Read Part 1 & Part 2 of this series if you haven't already. 

Last entry I worked up the basic origins and destinations for the data we have. Now we have to start turning this into something real, something concrete. The following processes include a whole soup of acronyms and other cryptic vocabulary. The most common thing I will probably use is the ETL acronym, which stands for Extract, Transform, and Load. This is the process of bridging the data to the various originations and destination and moving that data appropriately.

In the last entry I finalized the originations and destinations as shown below;

In my previous entry you may have noticed that I had posted SSIS with the Destination list.  Being one that corrects themselves when mistaken, I took it out, as it does not belong there.  The SSIS is our tool that will perform the ETL functionality for this project.

At this point we are finally going to get into the dirty bits of these pieces of technology, and how we need to tie them together.  I am going to attack them over the next few entries based on the order in the lists above.  The first item, is the Excel & Access 2007 customer relations listings from sales.  Here?s a description and a few shots of what this thing looks like.

The access database is setup with a very simple relational data schema.  This is shown below (click image for larger view).

You can see there are pretty standard pieces of data, in a generally normalized (3rd form for the most part) structure.  This is fine.

Next is a shot of the data entry screen for adding opportunities.  There are respective screens for customers and employees.  Everything needed for a basic customer list & tracking basic things.  Nothing too extravagant here either.  Again, all is fine.

Below is a simple report that shows the available opportunities that are open.

Another report showing the forecasts.

Below is another forecast sliced grid.

So all that seems normal enough.  But the processes are what makes things tricky.  If everyone just managed sales from the database, all would be right in the world.  The first thing that breaks this is that each sales person enters their sales during the day and other information in a spreadsheet that is not linked to the underlying database.  Someone each morning puts the previous days sales information.  This of course, breaks down data integrity.  Below is a sample sheet that is used each day.

One thing that Excel is used for, that doesn?t break reports is the lists of prospective customers to call.  As shown below.

Now that we have a break down of the Excel & Access Customer Relations Management Software, I will move onto the other pieces of technology in the next entry.  This is the data point that has the most prospective data risk, so I put it at the top of the list to cover first.  After I cover each of the systems, we will move into the architecture of the system overall.  So keep reading, more juicy bits to come.

So here is the lowdown on what I will be presenting, demoing, and showing to the attendees & anyone who is interested at Engage 2010.  If you are attending and have not signed up on the Engage Crowdvine Site, please do so.  There are some great conversations going on there.

One other thing I wanted to point out, is that you MUST attend the Ignite in New Orleans.  Ignite events are a blast!  Portland, Oregon regularly has some of the largest Ignite Events, and since we are bringing a whole lotta Portland love, and NOLA is well known for some great parties, I know the NOLA Ignite will be awesome!  So make sure to attend.

First off, Brian Gallagher and myself will be showing off some awesome technology for video tracking at the science fair break out sessions.  There will be a Tuesday Science Fair and a Wednesday Science Fair, and I will be there with Brian going over the tracking.  So if you miss us one day make sure to check it out the next day!

The next speaking session is the enterprise & business intelligence topic I have mentioned in some of my previous blog entries.  The session is titled Make Analytics Work across your Enterprise.  Our topic summarized is, The nerd of the Enterprise;  ETL, EPM, ERP, BI, CRM, and how the alphabet soup works together for real Enterprise Business Intelligence and Insight.

The final engagement I have is a topic near a dear to my work here at Webtrends.  Over a year ago a rock star team of developers; Rob D, James K, and myself started working on the Data Exchange, REST Web Services for Webtrends.  Of course now those have been in production and are now on v2.0 already!  Rob has gone on to rock the current iPhone Webtrends Application (Check out the Webtrends Blog Post Too) & James is coding away at some of the awesome infrastructure that keeps all the data flowing smoothly on the back end (to the web services, to the Insight UI, the whole thing ? James is awesome at that).  So we built these services many months ago and now I get to present them as a workshop session at Engage.  Open web services based on good clean REST Architecture Principles have always been an interest of mine and I have been and will continue to be stoked that we at Webtrends have these available for customers!  So be sure, if interested, to check out the Workshop:  The RESTful Way ? How to Use Webtrends REST Services.

Also for further reading, check out some of my past entries on REST Services;

• REST, So Many Nuances, The Self Signed SSL Cert Override
• REST Web Services Synchronous Request that points at the Webtrends Developer Network Blog Entry.
• Just a Bit More REST which has a really bad example of unit tests, which are more integration tests, running against some REST Web Services.
• File Extension ".svc" Annoyance
• RESTful .NET by Jon Flanders is probably one of the best books on the WCF based REST Services.  So if you are looking for a solid guide, this is a great place to get just that.

Alright.  Here I am working through some analytics trending of my Twitter, Facebook, www.adronbhall.com, LinkedIn, and other various sources of traffic.  Here's the frustrating part.  I don't mean a little frustrating, I am talking about a-grade I almost want to break something frustrating.  I have bit.ly, Webtrends Analytics, a database with cross-correlated results, a Twitter monitor in another window, and other little apps to track what is going on.  Where does most of this data come together?  In my head.  Why do I have to manage everything this way, it is damn frustrating!

