[GRLUG] Open Source Business Intelligence

[Dennis Kaminski]

On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 21:59 -0500, nick wrote:
> If the Spreadsheet works, then sure, that's your BI tool. Probably
> does the job for many small business users.
> I've yet to test the OpenOffice3, but the last version was clunky for
> tasks that involved connecting to DBs, permissions, parameters. 
> I could do most, but it was slow and involved writing up documentation
> on what's possible and not, by way of experimentation, along with
> detailed instructions for a frustrated user. 
> 
> Nick
> 
The spreadsheet method breaks down as the number of rows increase. The
BI tools are suppose to let the decision makers select and sort the data
in a variety of ways to gain insight into the business. For example:
What do sales look like by region?
What do sales look like by region if we exclude the xyz product line?
What do sales look like by region if we include Internet sales?
What do sales look like by region comparing our salesmen using CRM tool
verses the salesmen that do not use CRM tools?

Dennis