Infor BI Basics

Hello my dear geeks and freaks :)

This will be the first of the many Infor BI geeky posts you will see in the future.
In my first post I will teach you how to get started with Infor BI. 

Infor BI Architecture

The Installation is pretty straight forward.

You can select the components you require to install from the Installation screen shown above. To get the software you can download this from the Infor Xtreme web site. For more information visit https://www.inforxtreme.com

Application Studio

AKA App studio is the report / widget building tool in Infor BI.
It's like Cognos in IBM or SSRS in Microsoft or could be compared to Crystal reports.
You can create basic as well as very advance collateral using the tool.
I will be posting stuff on App studio basics and advance stuff soon. So stay tuned....

Office Plus

Office Plus is the excel integration tool which comes with Infor BI.
OP enables you to do analysis of data via Microsoft excel add on. 
This is similar to using SQL Analysis Services in Excel using Pivot tables. 
The concept is the same however OP has many different functionality and options compared to Pivot tables.  I will post some stuff on OP soon.

OLAP Server

Infor has it's own proprietary multi dimensional database. 
Infor OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is an In memory database. 
You could create and maintain databases using the OLAP Administration tool. Typically an Administrator would work with this as things could get complicated.

Dashboards

Dashboards is simply an installation on IIS. This creates a web site called
Dashboards ( Well you can change this name at the installation if you like :D ).
You need IIS web server installed before proceeding with the Dashboards installation. You can select different authentication types such as
1. Basic - a basic user name and password to log on
2. Windows - uses windows authentication
3. IFS - Infor Federation services

This is where you would create your custom dashboards. The widgets for the dashboards will be created using App studio.

Self Service Dashboards

Self service is a very important feature in BI. Gartner defines what self service is here.
As the name suggest end users can create their own dashboard with minimal technical knowledge. However it is crucial that the users understand the data in the cubes. Creating a dashboard might sound easy with self service , however creating a dashboard which makes sense and gives insight might be tough to design.

We will talk about some of the best practices of dashboard building and tips and tricks to make your dashboards look good.