(Part 2) Top products from r/BusinessIntelligence

Well you already have half of what you need (the “business” in “business intelligence”).
Do you have an idea of what kind of work you would like to do? BI is a pretty broad subject, here’s some examples :


ETL developper : You develop executables to extract data from various sources (databases, flat files, Excel, web), clean that data (using cool tools) and load it into a data warehouse, so the data can be used easily. This is the most technical type of job in BI.
Data warehouse designer / data architect : Design various "databases" to gather the data needed for other BI processes (dashboards, analytics, ...). You can also work with big data tools if needed.


Report / dashboard developper : Display information on a screen to help people make better decisions. Here you have to talk to a lot of different people from a shop floor employee to a CEO. You mostly work with tools like Power BI and Tableau.


Business analyst / data scientist : search for valuable "stuff" in the data that you don't see with visual reports and dashboard. You use statistics and algorithms to solve business problems. You mostly work with Python and R.


Some people only have one role, some people have many. Usually the smallest the business, the more roles you have.


As for what you should learn. There's no escaping SQL. Make sure you understand what is the point of a database and how it works (broadly). Python is good if you're going the analytics route. Power BI and Tableau are usually good skills to have to land an entry level position. Tools are good, but make sure you understand what is the classical BI process.


This book gives a very good overview of what is BI and what problems it tries to solve. I think it's a very good place to start.


[Business Intelligence Guidebook: From Data Integration to Analytics](
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Intelligence-Guidebook-Integration-Analytics/dp/012411461X/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=22395DI4CLI74&keywords=business+intelligence+guidebook&qid=1557632916&s=gateway&sprefix=business+intelligence+guide%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1)


BI is more about the "B" than any tools or techniques, so whatever you do, make sure it helps the business.


Welcome to the lovely world of BI!

> We are still very early days in this rollout and so far I have received high level concepts of what my manager would like to have a available in the system for our users and been building those out (while also doing my other full time job maintaining the "old" infrastructure)

If you're able to, try to have interactions with the users directly. That's what will set you apart from being a BI Developer to being a BI Analyst (although I know many use the terms interchangeably) and you'll get a much better appreciation for what they need instead of what they want. Understanding the problem is 80% of the task at hand, developing the solution is the other 20%.

To help you with requirements analysis techniques, I'd recommend the following 2 reads:

Agile Analytics: A Value-Driven Approach to Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing

Business Analysis for Business Intelligence

Tableau is awesome at making data pretty, and that's a blessing and a curse, because it can sometimes make people get caught up with the attractiveness of the output as opposed to the usefulness of the data.

If you're wanting to make yourself a really attractive prospect for your future career I'd definitely put as much time into the requirements/BA side of the role as the BI developer side. BI development (developing dashboards etc) isn't super difficult, working with the business to ask the right questions and define the right metrics...now that's tricky! But it's also where you will make yourself a star to the business.

It sounds like you're on a good track with your development side of things, you've got a solid background and are immersing yourself in the tech. Make sure you pay as much attention to the flipside!

Of course, that's just my 2c.

Window functions, not windows function. The idea is that it applies the function over a "window" of the rows in the dataset. They are very useful for solving complicated source data problems. Check out this book for many examples (ignore the SQL Server 2012,it's so highly useful and relevant on any version of SQL Server that supports them). I highly recommend anything by Itzik Ben-Gan for SQL, and anything by Andy Leonard for SSIS, and Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari, Chris Webb for DAX / SSAS (even OLAP).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735658366/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_-NtwCbKA67Y7W

10 years of BI experience here... I would say that BI covers a huge range of topics and the questions they asked may be relevant, but I would focus more on how the interviewee goes about finding solutions rather than wrote knowledge. You can be book smart but not know how to think and how to break down complex problems into solvable pieces.

I recently hired a guy that knew all about dimensional modeling and a good bit about SSIS. He interviewed excellent and seemed like a good fit. Two days in, I regretted the hire because his attention to detail was non-existent and his ability to solve problems matched that of a goldfish. Lesson learned and now I ask different types of interview questions, more of a scenario based interview rather than a technical pop-quiz.

Keep learning and don't let this interview get you down. If you show that you have a passion for solving difficult puzzles then you will find a place in BI.

Also... It sounds like a DBA gave you the technical interview. Brush it off and keep moving. ;)

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.

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

If you plan to read Kimball, I recommend that you read Inmon as well like Building the Data Warehouse. It will give you another point of view. While Kimball focuses on the usability for queries (front-end), Inmon focuses more on making the clean integration of data sources (back-end).

If you have a lot of time you can look for the Data Vault structure. The approach uses a very granular modelization. My point of view is that it is too much modeling work and slow to query. It seems overkill to me but you can make your own judgment.

The Data Lake notion is probably overkilled as well for you but good to know. The idea is that you dump every data you have in a low-cost data store (Hadoop usually) before processing it.

You can also read my point of view here. It's basically taking ideas from all of those within a simple and agile framework.

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.

I recommend this book

http://www.amazon.com/Oracle8-Warehousing-Oracle-Press-Series/dp/0078825113

Start here...https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2RU29TVWKP2KQ&keywords=from+good+to+great&qid=1565032356&s=gateway&sprefix=from+good%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-3

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.

There is also a Microsoft specific version that shows how to apply Kimball methodology with SSxS stack.

Buy and study this. https://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Complete-Dimensional/dp/0471200247

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

Pair it with Star Schema: The Complete Reference