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344 Chapter 9 Business Intelligence Systems

illustrate a simple example of a reporting system for AllRoad later in this question and describe
each of the categories of BI analysis in greater detail in Q4 through Q7, respectively.
Publish results is the process of delivering business intelligence to the knowledge work-
ers who need it. Push publishing delivers business intelligence to users without any request
from the users; the BI results are delivered according to a schedule or as a result of an event or
particular data condition. Pull publishing requires the user to request BI results. Publishing
media include print as well as online content delivered via Web servers, specialized Web servers
known as report servers, and BI results that are sent via automation to other programs. We will
discuss these publishing options further in Q8. For now, consider a simple example of the use of
business intelligence at AllRoad.

Using Business Intelligence to Find Candidate Parts at AllRoad

At the start of Chapter 5, Drew and Addison asked Lucas, the director of IT services at AllRoad
Parts, to provide an extract of AllRoad’s sales and parts data. Drew was skeptical that they could
do anything with it, but Addison was certain that she could use Access to find candidates for the
sale of 3D parts designs from sales and parts data. Here we’ll learn what she did.
To begin, Addison and Drew identified criteria for parts that customers might want to print
with 3D. Their criteria and rationale were to find parts that were:

1. Provided by certain vendors (starting with just a few vendors that had already agreed to
make part design files available for sale)
2. Purchased by larger customers (individuals and small companies would be unlikely to
have 3D printers or the needed expertise to use them)
3. Frequently ordered (popular products)
4. Ordered in small quantities (3D printing is not suited for mass production)
5. Simple in design (easier to 3D print)
Addison knew that the fifth criterion would be difficult to evaluate because AllRoad doesn’t
store data on part complexity per se. After some discussion, she decided to use part weight
and price as surrogates for simplicity. As Addison said, “If it doesn’t weigh very much or cost
very much, it probably isn’t complex.” At least, she decided to start that way and find out.
Accordingly, she asked Lucas to include part weight in the part data extract.

Acquire Data
As shown in Figure 9-3, acquiring data is the first step in the BI process. In response to Addison
and Drew’s request for data, Lucas asked one of his employees to extract operational data to
produce the following two tables:
Sales (CustomerName, Contact, Title, Bill Year, Number Orders, Units, Revenue, Source,
PartNumber)
Part (PartNumber, Shipping Weight, Vendor)

Sample data for these two tables is shown in Figure 9-4. As Addison and Drew examined
this data, they concluded they had what they needed and actually wouldn’t need all of the data
columns in the Sales table. They were surprised that the data was divided into different billing
years, but because they planned to sum item sales over those years, that division wouldn’t affect
their analysis.

Analyze Data
Addison’s first step was to combine the data in the two tables into a single table that contained
both the sales and part data. Also, because she and Drew had already selected certain vendors
to work with (those they knew would agree to release 3D parts design files), she set filtering