July 3, 2008 at 1:58 am
hi,
I had joined a new comapny only couple of months ago as a Business intellgince developer.Actually i had couple of years of experience in .net.Since am interested in Sql i had acepted this offer.The problem here is am a only guy now in this area.Im doing one intranet project for tracking employe timings daily.Am reporting to my manager who is also not a techie. He also didnot spen time with me..As he is busy with meetings...Many times i felt am alone...Since in IT department am only guy....What will i do now..shall i look to move on from here....What about big companies ...will there be more guys in a BI team....AM using proclarity as frontend...SSAS for backend...Are this tools worthwhile to be in.....Any experience guys guide me....
Regards
vijay
July 4, 2008 at 2:16 am
Hi Vijay,
Not often you get a BI 'team' of 1. 🙂 From what I understood, you are doing a intranet project that tracks the employees (login and logout) timings and you are supposed to load these information to a SSAS cube and create ProClarity reports out of it.
Sounds too simple to me. Once you develop this system and a batch job is scheduled, what next? Are there more tasks/projects in queue? It's not an IT company, is it?
You should do contant reading and try to be up-to-date with the BI technologies in the market. Wait for few months, may be 6 to 12. If you still feel you are stagnant out there, quit.
Good luck,
Vijay.
Warm Regards,
Neel aka Vijay.
July 4, 2008 at 3:27 am
hi Neelakandan,
Thanks for replying mate.Ya thats the project i have been doing now..Tracking employee timings.The thing is i dont know whether am doing is an optimised solution or not.because of lack of guidance here..This is not an IT company..we are Oil Trading company..have some branches all over the globe..Bascially we are having departments like tax,Risk,AR,IPC and so on....All are non IT related only..we are doing our IT related work by outsourcing of another company.Some ten guys of the outsourcing company stays withn us company for providing suport to the software they created and also to look after the databases.Now i had joined as a Business Intelligence developer,
First employee is me 🙂 ..Its couple of months have been over now..So far i have done the Time tracker for employess.....Now am waiting for KT from some of the guys who are currently doing maintenance and support for our company ...The thing is they are not willing to transfer their knowledge about the database and process.....My manager also busy with his meetings in other department....I has to some how collect information about the databases and the domain terminologies..I had sent a mail across to my IT manager and the maintenace head of that outsourcing company for give me some KT..Hopefully i wil get it by next week...
Is proclarity tool is the valuable one for Business Intelligence....If not,,which one is the mostly used one...Is there necessity for me to take any other tool or course...Also if u know any webcast sites for developing cubes using SSAS ...send me mate
Thanks & Regards
vijay
July 4, 2008 at 5:16 am
Hi Vijay,
ProClarity is part of the PerformancePoint server now, the new BI suite from Microsoft. See if there is a possibility of moving to that product.
Other BI tool vendors include Cognos, Business Objects, etc.
For SSAS reading.. http://www.ssas-info.com/
Regards,
Vijay.
Warm Regards,
Neel aka Vijay.
July 7, 2008 at 8:08 am
Being a BI team of 1 isn't that unusual, but it sounds as if you didn't transition slowly into that role.
Although there are plenty of tools, both SSAS and ProClarity together are excellent choices. SSAS is difficult to learn quickly, however, and there's still some theoretical understanding about OLAP that you need to have in any case. Get one of Ralph Kimball's books to help with that. I haven't yet seen a good book on Analysis Services, however.
You have a steep learning curve ahead of you, but if you make it and like BI, it's very satisfying.
Good luck!
July 7, 2008 at 8:43 am
I'd keep gaining experience and I'd keep re-evaluating how I feel about this. It can be lonely being the only one working on a project, and if it really bothers you, look for a new job and specifically ask people about that.
July 15, 2008 at 10:40 pm
hi,
I have asked about the number of employees in a BI team of big MNC's ..He told me that it will be over 100 for sure...Also there is lots of department like ETL,Frontend and testing....What about the tools Is there is necessary to learn other tools than proclarity of myself..because proclarity is so simple..nothing much to explore in it.....
I also has one more query..I had two years of .net developemnt experience...Now i has been in BI for the past two months...Will it affect my career in any way....
Regards
Vijay
July 17, 2008 at 4:44 am
Does anybody have any experience of the Hummingbird BI suite, and if so, what are your thoughts?
July 21, 2008 at 1:29 am
hi friends,,
Come on yaar...share ur thoughts and suggest me some ideas....
Regards
Vijay
July 23, 2008 at 7:30 am
I worked in a company where I basically was the Windows backend support, both databases and NT. Got trust right into it with next to no experience. Was a great learning experience!
It can be lonely, especially when you get stuck on trying to figure something out. But in this day and age, not so bad, Google is a few clicks away, back in 1995 not so much. There are sites like this that people can be very helpfull, many more books available on various subjects.
