Oracle Analytics For Dummies

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Oracle Analytics
®
Special Edition
by Julie Shevlin and

Barry Mostert
These materials are © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use
Oracle® Analytics For Dummies®, Special Edition
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Table of Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 1: Encountering Analytics Challenges . . . . . . . . . 5
Shifting the Landscape of Business Analytics . . . . 6
Decoding the Former Methods of Data
Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Handling Bottlenecks and Roadblocks
in Data Access, Aggregation, and Analysis . . . . 10
CHAPTER 2: Learning About Augmented
Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Explaining Augmented Analytics and the
Role of Machine Learning and Artificial
Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Discovering Data Visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Preparing and Enriching Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Enhancing the Mobile Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
CHAPTER 3: Choosing the Right Analytics Solution. . . . . . 35
Speeding Up with Self-Service Analytics . . . . . . . . 37
Focusing Your Efforts with Centralized
Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Enjoying a Scalable Cloud-Based Solution . . . . . . 40
Supporting Various Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Exploring Different Business Scenarios . . . . . . . . 43
Empowering Your Enterprise Reporting. . . . . . . . 44
CHAPTER 4: Exploring Ten or So Business
Benefits of Augmented Analytics . . . . . . . . . . 45
Describing the Value in IT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Enabling Proactive Marketing Campaigns . . . . . . 47
Improving Financial Reporting Efficiency . . . . . . . 48
Enabling Proactive Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Improving Human Capital Management
(HCM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Recruiting and Keeping Your Talent . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Increasing Supply-Chain Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Optimizing Procurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Introduction
B
usiness Intelligence (BI). Business Analytics. The
Cloud. On-Premises. Artificial intelligence (AI).
Machine learning (ML). Self-service analytics.
Augmented Analytics. All of these concepts are important
to understand.
Augmented analytics includes embedding AI, often in the

form of machine learning and natural language process-
ing (NLP), into traditional analytics. It is vastly different
from traditional analytics or Business Intelligence (BI)
tools because these AI technologies are always working in
the background to continuously learn and enhance results.
And as you might imagine, using technologies like AI and
ML, takes the analytics game to an entirely new level.
Now that AI and ML are incorporated into analytics along

with other state-of-the-art features, the average, non-
technical businessperson has access to richer insights
that allow them to make decisions that are quicker and
even more informed than ever before.
With the right analytics solution, you can be sure that

you’re working from a single source of truth. In other
words, everyone in the company is working from the
same data sets, ensuring the cleanest and most up-to-
date numbers available. You can present this data in
visuals that tell a clear — and complete — story to your
audience and make business decisions that you know are
1
the most informed possible, leading to better, quicker
results.
Data analysis isn’t just about collecting data from IT or

your department and figuring out what the numbers are
trying to tell you. Now you’re able to easily access impor-
tant data from across various departments within the
company. You’re also able to access everything from
research to third-party data from suppliers. You can then
gain intelligent insights using built-in algorithms that
get smarter and more helpful as time goes on, and the
machine uses the data to train and optimize its perfor-
mance. (That’s the machine learning.) And with AI,
mundane tasks are automated, improving efficiencies
and accelerating time from data to insights to decisions.
This approach, known as Augmented Analytics, is rein-
venting the capabilities of traditional analytics and busi-
ness intelligence solutions.
About This Book

Oracle Analytics For Dummies discusses how the state-of-
the-art AI and ML-based analytics solution from Oracle
can take your business intelligence to the next level. Gone
are the days of piecing together disparate pieces of data
from unconnected data sources. Now you have access to
the holistic picture your data presents. This next genera-
tion of business intelligence is a game-changer.
2
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book are icons that highlight key points:
The information marked by this icon is

important enough to emphasize. In other
words, don’t forget it!
Look for this icon when you want a few tricks

of the trade when it comes to successful
event marketing.
Be careful. When you see this icon, you’re

being warned about potential mistakes or
issues.
3
IN THIS CHAPTER
» Discovering artificial intelligence
and machine learning
» Understanding existing methods
of data analysis
» Dealing with data silos
» Facing roadblocks and
bottlenecks in business
intelligence
Chapter 1
Encountering
Analytics Challenges
D
ata drives almost every business decision today,
making it more important than ever to provide
decision-makers with fast, easy access to data
and analytics. Business stakeholders need to be able to
rapidly access — and analyze — data to ensure they’re
making the most informed decisions possible.
5
The most common (and prevalent) methods of analyzing
and utilizing data can generate numerous problems and
challenges. Important business processes and decisions
are at the mercy of things like human error, out-of- date
data, and bottlenecks caused by other departments.
Shifting the Landscape of

