This week for your project assignment you will ensure that there is an alignment

Question

This week for your project assignment you will ensure that there is an alignment between the analytic tool chosen to present your data insights and the business requirements. This is a key element of the project because it is where actual users will interact with the data. Your tool selection should consider the needs and skills of your audience, but also the needs of the business. This is where you as the business analyst, will create and "alignment" that best fits this scenario. In a minimum of 3 full pages provide a report that includes the following: Explain what is meant by data virtualization. Describe the various analytic tools on the market. Define what is meant by open source vs. licensed analytic tools. Describe a few of the key advanced analytic features available in Microsoft Excel. Using Excel and the dataset supplied for this course project, create a dashboard that can be used to visualize 3-4 of the key metrics in the business requirements. Your paper should be a minimum of 3 full pages in length. You will need to include a minimum of 2 credible sources for your research, with 1 being an academic source, such as a book or an academic scholarly journal. Academic scholarly journals can be accessed through the Rasmussen Online Library. For business sources, ProQuest and EBSCO Host are helpful. Include an APA formatted title page and reference page.

Explanation / Answer

Answer: Data virtualization:It is defined as a process of managing and accumulating the data from various sources of information to create a logical and virtual view of this information by manupulating and changing it into a single form. This will lead to make it accessed by applications, dashboards and portals without even knowing the technical details and real storage location of data.

Let take an example of Facebook a social networking site. we all store or upload photos on the Facebook. during uploading a photo to Facebook from our desktop computer, we have to provide the upload tool and information about the file path.Once it got uploaded to Facebook, however, we can get back the same photo without even knowing its new file path. so, now we will get no idea about the Facebook, where is it storing our data or photo because Facebook use a software with abstraction layer that helps in hiding that technical information. for this abstraction layer we use the term data virtualisation.

Answer:Various analytical tools on the market:

Analytic tool is used to analyze the data for taking out the actionable and relevant information so that any organization can use this information to improve the results or performance. There are many tools available on the market.

The key analytics tools are:

1)Experimental design tools: To test the validly of a hypothesis/new product packaging/marketing approach we use the methods like experimental design, Business experiments and AB testing etc. It is based on the technique when we try something new in one part of the business and compare its performance with another part where we dis not applied any change(act as a control group). It’s very useful method when we have to choose between two or more options.

2)Create graph or Visual patterns analytics: We can create a graph and visual to analyse the Data and then we spot patterns. This approach associate the data analysis process with data visualisation and human interaction. It is very useful in interpreting the huge volume of data.

3)Correlation method: This method allow us to explain if there is a relationship or a degree of association between two variables or not and if yes then determines that how strong is this relationship.It is most useful in testing the assumptions.

4) Regression method:This method is used to examine the relationship between variables; for eg: is there any causal relationship between knowledge management and technology? we can use it to test our hypothesis.

5)Horizon analysis: It is also called total return analysis, This method helps us analyzing various possible future events and also consider possible alternative outcomes. we can use it in decision of selecting a suitable course of action.

6) Time series analysis method: under this, Data is collected at uniformly spaced intervals and explores this data to take out the meaningful information. This method can be used to predict future events based on the past events.

7)Data mining process: An analytic process involved in exploring the large business-related data sets to get the insights or to know the relationships between variables.It can be useful to handle the large data sets and to get insights.

8)Text mining process: An analytical process to take out the value from large and unstructured text data. we can use it in many ways such as information retrieval, pattern recognition and predictive analytics.

9)Opinion mining process: the process of extracting the subjective opinion or sentiment from data like text, video or audio. we can use it to understand the stakeholder's opinion.

10) Image analytics method: It is the process of taking out the information, meaning and insights from images.

11)Video analytics method:The process of extracting information from video footage.

12) Speech analytics method: The process of taking out the information from audio conversations. we use voice analytics in a call centres.

Answer: open source Vs licensed analytical tools: we should understand the basic differences between open source analytical tools and licensed analytical tools. Licensed analytical tools are developed by for-profit companies like Microsoft .These companies sell licenses to use their software. Open source analytical tools are developed by dedicated communities who design the software on the basis of the needs of the community.

THE PROS AND CONS

The main advantage of open source tools is anyone can use it for free.there is no barriers in using these tools. cons of these tools are this can lead to a danger because anyone can use and contribute to it without even prior testing and quality control. most of the firms rely on licensed tools because these are thoroughly designed, tested and documented.

There are so many small and medium-sized enterprises have limited budgets, they choose to use open source tools or freeware solutions so that they can directly analyze their data. Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics is very popular among these enterprises .It helps in improving their search engine ranking, or decision regarding online marketing mix.

So, both licensed and open source tools have some strengths and weaknesses. it is clear that both the tools will continue to coexist.

Answer:The key advanced analytic features available in Microsoft Excel:

1)Sort:To sort our data

2) Filter:To apply filters to our data

3) SUMIFs function:For adding up your cells in Excel

4) Pivot Tables: Pivot tables help us to quickly summarize and analyze large amounts of data in tables

5)Text Formulas

Text formulas help in extracting certain amount of text from a large amount of data.

6)IF formulas:help in making certain decisions based on data research.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.