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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
August 4, 2002 -- Vol. 3, No. 16
A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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Check the Naval Medicine CIOs case by eRoom Staff
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Featured:
* Announcement: AIS SIG DSS meeting at AMCIS 2002
* DSS Wisdom
* Ask Dan! - What is ETL software and how is it related to DSS?
* Spreadsheet-based DSS Tip - Include Comments and Notes
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Releases
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DSS News is sent to more than 850 subscribers from 50
countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested
in Decision Support Systems and suggest they subscribe.
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Announcement: AIS SIG DSS meeting at AMCIS 2002 08/09/2002
The Association for Information Systems Special Interest Group about
Decision Support and Analytical Information Systems (SIG DSS) will have
a business meeting on Friday, August 9, 2002 at the Americas Conference
on Information Systems (AMCIS) meeting in Dallas, TX, USA. The meeting
will be held in Moreno A in the Hyatt Regency at Reunion at 5 PM. Please
mark your calendars to attend this meeting and invite your friends. See
you at the SIG DSS meeting.
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DSS Wisdom
Creating integrated systems to provide information for management
decision making has been a goal for many years. Schoderbek, Kefalas and
Schoderbek noted in 1975 that "Efforts have been made in many companies
to design a total data base and then to use that base to generate the
necessary information. To be sure, there has been some integration of
data in many organizations, but, for the most part, this has been true
for those systems utilizing the same kinds of related data. This
similarity of inputs is one of the requirements of an integrated system;
if compatibility of data does not exist, the system is not integrated.
(p. 221)"
from Schoderbek, P. P., A. G. Kefalas and C. G. Schoderbek, Management
Systems: Conceptual Considerations, Dallas, TX: Business Publications,
Inc., 1975.
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Get information about Dan Power's new book, Decision Support
Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers, at
http://www.dssresources.com/dssbookstore/power02.html .
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Ask Dan!
by Daniel J. Power
What is ETL software and how is it related to DSS?
Data warehousing practitioners have all experienced the frustration of
creating a large data store from existing operating data bases built
using a variety of data models and technologies. ETL software attempts
to make that task easier. ETL is an acronym for extract, transform and
load. This type of software is also called data extraction software and
it is sometimes referred to as "pipeline software" (cf., Gray and
Watson, 1998).
In managing databases, ETL refers to a software package with three
primary functions. EXTRACT reads data from a specified database and
writes a subset of data to a file. TRANSFORM changes the new data set
using rules or lookup tables. Finally, LOAD writes the data set to a
database intended to support reporting, queries, drill down and other
decision support solutions.
ETL software can be used to create a temporary data set for a specific
decision support purpose or it may be used to create and refresh a more
permanent data mart or data warehouse.
Why is ETL software needed? Because in many situations the data that
managers want to analyze is in diverse databases and in diverse formats.
ETL software can get existing data into a form and format that is useful
in a specific decision support task. Also, in some situations ETL
software can be used to improve data quality and data integration.
According to a Business Objects press release, ETL is "a critical
building block to a successful business intelligence deployment".
The ETL task is a complex problem in most companies and for most
decision support projects. The goal is to extract comparable data that
is consistent and then "clean up" the data and structure it for rapid
queries (cf. Anahory and Murray, 1997 p. 22-26).
Although I have moved data sets and recoded fields and populated new
databases with existing data, I'm not an "ETL person". I know how
important the extract, transform and load tasks are, but they also seem
a bit tedious and boring from my perspective. You can get more
information on ETL at the web sites of vendors. Three vendors are
Ascential (www.ascentialsoftware.com) with its DataStage XE product, IRI
(http://www.iri.com) and Acta Technology (www.acta.com). On July 9,
2002, Business Objects announced it would acquire Acta Technology.
So ETL software helps prepare data from diverse data sources for use in
a data-driven DSS. ETL begins the data warehouse/data-driven DSS
development process. ETL software does NOT however insure the quality of
DSS data -- it is only a tool that needs to be used intelligently.
Readers interested in creating a DSS data store may want to check Larry
English's White Paper titled "Ten Mistakes to Avoid If Your Data
Warehouse Is To Deliver Quality Information" that is available at
http://www.infoimpact.com.
References
Anahory, S. and D. Murray, Data Warehousing in the Real World: A
Practical Guide for Building Decision Support Systems, Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Business Objects Press Release, "Business Objects to Acquire Acta
Technology, Inc.", July 09, 2002.
Gray, P. and Watson, H.J., Decision Support in the Data Warehouse, Upper
Saddle River, NJ; Prentice-Hall PTR, 1998.