Business Analytics
It’s not uncommon for businesses to be working from old
and/or incomplete data sets. Maybe it’s a case of not
knowing how poor the data is. Or maybe the data they
have access to isn’t perfect, but “it’s good enough.”
Whatever the case is, they’re doing themselves a disserv-

ice by not taking advantage of the opportunity to get the
entire — and clear — picture of the business landscape
through the rich and powerful data available from key
internal departmental and third-party data sources.
Companies now recognize that they’re sitting on gold-

mines of data. And if that data is analyzed correctly and
completely using techniques such as AI and ML, they can
uncover new insights and drive more impactful deci-
sions, delivering a competitive advantage.
This powerful shift fundamentally changes how data

analytics is approached. Instead of focusing the analysis
on answering a number of predefined questions, the
6
analysis is now led by the data. And questions are derived
based on the patterns and deviations found in the data.
With this approach, you’ll find yourself discovering
entirely new questions to ask, which in turn will not only
help you uncover hidden opportunities, but view oppor-
tunities and challenges from new angles.
Decoding the Former

Methods of Data Analysis
The following sections describe the data analysis meth-
ods that just about every company used at one point or
another — and possibly still is.
While nothing is inherently wrong with thinking about

and looking at data in these ways, much more powerful
methods not only have the ability to achieve the same
results, but add new significant value to the analysis and
the outcome.
Thinking in outcomes
versus data and tools
Many times, companies approach business intelligence
systems merely by concentrating solely on using existing
data analytics processes and toolsets. The problem with
that approach is that it not only limits the potentially
new, revolutionary findings that can be achieved, but it
7
also assumes that yesterday’s toolsets will help solve
tomorrow’s problems.
It’s important to recognize that if you’re stuck

with bad quality data, you must manage expec-
tations on what can be achieved. Some data can
be repaired and sometimes corrected, but
mostly it is still just bad quality data. Data from
external companies or third parties, such as
partners, suppliers, social media, and research
companies, may provide a better context for
insights. However, without establishing an
end-to-end solution and unified system, that
process may be totally manual — laborious,
time-consuming, and exposed to human
errors, such as copy-and-paste mistakes.
That’s why it’s so important for companies to approach

business intelligence from the standpoint of starting
with the business need and expected outcome and letting
that steer which data to pick and which tools to use,
instead of approaching it the other way around and being
constrained by a limited or bad quality data set and insuf-
ficient tools.
Lacking department-specific
business analytics
Your marketing team needs data sets that differ from
those needed by the recruiting team. Your logistics
8
department has its specific data that is different than the
data required by the sales team. Furthermore, all these
different types of data may be in different databases and
accessible only by certain departments, despite some
overlap in responsibilities.
Data shouldn’t be looked at as a one-size-

fits-all thing. Different departments have
different objectives, and the data that they
need to access and analyze should reflect
those different objectives. If it doesn’t, the
department(s) in question may not be mak-
ing the best decisions possible.
Ignoring Key Performance

Indicators (KPIs)
A result of having faulty (or messy) data is the fact that
since it can’t be “trusted,” setting Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) is kind of a moot point because there’s
no way to ensure that they’re truly being met. And what
are business goals without knowing if you’re even meet-
ing (or exceeding) them?
Furthermore, how can you course-correct when it’s

unclear where the corrections or adjustments need to be
made? If you’re unable to define KPIs and trust the data
you utilize to measure the success, then you’re flying
blind. Saying there’s a good chance you’re not making the
best business decisions you can is an understatement.
9
It’s easier to course-correct on the spot when
you have the most current data available as
opposed to being reactive and unknowingly
allowing issues to get out of hand.
Handling Bottlenecks and

Roadblocks in Data Access,
Aggregation, and Analysis
Basically, there’s no way to truly know whether the deci-
sions you’re making are the best ones if you don’t have
actionable insights from data that can be completely
trusted. As a result, there’s a very good chance you’re
missing out on important value that could be created.
The following sections describe what happens in an

organization when there are bottlenecks and roadblocks
in data access, aggregation, and analysis.
Lacking real-time access to data

