Top products from r/BusinessIntelligence
We found 29 product mentions on r/BusinessIntelligence. We ranked the 47 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
1. Data Science for Business: What You Need to Know about Data Mining and Data-Analytic Thinking
Sentiment score: 3
Number of reviews: 3
O'Reilly Media
2. The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Extracting, Cleaning, Conforming, and Delivering Data
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
Wiley
3. Agile Data Warehouse Design: Collaborative Dimensional Modeling, from Whiteboard to Star Schema
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 2
4. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 2
Graphics Press
5. The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 2
John Wiley Sons
6. Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 2
7. SQL: Visual QuickStart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
8. MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-448): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance (Microsoft Press Training Kit)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
9. The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server 2008 R2 and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Toolset
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
John Wiley Sons
10. The Kimball Group Reader: Relentlessly Practical Tools for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
11. Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
12. The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
John Wiley Sons
13. How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
14. Building a Scalable Data Warehouse with Data Vault 2.0
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Morgan Kaufmann
15. Guerrilla Analytics: A Practical Approach to Working with Data
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
16. The Ultimate Guide to Cleaning Data in Excel and Google Sheets: Proven techniques and best practices for cleaning business data.
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
17. Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager's Guide (The Morgan Kaufmann Series on Business Intelligence)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
18. Oracle8 Data Warehousing (Oracle Press Series)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Pretty much anything by Stephen Few. His 2nd edition of Information Dashboard Design is a great start. He's also done some great whitepaper type stuff as well. Google can help you find it.
Edward Tufte is pretty famous in the area as well. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is a classic and an amazing book on representing data.
To me, telling a story with data is essential to calling something BI. Otherwise, it's just presenting a bunch of data in a different format than it started. You need to guide users to be able to diagnose issues and make decisions. Wireframing out a dashboard that starts big picture and have different paths users can follow to additional focused dashboards is key.
I just did a presentation on dashboard and visualization best practices at my company's conference for the 2nd time, and both times a lot of people told me how it changed their view of how they view analytics, or that they needed their team or boss to see the presentation because they are thinking about things the wrong way. Most of what I know and practice/preach today is a result of the above two gentlemen, plus things learned on the job along the way.
Visualize the data with the best chart type for the data. Not because they are pretty. Not because users want to see it a certain way. Pie charts suck, don't ever use them. I use this tweet in my presentation. Along with an example chart of when to use pie charts. Your dashboard might be KPIs and bar charts, and that's ok.
I could go on forever...
TLDR; Check out a couple of guys who are good at what they do. Tell a story with your data! Pie charts suck. Use the right visual. Feel free to PM me questions.
Here is an informative ebook perfect for BI beginners, The Ultimate Guide to Cleaning Data with Excel & Google Sheets. Or get it free at www.inzata.com
Nothing helps accelerate and improve a decision-making process like clean data. Updated & accurate data supports analytics and business intelligence, which in turn provides organizations with the proper information for better decision-making and execution.
Without a warehouse there will be no data governance over your reporting. So everyone does something different and no numbers match. Not only is this confusing to business, they are less likely to "buy-in" to the reporting you provide.
I strongly recommend Successful Business Intelligence for reading. Its light (non-technical) reading and author provides a lot of use cases and examples.
Your best BI tool will be spreadsheets. Its not sexy by any means compared to PowerBI or Tableau, but its the #1 BI tool. You can build a multi-million dollar portal with impressive visualizations, but if the user wants a spreadsheet- but can't get one- then your investment is squandered.
So get good at Excel... power pivots, vlookup, match, index all that
I also see other good resources here for you to check out.
Good luck!
How to Measure Anything
Perhaps not what you are expecting to see here, but a great book for dealing with a ubiquitous BI issue: how to measure business success given vague guidelines.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Kimball-Group-Reader-Relentlessly/dp/0470563109
This a great book. Bite size chunks explaining why to do a warehouse and how. Pretty much any Kimball book it seems good.
I will second Kimball's books on data warehouse design in general.
My favorite book on data visualization, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, won't show you in three minutes how to build a great dashboard, but will certainly help you recognize good and bad options and think about the topic.
Take a look at Data Science for Business. It covers a lot of other topics and are more theoretical, but I think it is pretty nice. Let me know what you think
https://www.amazon.com/Data-Science-Business-Data-Analytic-Thinking/dp/1449361323
Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals.
This one was super helpful when i transitioned from ops to using that data to create visualization and reports.
Dimensional modeling is under valued in today's climate. Any complex models on a large scale will be more effective when modeled optimally.
https://www.amazon.com/Data-WarehouseÂ-ETL-Toolkit-Techniques-Extracting/dp/0764567578
Granted I am biased because I work on Microsoft, I would say it's a great place to learn.
You can purchase the developer version of SQL Server which has every BI tool included for $50, and then you can use some of the resources below to learn the tool set. The Kimball book mentioned is great for learning data warehouse principles and there is also a Microsoft specific version. Remember SQL 2012 came out recently so some of the material doesn't line up perfectly, but its a good starting point.
http://learnmsbi.com
http://msbiacadamy.com
http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-448/dp/0735626367
I've attended Cole's 1-day workshop and definitely recommend it to any business who needs to summarize the so-what of their data. The book is good too.
http://www.storytellingwithdata.com/public-workshops/
https://www.amazon.com/Storytelling-Data-Visualization-Business-Professionals/dp/1119002257
Another accountant to BI person...
I found Khan Academy's Intro to SQL course useful and it's what I'd make my associates run through. Additionally, SQL Visual Start Guide was and continues to be a useful reference book.
You are on the right path - first understanding the business question that needs answering.
However, the business should be providing that, and the concept is that of Performance Management, rather than Business Intelligence - i.e., first defining the strategy, objectives and KPIs/metrics to measure performance.
You might start by looking for someone you can work with internally. Devoid of help and having a strategy with metrics, ask the business for their 'Board Report', automate it and think about how individuals are currently measured for compensation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_management
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470449985/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_zqv0DbHTXGN7Q
I'd recommend Guerrilla Analytics: A Practical Approach to Working with Data. I bought it on a recommendation from somewhere on reddit (possibly this sub). It provides good software-neutral guidance for building data capabilities within an organization.
Read this book Its a little deep, but I believe its a good start if you want to get into data science. Also, check out the Tableau and Alteryx tutorial videos.
Try this one. It's as good as any
http://amzn.com/1449361323
I recommend this book
http://www.amazon.com/Oracle8-Warehousing-Oracle-Press-Series/dp/0078825113
The Data Warehouse Toolkit by Kimball was recommended to me as "The Source" for DW. I just started reading it, so no experience yet.
The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118530802/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_LZ-7CbHQTXGRM
https://www.amazon.com/MASTER-DATA-MANAGEMENT-GOVERNANCE-Database/dp/0071744584/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491535724&sr=8-1&keywords=master+data
Assuming you've already read the Data Warehouse Toolkit? If not, do. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118530802
Is this the one you mean? https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Data-Warehouse-Design-Collaborative/dp/0956817203
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Agile-Data-Warehouse-Design-Collaborative/dp/0956817203
The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit
There is also a Microsoft specific version that shows how to apply Kimball methodology with SSxS stack.
https://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Lifecycle-Toolkit/dp/0470149779
https://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Definitive-Dimensional-ebook/dp/B00DRZX6XS
Get them to read the classics
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Scalable-Data-Warehouse-Vault/dp/0128025107
This is the book on the subject.