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Check the DSS mini-track at AMCIS in Dallas. For
information visit http://hsb.baylor.edu/AMCIS2002/
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Spreadsheet-based DSS Tip
Include Comments and Notes
A Spreadsheet-based DSS should be well documented. Paper documentation
is usually not however appropriate. A DSS developer may want online
narrative documentation, but in context notes and comments can be
especially helpful to users.
In MS Excel, to add a comment to a cell click the cell in which you
want to add the comment. On the Insert menu, select Comment. In the
pop-up box, type the comment text. When you finish typing the text,
click outside the comment box. A red triangle appears in the upper right
corner of the cell and positioning the mouse over the triangle
displays the comment.
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What's New at DSSResources.COM
08/03/2002 Posted Web-based DSS page.
08/02/2002 Posted case by eRoom Staff, "Naval Medicine CIOs use
collaboration and knowledge-sharing decision support application",
eRoom, Inc., 2002, posted at DSSResources.COM August 2, 2002, URL
DSSResources.COM/cases/.
08/01/2002 Posted Knowledge-driven DSS page.
07/28/2002 Updated Subscriber Zone Resource Index.
07/28/2002 Reformatted and moved DSS Case Summaries page to the
Subscriber Zone.
07/28/2002 Reformatted and reorganized Decision Support Articles
On-Line. Moved offsite article links page to the Subscriber Zone.
07/27/2002 Reformatted Vendor Case Studies page and rotated cases.
07/22/2002 Updated Top 5% DSS Web Sites page.
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DSS News Releases - July 22, 2002 to August 4, 2002
Complete news releases can be found at DSSResources.COM.
08/03/2002 HMonline announced breakthrough workers' compensation bill
submission process.
08/01/2002 Sand Technology awarded $3 million CRM Analytics and Data
Warehousing contract for Singlepoint.
08/01/2002 Intergraph's International Internship Program presents
challenging learning environment for University students.
07/31/2002 SGI receives major order to enhance DaimlerChrysler's Virtual
Reality Center.
07/31/2002 Genesys Conferencing to provide access to Web Conferencing
Services via HP Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant.
07/31/2002 Resource Allocation: Steps and Tools for Optimizing
Resources.
07/31/2002 Cognos announces support for mySAP(TM) BI.
07/31/2002 Industry Leaders launch first partner-Led Microsoft-Qualified
Prescriptive Architecture Guides for Internet Data Centers.
07/30/2002 U.S. Army selects CorVu for Strategic Readiness System.
07/30/2002 Documentum announced new product that unifies collaboration
and enterprise content management.
07/30/2002 Business Objects expands product and service intelligence
analytic application.
07/29/2002 Oracle adds third world record in data warehouse benchmarks.
07/29/2002 Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System deploys
budgeting, reporting and analysis on the web with Comshare® CPM
software.
07/29/2002 iManage chosen to facilitate collaborative working and
improve efficiency for Zurich architects HZDS.
07/29/2002 LoadBuilder™ from Haestad Methods streamlines water demand
assignment for hydraulic modeling.
07/29/2002 SkillsNET selects Meridian Project Systems' GigaPlan for
Project Management.
07/26/2002 Intergraph supports education excellence with GeoMedia
education grants program.
07/25/2002 DDH Software announces HanDBase 3.0 for both Palm OS and
Pocket PC Handhelds.
07/25/2002 Sagent announced major changes to its management team:
Boisvert new CEO, Springsteel COO.
07/24/2002 Command System, Inc. demonstrates C2 Integration and
Coalition Fire Support interoperability with Raytheon's AFATDS.
07/24/2002 Intergraph announces GeoSpatial World 2003 and issues call
for presentations.
07/24/2002 Cognos takes leadership position in growing corporate
scorecarding market.
07/23/2002 Genesys Conferencing to offer Web Videoconferencing solutions
with Philips web cams.
07/23/2002 Palm and IBM team to deliver wireless solutions for the
enterprise.
07/23/2002 Insignia begins search for world's smartest Java developers
with JPDA 2002 Application Developers contest.
07/22/2002 PeopleSoft positioned as top challenger in META Group CRM
Market evaluation. Check release.
07/22/2002 MathWorks announces release 13 with major new versions of
MATLAB and Simulink.
07/22/2002 COBE Cardiovascular pumps corporate performance with Cognos
analytic applications.
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You can read 786 DSS News releases in
the Subscriber Zone at DSSResources.COM.
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DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2002 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to
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