It’s a common occurrence every day in businesses all over
the world. A person or group needs access to specific data
on the spot — for whatever reason — and it’s not forth-
coming. Faster time to insights is key for business
success!
10
This situation may happen for a plethora of reasons.
While individuals and other departments may play a role
in the fact that there’s a lack of real-time access to the
data, chances are very good that they’re not standing in
the way for nefarious reasons. The fact of the matter is,
everyone has their own responsibilities to uphold, and
those commitments usually take precedence over routine
data requests.
Another issue with a lack of real-time access to data is

that sometimes decisions need to be made on the fly,
with very little room for error. One small mistake due to
old data can have very serious repercussions. Or maybe a
decision is made late or not at all, which may impact the
company in more ways than just loss of profit. Values like
reputation and trust, for example, are sometimes equally
important to maintain and may be seriously damaged if a
company makes a severe mistake based on faulty data.
Facing data silos, disparate data

sources, and spreadsheet
mayhem
If you take a peek into people’s computers in various
lines of business, across industries, in all corners of the
world, chances are very high that they’ll have at least one
spreadsheet that they regularly access and work from.
With more and more companies utilizing shared network
drives, that number grows exponentially now when
11
coworkers can share documents more easily. However,
regardless of shared drives, people still have a tendency
to send spreadsheets to people in email or instant mes-
saging tools. And needless to say, the spreadsheet mayhem
is a real thing and has real repercussions.
Common scenarios include team members changing a

spreadsheet without correctly labeling the content
changes or saving it with the correct filename, which, of
course, leads to version control issues. Teams are in
spreadsheet hell. Activities like integrating multiple
spreadsheets into pivot tables and having to do analysis
on pivot tables with data from different parts of the com-
pany using different dates means that everything can
become unruly — and incorrect — in no time.
That’s what happens when there are dispa-

rate data sources and no governance. Without
a single source of truth, people don’t know
where and when the data is pulled. If five dif-
ferent people are working with data from five
different sources, chances are good that the
results are going to differ, possibly leading to
incorrect or, at best, uninformed decisions.
There’s a lot of talk about needing to “break down the

silos” in companies. Departments have their own initia-
tives, and oftentimes, they end up working independent
of other departments, despite other stakeholders being
involved.
12
It’s no wonder that data silos are the result of depart-
mental silos. It goes back to the lack of a single source of
truth. When different groups pull and work from data,
any changes they make may affect other departments. If
other stakeholder departments aren’t aware of these
changes, they aren’t able to properly do their jobs,
through no fault of their own. It’s a vicious cycle.
Managing the challenges with

accessing, aggregating, and
analyzing data
It’s rare to encounter a company that has only one system
that stores data for the entire company to access. After all,
the sales team collects certain types of data that may be of
no use to the recruiting team and vice versa. Different
departments have different needs that result in various
systems being introduced into the data and analytics mix.
In a perfect world, every business process-related system

on the market today would seamlessly and flawlessly
work together. There would be no issues with download-
ing and importing data into one or connecting data from
multiple sources into one location in order for analysis to
take place.
Unfortunately, this world isn’t perfect, and there will

always be systems out there that simply don’t “play nice
with others.” While it’s an inconvenience, that solution
provides exactly what the company in question needs, so
13
they look past the limitations and “just deal with it.”
(Again!)
Not only is this severely limiting the aggregation and

analysis of a company’s data, but it can be very expensive
if the solution in question has limitations that can be cor-
rected only with the purchase of an entirely different solu-
tion. It becomes expensive and very unruly after a while.
Early on, take the time to understand the cur-

rent situation properly. Many companies tend
to jump on the first solution that comes along,
but that rarely solves more than parts of the
problem. Taking the time to really identify
and understand your main roadblocks toward
achieving your business goals should be your
main focus when getting started.
For example, if your company aspires to become a truly

data-driven organization, you need to make sure that
your data can be trusted (single source of truth); that
it’s available and timely; and that the outcome of the
analysis, the insights, are accepted and actually used for
decision-making and for driving transformation.
Focusing on the overall business goal and

