Introduction to OLAP Intelligence

OLAP Intelligence is a mature reporting tool from Business Objects that enables organizations to deliver action-based OLAP analysis to business users. It enables better insights to help decision makers affect business performance through interactive analysis. OLAP Intelligence takes OLAP reporting to the next level by enabling you to create intuitive and highly interactive reports that offer a guided analysis approach to business issues.

Power users implementing OLAP Intelligence can create analytic reports, based on OLAP data, using a powerful designer (similar in concept to Crystal Reports). OLAP Intelligence Reports can contain many pages, each presenting a different predefined view of the OLAP cube. Data can be presented in tables or visualized through a wide range of charts, exception highlights, data sorts, filters, and analytic transition buttons. Business managers can use the resulting analytical reports to drive the business decisions they need to make every day. Figure 16.19 displays a sample analytic report created in OLAP Intelligence. These reports, in the same manner as Crystal Reports files, can be published to, secured, managed, and distributed by the BusinessObjects Enterprise solutionalso available from Business Objects.

Figure 16.19. A Sample OLAP Intelligence report that includes an OLAP grid, chart objects, and several transition buttons for guided analysis.

Details of OLAP Intelligence are beyond the scope of this chapter but are covered in detail in Chapter 19.