides oversight and controls system interfaces
Integration Interfaces
Publish / Subscribe
Flat FileRelationalCognos 8
AssetsSpreadsheets
What can Business Viewpoint do…
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What are the Features in Business Viewpoint? Dimension
– A container for data that you organize into hierarchies. It is a broad grouping of descriptive data about a major aspect of a business, such as products, customers, or locations.
List– Are used as the basis for dynamic hierarchies. By using lists, you have only
one place to update information.
Hierarchy– Represents a collection of dimensional members organized into a tree
structure.
• Dynamic: Contain members that are pointers to the physical members in one or more Lists and thus the members of the hierarchy are updated automatically when you change the information in the list
• Static: Are self-contained hierarchies that contain the physical members that you import or add manually.
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What are the Features in Business Viewpoint… Level
– Represents related data within a hierarchy. Levels define the structure of hierarchies in a dimension.
Member– is an item within a hierarchy or level. If the member is in a dynamic
hierarchy, it is a pointer to a physical member in one or more lists. If the member is in a static hierarchy, it is a physical item that you import or create manually.
Attribute– Are the distinctiveness of a member that the business wants to quantify. For
example, an Employees dimension may have attributes for name, title, department, employee status, start date, and salary.
Set– Is a filter that you and your users can reuse. Using a set differs from filtering by
name, which is done on an adhoc basis.
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What are the Features in Business Viewpoint… Version
– Captures the state of a dimension at a particular point in time.
• Public: can be published and will appear in Business Viewpoint Client
• Private: appears only in Business Viewpoint Studio
Publication
– Allow dimensions in Business Viewpoint Studio to be used in other applications
Workflow
– The Reconcile/Modify and Review/Approve steps of process flow can be managed through Workflows. A workflow consists of one or more Tasks. The two types of tasks are Nominate and Review. A single workflow can have many tasks, set up to operate in parallel and in series.
What are they working on?
– Mergers and acquisitions
– New Offering Planning (products, markets)
– Business reorganization
– Managing any business change or what-if scenarios
Who uses Business Viewpoint?
– Director/VP of FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis)
– Financial Analyst
– Business Analyst
– Brand/Regional/Project Manager
– Business/Product Manager
Who will be Using Business Viewpoint?
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Cognos 8 Security (8.3, 8.4 Active; 8.x prior to 8.3 Compatible)
TM1 (9.1 and 9.4)
Planning – Analyst (7.3, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4)
Planning – Contributor (7.3, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4)
Controller (8.3, 8.4)
Transformer 8.4
Cognos 8 Reporting (8.3, 8.4 Active; 8.x prior to 8.3 Compatible)
Which Cognos products work with Business Viewpoint?
Transformer Nominate
– Push dimension to BV
Subscribe– Pull dimension from BV
Can subscribe to new dimension from different models
BV Studio
BV Data
StoreBV Server
Adapter
Transformer
Other
Adapters
Other
componentsSubscribeNominate/
Subscribe
Roles
Consumer
– Can access BV content in subscribing tools (e.g. Analyst, TM1, Transformer)
– Does not get access into BV Studio
Nominator
– Contributes domain specific content
– Minimal exposure to features – mainly inputs data e.g. Brand Manager
Reviewer
– Responsible for entire set of brands/category
– Reviews and approves/decline nominations - governance
Manager
– Defines dimension containers
– Sets up and enables workflow
– Sets up hierarchies and manages versions
Administrator
– Manages security/configuration/system maintenance
– Sets up hardware/user roles
– Configures and enables integrations
Workflow
Audit Report from IBM Cognos 8 Report Studio
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Business Viewpoint:
– Business Viewpoint is designed for the user (business /financial analyst etc) to create and maintain a common view of dimensions to drive performance. BV does not change data in the users Data Warehouse, everything is stored in the BV content store
MDM:
– MDM is meant to help an organization synchronize data between multiple ‘source’ or ‘operational’ systems within their Data Warehouse environment.
Organizations can use BV to supplement any existing MDM technology to take advantage of the workflow capabilities and strong integration with the supported Cognos tools
What is the difference between Business Viewpoint and MDM (Master Data Management)?
What is Business Viewpoint?
What can Business Viewpoint do?
What are the Features in Business Viewpoint?
Who will be Using Business Viewpoint?
Which Cognos products work with Business Viewpoint?
What is the difference between Business Viewpoint and MDM
Summary