So here is an idea, and I am just thinking outside the box here (as I always do since nobody will let me in the box anyway :p ).  How about these things get merged into a good solid single interface.  Maybe even some of the environments get rolled together in addition to the tracking analytics and reports.  How about a solid dashboard that allows drilldown into the various mediums to allow actual interaction with the data and platforms?  Imagine a dashboard, that reports the analytics for all these things but then lets you just kick in and start tweeting or posting the latest bits to Facebook.  Why have a half dozen or more applications and web sites open.

What we need here is some technology leadership.

Others have discussed this recently and are looking for some results.  Ok, some of you readers may be thinking, "do you not work for Webtrends Adron?  Go build this stuff!"  Well maybe others and I am, but I am still frustrated at not having it right now.  It seems this is something that is slowly slipping by in this industry and we need a centralizing effort for all these data points to help in actually making sense of them.

A fellow analytics & marketing professional, Rodica Buzescu writes in her blog Morphing Through Time a post titled Web Analytics ? Leaving a Lot to Be Desired.  She lays out the current analytics situation very clearly.  There is no tool that really bridges the data together easily.  Some BI Pros out there may say "oh but I have all that stuff together".  This may be true, but how much time and effort did that take?  What we need is a centralized management solution for this data.  Something to bridge the data together to make it actual, usable, and actionable information.

I have also had a number of conversations with Eric Peterson about various analytics on various platforms.  One such paltform is Twitalyzer (@twitalyzer), that he and @katzpdx have put together.  This is a prime example however, of a very useful tool, but something that lies outside of other tools.  The question is, how to integrate and what to integrate.

As an analytics advocate, practitioner, and developer myself I have one huge issue with a lot of my analytics that I use.  Webtrends Analytics & Data Mart help me bring most of those together.  However there are a number of things that are still disparate and segmented in the wrong areas.

So with this post as it stands, what do people want joined?  Where are all these data points that people want?  I think something good just may come out of this desire, but the ideas do have to come together solidly.  I have things I can?t disclose, but I know there are minds here at Webtrends thinking about bridging this gap right here and right now.

Part II of my Business/Enterprise Intelligence Series, check out part 1.

In the previous part of this ongoing series of getting the business intelligence and analytics pieces of the enterprise intelligence world figure out, I hit on the first step of the entire process. Collection of available data points. Not the desired data points, nice to haves, or might haves, but the available data points.

In this entry I will step past that and get into a little more of the technical depth of how these data points will be connected in the enterprise systems. More to the point, how they are not connected and will need to be in the enterprise.

A Quick Review, The Systems

• Point Of Sale (POS) w/ 300+ stores
• Webtrends Analytics tracking the Awe Widgets Inc Website
• Internal Accounting Software (IAS)
• In-house Built Customer Lists for Sales w/ Excel & Access

With the four systems we have a huge amount of actionable data points. So how do we connect all of these data points? That is the thorny question that comes up. Again, just like during the discovery of what data is available, we have a simple first step for this process.

Figure out the origin and destination!

That is really it. Of course, as anyone would concede, there is a lot in between. Without knowing where we are starting and where we need to end up though, finding the in between is in vain. Sure, one can make the mistake as many business intelligence projects do, and start building architecture before anyone knows or actually can use the architecture. This is a severe mistake, and I myself have literally seen millions of dollars get wasted only to have to start a project over, right in the middle of the original project. Do NOT become one of those projects, find the origin and destination!

In this case I am again, going to use my creative side and determine the operations of this company. Awe Widgets Incorporated is currently using SQL Server and has in house skills developed among their staff. That provides an easy option of moving towards SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and working with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for the ETL bits. Whatever other platforms are in between will be easily connected with these two tool stacks. So now I know my multiple originations, and my single point destination.

Moving on to the fun bits.

Now we have to figure out how we're going to get from our origination to our destination. This is where the trip becomes interesting. Just to make sure things stay clear, and list out what we have that we are working with.

So now we are starting to get somewhere.  We now where we are, what we have, and where we want to go.  Time to wire some things up, so stay tuned.  That will be in the next entry.  Also, if you are planning on attending Webtrends Engage in New Orleans, but sure to look up the Enterprise Intelligence session that I will be presenting with Heather Crince of Webtrends and Tony G. of Orbitz?

If you missed the previous entry in this series, check out Where is the Other Data Tracking?!  Where are My Acronyms?!?!

IE6/Windows XP

Microsoft wants users to give up IE6 & Windows XP.  I want users to give up IE6 & XP.  Please, please, please give those things up.  IE6 of course more than XP.  With what Windows 7 is though, go ahead, get on the bandwagon.  Win XP is moving the way of Win98/95 finally so let’s keep that movement going.

Free SEO Toolkit from ole’ Microsoft

So this looks interesting.  The thing is, as stated above, one has to kick the Windows XP Habit!  So drop it and check this out.  I am keen to see what anybody is coming up with as for these platforms these days.  Especially companies like Microsoft who have vast resources to put toward it.

Adbrite Switches to Webtrends

I see this regularly these days, as we are gaining tons of switchers, since our analytics generally rocks.  But this one really brings it home for me since I have worked with the Adbrite Team on the Implementation.  Great team at Adbrite, excellent implementation if I might say so myself.  If you are looking for a company to do advertisements on the web with, this is definitely a company to take a look at.