breaking down the challenges hindering suc-
cess, one by one, will make it easier to get the
right focus from start and thereby set the
right foundation for your company’s data
and analytics investment going forward.
14
IN THIS CHAPTER
» Diving into Augmented Analytics
» Exploring data visualization
» Taking advantage of data
enrichment
» Accessing data on the go with
mobile
Chapter 2
Learning About
Augmented
Analytics
T
oday’s business intelligence calls for more than
just your run-of-the-mill analytics abilities. In
today’s ever-changing business landscape, it’s
imperative that you have access to the right data at the
right time in order to make the most informed business
decisions possible on the spot.
15
What makes Augmented Analytics so powerful is the
embedded Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
capabilities that enable accelerated analysis and smart
recommendations.
In this chapter, you discover what Augmented Analytics

from Oracle is and all the features and benefits that come
with it. We take you through things like data visualization
capabilities as well as data enrichment, where the tech-
nology offers recommendations to add new data fields or
new data to add and include in the analysis, for deeper
insights. Finally, you dive into the robust mobile features
that will keep you connected to your data, regardless of
which step in the analytical process you are on.
Explaining Augmented
Analytics and the Role of
Machine Learning and
Artificial Intelligence
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), com-
panies will be storing more than 100 trillion gigabytes by
2025. That’s ten times the amount of data created just a
few years ago. As a result, companies are finding them-
selves struggling to keep up.
16
Data is everywhere. It’s generated by all types
of connected devices, including traditional
ones, such as mobile phones, computers, and
tablets, to everything from connected cars,
smart home devices, and soon entire smart
cities. It offers you a point of sale, by differ-
ent groups like customers and suppliers, and
is captured both in-house in various on-
premises solutions, as well as in the cloud.
The fact of the matter is that in most cases, modern busi-

ness data processing and analytical capabilities just
aren’t able to handle it all. As a result, companies are
making business decisions based on only the data they
have or that they are able to make sense of, which is lim-
ited at best and incomplete/out of date at worst. This
approach doesn’t only open up for mistakes to be made,
but also means lost opportunities to grow the business.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

techniques help you optimize your analysis and support
faster time to insights, which ultimately leads to quicker
decision-making. With faster decision-making, your
company has a better chance at reaching desired market
windows, hence staying more competitive over time.
AI/ML support automation of routine tasks and help
uncover deviations or hidden patterns in the data, which
could be used to predict an event in the future or prevent
an undesired event from ever happening.
Figure 2-1 shows the relationship between AI-powered

analytics and business value.
17
AI Powered Analytics
Minimal Reliance on IT
Agility
Dependance on IT
Traditional Self-Service Augmented

Business Value
FIGURE 2-1: AI-powered analytics versus business value.
Augmented Analytics includes embedded Artificial Intelli-

gence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to drive intelli-
gent and trustworthy insights on key data. In Chapter 1,
we talk about all the challenges that today’s businesses
face when it comes to ensuring and protecting data
integrity. Augmented Analytics is how you can facilitate
this for your business.
Improving and facilitating

analytic tasks
A vital starting point for your analytics endeavors is to
know your business objective and secure the data needed
to run your analytics. However, the data you’re using also
needs to have sufficient quality to be trustworthy and
generate reliable results to act on. Even if you start off by
having good quality data available, how do you maintain
18
quality over time, as many company stakeholders are
using it across the business?
With the right solution, a single source of

truth is possible. Such a solution must pro-
vide a unified view of all available data from
internal and external sources to ensure that
all departments in the company are working
from the same data to avoid discrepancies.
Utilizing AI to drive business

decisions
Although techniques like AI will help you analyze smarter,
automate workflows better, and empower your company
staff, you need to consider other important capabilities.
AI capabilities for data preparation, visualization, intel-
ligent predictions, and mobile access are also vital to
have in place. All these capabilities allow you to, in a data
driven and explorative way, quickly gain the insights you
need to make more informed business decisions, under-
pinned by data that is reliable and timely.
Augmented Analytics is all about augmenting

and automating the human capabilities in
your company with techniques such as AI/ML
to secure better quality in the analytical pro-
cess. And when the AI technology is embed-
ded in the solution, you don’t need to be a
data scientist to leverage its advantages.
19
The five components of Oracle’s Augmented Analytics,
shown in Figure 2-2, are
Augmented Data
Enrichment and
Preparation
Proactive
Personalized Visualization
Analytics Recommendations
Predictive Natural Language

