M o s t v e n d o r s provide these capabilities in their business intelligence enterprise systems. The important o n e s are described next in s o m e detail. DRILL DOWN

8.2. M o s t v e n d o r s provide these capabilities in their business intelligence enterprise systems. The important o n e s are described next in s o m e detail. DRILL DOWN

O n e of the m o s t useful capabilities of an E I S is to provide details of any summarized information. For example, an executive may notice a decline in corporate sales f r o m a

daily (or w e e k l y ) report. To discover the reason, he or she may want to s e e the sales for each region. If a problematic region is identified, the executive m a y want to s e e further details (e.g., by product or by salesperson). In certain cases, this drill-down process m a y continue into several levels of detail.

D r i l l - d o w n paths that are m a n u a l l y c o n s t r u c t e d and m a i n t a i n e d typically use hypertext-style connections rather than m e n u s in systems with a G U I (i.e., the b u t t o n for requesting a drill-down path is typically d e f i n e d as a hot spot directly over the high- level data to be explained). This frees up screen space for delivering information and can s p e e d access to drill-down information by eliminating the additional m o u s e m o v e - m e n t s typically r e q u i r e d b y p u l l - d o w n o r p o p - u p m e n u s . Similarly, W e b t o o l s a n d hyperlinks can be used for an intranet-based drill down. Songini (2003f) describes h o w Boehringer d e v e l o p e d an integrated enterprise i n f o r m a t i o n system that successfully blended an E R P with business intelligence/business analytic tools. O n e critical feature of the E I S is its drill-down capabilities. S e e D S S in A c t i o n 8.4.

Menu-driven drill d o w n is generally a characteristic of ad h o c query applications,

4 1 8 P A R T 111 ' COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, ENTERPRISE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

TABLE 8.2 THE Characteristics and Benefits of EIS

Quality of information

• Is flexible • Produces relevant information • Produces correct information

• Produces complete information • Produces timely information

• Produces validated information

User interface

• Includes a sophisticated graphical user interface (GUI) • Minimizes keyboard use by including infrared • Includes a user-friendly interface

controllers, a mouse, touch pads, and a touch screen • Allows secure and confidential access to information

• Provides quick retrieval of desired information • Has a short response time (timely information)

• Is tailored to the management styles of individual • Is accessible from many places

executives

• Includes a reliable access procedure

• Contains a self-help menu

Technical capability provided

• Access to aggregate (global) information • Trends, ratios, and deviations are shown • Access to electronic* mail

• Access to historical and inost current data is provided • Extensive use of external data

• Organization around critical success factors • Written interpretations

• Provides forecasting

• Highlighting of problem indicators • Information produced at various levels of detail (drill • Hypertext and hypermedia

down)

• Ad hoc analysis • Filtering, compressing, and tracking of critical data • Multidimensional presentation and analysis

• Support of open-ended problem explanation • Information presented in hierarchical form • Incorporation of graphics and text in the same display • Management-by-exception reports are provided

Benefits

• Facilitates the attainment of organizational objectives • Increases communication quality • Facilitates access to information

• Provides better control in the organization • Allows the user to be more productive

• Allows the anticipation of problems and opportunities • Increases the quality of decision making

• Allows planning

• Provides a competitive advantage • Allows a search for the cause of a problem • Saves time for the user

• Meets the needs of executives • Increases communication capacity

software b a s e d on the user's logical p o s i t i o n in the d a t a b a s e and k n o w l e d g e of the structure of the database. This k n o w l e d g e of the database structure m a y have b e e n s p e c i f i e d in advance, or it m a y h a v e b e e n o b t a i n e d d y n a m i c a l l y by the application directly querying the database dictionary. Conceivably, a query application could gen- erate several hundred m e n u s and s u b m e n u s covering all possible combinations of log- ical positions and valid drill-down paths.

D r i l l - d o w n paths, s u p p o r t e d b y star s c h e m a s o r s n o w f l a k e s c h e m a s within t h e

e n t e r p r i s e data w a r e h o u s e , e n a b l e t h e e x e c u t i v e o r o t h e r k e y d e c i s i o n - m a k e r t o formulate an area for further investigation, then easily transfer b e t w e e n highly sum- marized to detailed information. O n l i n e analytic processing ( O L A P ) tools (see Chap-

ter 5) include drill-down where, at a m o u s e click, a user can disaggregate a summary r o w or c o l u m n in a tabular report. In contrast, r o w s and c o l u m n s c a n be "reaggre- gated" through a process called roll up. Try this out in the T e m t e c E x e c u t i v e V i e w e r

C H A P T E R 8 ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

D S S I N A C T I O N 8 .4