Even now, most places I work I have been the only DBA in the company, my current job I am one of 5 or 6 in the enterprise, but the only one at this company. Makes me have to learn all aspects (as much as I can) of the various tools we use. Not a bad way if you ask me, especially for someone new. Gives you time to figure out what you like doing. Decide you do not like doing ETL work? Now you know for the next job. Figure you really like to work with whatever tool to make the reports? Great, look for a job that heavily involves that for the next job.
July 24, 2008 at 1:23 am
hi,
The thing is we are an oil trading company..not an IT company..Justnow we started IT divison..Am the one and only guy here with a senior manager...The cubes which are all created before was done by outsourcing...SO no KT has done to me...Also the manager is now went to abroad..no body in the maintenace and support willing to explain my doubts about the database tables and interconnection..without this i dont know how to complete the task of creating cubes within this month end..Really am feeling bad now...Since we are not an IT company..they didnot give me much importance ...:w00t:..Am wondering why those guys are stubborn in sharing knowledge.....hmmm..what will i do...
Regards
Vijay
July 24, 2008 at 4:26 am
Quick answer on building OLAP cubes by month's end: try adjusting the expectations of whoever gave you that requirement. You can slap something together after reading SQL Server Books Online (BOL) and completing tutorials, but the result is not likely to be robust. If you must build now, at least try a prototype after reading BOL and following its SSAS tutorials.
Your story is very familiar to me. I started out in BI the same way: one-person data mart team with a clueless boss, except I had a background in tech support and system administration. Five years a couple of positions later, I took a job as a one-person reporting team, to move from very specialized ETL position (collecting log files that were fed into a DW) back into the front end of BI. My current team is in a business group, not IT. Sure, it's challenging getting source system documentation and cooperation of source system owners, purchasing software and hardware, getting servers hosted and supported, convincing management to migrate to IT's enterprise data warehouse (if that exists), and so forth, but those hurdles can make you more adept at working across groups and navigating through bureaucracy.
Being the sole person responsible can be stressful at times, but you'll gain experience in so many areas that I think it's worth it. My advice for your current position:
1. As others have suggested, read Kimball's books, especially The Data Warehouse Toolkit, The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, and especially The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit (guidance specific to Microsoft's BI stack).
2. I don't have experience with ProClarity, but it looks like a fine tool. If you're interested in exploring other tools to report/analyze OLAP or relational data, Tableau is my current favorite.
3. If you want to dive deep into SSAS, read the book written by SSAS architects and devs, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SAMS, ISBN 0-672-32782-1).
4. To learn more about data analysis and presentation, read any of Edward Tufte's books, or better yet, attend his seminar.
5. Getting (or having) a firm grasp of T-SQL and relational database theory will help tremendously.
6. Learn DBA and system administration. Perhaps the most important task here is: backup your data and test restoring it.
7. Read widely, from general IT publications (Information Week comes to mind) to DW/BI-specific ones, such as Intelligent Enterprise and DM Review. Of course, newsgroups, blogs, and forums, such as this one, can help a lot.
As far as your career prospects are concerned, BI touches on so many aspects of IT that you're bound to grow as a developer. Building and maintaining DW/BI solutions is software engineering, spanning systems analysis, project management, data modeling, database theory, SQL, information visualization/design, system interfaces (especially in ETL), change management, and probably others that I'm overlooking. You can interact with the entire Microsoft BI stack using .NET, from web services to custom SSRS report libraries to CLR integration with SQL Server. Doing BI, for even a short while can improve your communication, problem solving, and business skills.
However, if you're not intrigued by the articles on http://kimballgroup.com/ or by DW books, then you're not likely to enjoy BI. In that case, start looking for other work. You can gain the experience/skills that I touched on above in other application domains.
August 21, 2008 at 12:54 am
hi,
Now i had decided to move on from here.The reason is the lack of support from the management..I think they r not iterested in the BI,because we are not an IT company..They did not recruited a single person more other than me...Nowi had decideed to go for a newjob....I had now four months of experience in BI..previously i had 2 years of .net experince...Is the four months of BI experince is enough to find a new job in BI because i like to work as a BI developer rather than in .net...What will i have to do now...As i said before ihad used proclarity experience only...SSAS and SSIS i knows a bit well...Expereince guys please guide me friends...
Thanks & Regards
Vijay
August 22, 2008 at 2:53 am
I started my first job ever as a BI developer..We use SQL Server 2005 and Business objects and I am also a 1 man team 🙂 But i tell you that you learn a lot if you are dedicated and want to make 'it' work.
August 22, 2008 at 3:00 am
hi,
Learning a lot i agree,but the thing is sometimes we never know what we did is corrrect or incorrect, if we are a single man team.Also we cant enjoy the team chatting which i had before in my previous company..At the end of day..we should work without knowing that we are doing the job..:)..Thats why me lookign fro a shift...:)
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