Analytics Interfaces
FIGURE 2-2: The five components of Oracle’s Augmented

Analytics.
» Data Enrichment and Preparation: Uses machine

learning to recommend new data sets to include in
your analysis.
» Visualization Recommendations: Instantly get

chart recommendations that are based on data
results.
20
» Natural Language Interfaces: Provides natural
language processing for natural voiced-based
queries as well as natural language generation to
explain the data in text format.
» Predictive Analytics: Includes one-click forecasting,

which supports the trending and clustering of data.
» Proactive Personalized Analytics: Located within

the mobile application, analyzes different factors,
such as your location, to determine what to present
to you based on where you are and translates
speech to text for voice-based queries and alerts
you when new data is available.
Discovering Data Visualization

Picture this: You have a data set in front of you, and you
have to explain the story the data is telling you to a group
of executives. You know that using visuals would help
people better understand the data, but you can’t figure out
the best chart or graph type to use that would capture the
entire idea. While this example is oversimplified, the idea
is the same: Sometimes it’s challenging to find the perfect
way to illustrate the story the data is telling.
21
This situation is where the idea of data visualization
comes into play. Data visualization is the technique used
to create visuals to explore data, illustrate findings, and
explain results.
Learning about data visualization

Organizations are much more data-driven than in the
past. Gone are the days when important business deci-
sions were made without having a clear picture of the
entire business environment.
In data visualization, the system autogenerates a view of

the data set, which helps you display and identify pat-
terns or deviations in the data that may have been hidden.
In other words, using data visualization techniques helps
you identify drivers of the results, factors that influence
behavior, and anomalies where the data is showing things
that don’t mesh with the expected results.
You can use these insights as a starting point for further

analysis and discovery so that you can find the right
answer quickly. Furthermore, in Augmented Analytics
from Oracle, data visualization capabilities include auto-
mated chart recommendations to find the perfect visual
for your data results. The chart recommendation depends
on the nature of the data set you’re using.
22
Over time, as you become more knowledgeable
about the data and how it performs, ML capa-
bilities built into the system will allow you to
identify and learn which data patterns are
causing problems. This will in turn enable you
to understand what is likely to occur before it
happens. From a management perspective,
you can become proactive and take preventive
measures, rather than being reactive and hav-
ing to solve the problem after the fact.
Avoiding bias
While more and more companies are starting to recog-
nize the importance of utilizing data in even the most
routine, day-to-day decisions, there are still some limi-
tations to how they go about it. A vital part to consider
when investing in a data-driven approach in your com-
pany regards how to avoid unconscious bias to influence
your important business decisions. Bias can be described
as a tendency to lean in a certain direction, either in favor
of or against a particular thing, without realizing how it
actually impacts analytical results.
One example of bias is confirmation bias. This type of bias

occurs when the person performing the data analysis
wants to prove a predetermined assumption and there-
fore discards everything in the analysis that could prove
the assumption wrong.
23
Another example is selection bias. This common bias
occurs when data is selected subjectively, increasing the
risk of data not fully representing the intended scope
being analyzed.
It is important to always be aware of bias and how it

could influence your results, ensuring that apples-to-
apples analyses are going on. Although bias is difficult to
completely eliminate, it can be handled by using tech-
niques like Machine Learning to help recommend which
data sets are representative for a certain analysis.
As humans, we naturally bring our experi-

ences to the table in virtually all decisions we
make — business decisions included. There’s
nothing inherently wrong with that fact, but
there’s no room for human bias when it comes
to making informed business decisions.
Having access to data

At the beginning of this section, we touch on an issue
that people in all lines of business all over the world
encounter all the time: how to visualize complex prob-
lems, opportunities, or challenges using data in a way
that it’s understandable to the target audience and at the
same time does not require specialized skills by the user.
Data visualization must be easy and support data explo-

ration by the business user to support flexibility and
speed. After all, what is the point of acquiring the latest
24
data to work with if you have to wait for another depart-
ment to assist you in creating sophisticated charts and
graphs? And even then, it’s important that the capability
be user-friendly, meaning (among other things) that
your average user doesn’t need to know how to code in
order to get the most out of the tool.
IT departments are swamped these days. They’re respon-

sible for everything from user on-boarding to equipment
tracking to security and implementation of new software
(and hardware) platforms. It’s no wonder that providing
users with access to data can sometimes be at the end of
their to-do lists.
That’s why users having access to the data they need

without IT intervention is fundamental. Throughout this
chapter, we discuss the importance of having access to
real-time data in order to make on-the-fly, informed
business decisions. Delays in getting the applicable data
can cost the company resources — both current and
future.
Figure 2-3 shows an example of an automated data visu-

