Christian Kurze

Towards an Ontology of Multidimensional Data Structures for Analytical Purposes

Multidimensional data are the foundation for OLAP applications. They can be provided in several ways: relational OLAP, multidimensional OLAP, or hybrid OLAP. The usage of the underlying technology, which is well understood and in most cases formally defined, does not resolve the issue of a missing vocabulary for multidimensional data on a conceptual level. Some basic definitions are broadly used; for example cube, dimension, and the operations like slice, dice, roll-up, and drill-down. When it comes to more sophisticated constructs like irregular hierarchies, different vocabulary exists.For the integration of different OLAP applications as well as for an easier development (each stakeholder has to use the same vocabulary in order to reduce misunderstandings and projects failures), we provide an approach for a comprehensive ontology of multidimensional data. It defines the vocabulary used during the design of OLAP and data warehouse applications. The ontology can be seen as a basis for (i) notation assessment by evaluating the notation against the BungeWandWeber model, (ii) the ontological engineering of new data warehouse and OLAP applications, and (iii) ontological model integration.

On the role of social software techniques for the design of self-organising enterprise reporting portals

Modern enterprise reporting portals commonly address the information needs of top management executives. With the advent of pervasive Business Intelligence systems other, larger, groups of users are moving into the focus of system designers. Along with them specific design requirements surface — transforming design considerations of prior efforts targeting management reporting needs. Owing to vast and heterogeneous target audiences, new breeds of enterprise reporting portals become necessary. As a core feature they need to provide effective and therefore usable means for bottom-up content personalisation, commonly referred to as Web 2.0 functionality. This paper provides a research agenda using insights from research in Social Software to improve effectiveness and efficiency of collaborative enterprise reporting. It offers a comprehensive view on recent developments fostering collaboration between report users and report designers. We present two preliminary artefacts: a proposal for a concept for self-organising enterprise reporting portals and a design prototype implementing the concept.

Modellierung und Dokumentation von Bl-Systemen

Stichwörter Business Intelligence Metadaten OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) ADAPT (Application Design for Analytical Processing Technologies) Dokumentation Die Dokumentation umfangreicher BI-Systeme erweist sich heute in zahlreichen Unternehmen immer noch als unzureichend. Dabei haben die oft iterativ gewachsenen Systemstrukturen eine Komplexität erreicht, die einen umfassenden Überblick kaum noch zulässt. Der Beitrag präsentiert anhand eines Praxisbeispiels einen Prototypen zur weitgehend automatischen Dokumentation multidimensionaler OLAP-Datenstrukturen auf der Grundlage der ADAPT-Notation.