Monday, August 31, 2020

Ad Hoc Modelling & Responsive Self-Serve Analytics

Ad hoc data modelling may be defined as data modelling that permits responsive self-serve analytics. Mature data modelling in BI & Analytics lets you ask questions of the available data that may never have been asked in quite the same way. With only a small amount of expertise, mature data modelling lets you ask such questions without having to involve IT, DBAs, or your BI team. Ad hoc modelling is modelling for the rest of us.

Data modelling shields the end user from the complexities of data access, enabling better self-service BI & Analytics, greater self-reliance for end users, and preventing misuse such as runaway queries, invalid data use, and forbidden data use. It holds legal, strategic and tactical importance for your organization.

But mature data modelling does not happen overnight. It evolves over time to meet the needs of the organization. It is the product of a process that involves management, legal, IT, analysts, end users, and technology. It requires knowledge, analysis, due diligence, and comprehensive reviews and approvals. Because it happens over time, all of its inputs may not even exist as a single body of knowledge, but be distributed over numerous initiatives.
Business needs can and do change rapidly. As an SAP Analytics Cloud or SAP S/4HANA user, you may want to ask questions of your analytics system that haven't been asked yet, in which case the modelling may not yet exist to provide the answers you need. It's normal for your data modellers to focus on strategic needs before tactical needs, but their focus means that your tactical needs end up in a data modelling backlog.

Ad hoc modelling enables agility, which is exactly what is required to meet your tactical Analytics needs, but how do you enable ad hoc modelling?

The APOS Live Data Gateway, which connects to a wide range of data sources and provides the transformational capabilities that allow SAP solutions such as SAP Analytics Cloud, S/4HANA and SAP Datasphere to consume live data from those data sources, also has the solution to your ad hoc modelling problem.

Using the APOS Live Data Gateway's web-based data modelling interface, users with moderate SQL skills (that is, most analysts) can create a Freehand SQL View, or even a Semantic Layer View from the data source, which they can then use as a basis for their SAP Analytics Cloud stories.

Achieving ad hoc data modelling in this way enables user agility in a truly responsive self-serve environment, democratizing analytics access, and speeding time to value for your analytics deployment. It also frees your IT resources to focus on higher-ROI (that is, strategic) activities.

Learn more about the APOS Live Data Gateway