alization project showing product sales by region. The
charts update in real time as the data changes.
But it’s not just about being able to make sense of the
data. Users also have to be able to act on it quickly to
make business decisions that may have (hopefully posi-
tive!) far-reaching effects.
25
FIGURE 2-3: Sophisticated charts automatically created based on
real-time data.
Discussing predictive and

advanced analytics
Predictive analytics have traditionally required the
expertise of data scientists who create sophisticated
models and algorithms for you. Depending on resources,
you may have to wait quite a while for them to get to your
request. When you’re utilizing time-sensitive data, you
can’t afford to wait.
Some of the most important functions in data analysis

can now be done with one click, ensuring important
insights are delivered to decision-makers quickly. These
features are perfect for things like predicting customer
behavior, identifying cross/up-sell opportunities, and
anticipating future product demand.
26
The following list describes the predictive features and
their uses:
» Forecasting uses historical data to make informed

predictions that determine the direction of future
trends. Businesses utilize forecasting to determine
how to allocate their budgets or plan for antici-
pated expenses for an upcoming period of time.
» Trending gives actionable insight into recently

observed trend data and is based on the idea that
what has happened in the past is a good indicator
of what will happen in the future.
» Clustering is the grouping together of a collection

of objects on the basis of similarities and differ-
ences between them. It allows you to see patterns
where you may not have been able to before.
» An outlier is a data point that is significantly

different from other observations. Outliers are
deviations from previously identified patterns. When
you find outliers, it’s a good practice to pursue their
origins to ensure nothing is wrong with the data.
Automatically creating narratives

from visual charts
Natural language generation (NLG) is where the machine
interprets the visual data into easy-to-understand, natural
27
language text. In other words, the computer uses words to
explain what is happening graphically. This is where
machine learning comes into play. Over time, the system
will become “smarter” and the output more sophisticated.
Furthermore, when the data changes, the report doesn’t

need to be rewritten because data updates are immediately
reflected in the narration. Another benefit is that the gen-
eration of narratives on output increases productivity for
many roles in the business because users can customize the
narrative to the audience that is receiving the information.
Preparing and Enriching Data

It’s common in today’s business world for users to export
their data sets from corporate systems and modify that
data using common spreadsheet programs. Unfortu-
nately, this approach leaves a lot of room for human error
and it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to maintain
control over these files. In other words, there is never a
single source of truth.
Another challenge is that many data enhancements,

whether they’re to prepare or enrich the data, require
coding skills to program and run scripts. This isn’t the
case with Oracle Analytics. With self-service data prepa-
ration, nontechnical users can connect to the data they
want and prepare it quickly and on-the-fly, all without
the intervention of the IT department.
28
Driving recommendations with
AI and Machine Learning
You used to be limited to the data that you had direct access
to. It wasn’t uncommon to be working with data sets that
were incomplete, insufficient, or even incorrect at times.
By using ML models to provide data preparation recom-

mendations that suggest enrichments and transforma-
tions to data, you can avoid a lot of the earlier data quality
and data preparation problems.
Benefits of ML-driven data preparation support include

the ability to
» Enhance data without coding skills
» Easily search for key words across all available data
» Share and trace business data transformations
» Use various and relevant data sources as input
» Reduce risk and save time without having to use Excel
Capabilities like smart fields automatically enhance the

data set with additional reporting fields that make the
most sense. For example, if you’re working with a data
set that has a City column, the system will make recom-
mendations based on it, such as adding the specific postal
code area that particular city is in.
29
Figure 2-4 shows example recommendations made on a
data set. The recommendations capability enables busi-
ness users to blend data from a data warehouse or other
corporate applications, as well as add their own internal
data sources.
FIGURE 2-4: Smart recommendations are on the right side of this

data set.
Tracing business data

Throughout this book, we talk about the importance of a
single source of truth. The idea is that regardless of who
accesses the data (within their permissions level) and
where they access it from, the data is going to be the
same for everyone.
A challenge of having multiple people accessing data is

that sometimes mistakes can corrupt the entire data set.
30
Or maybe no mistakes occurred, but instead you had sur-
prising insights that you want to follow up with a
coworker. With Oracle Analytics, you can quickly deter-
mine where and when specific changes were made and
who made them.
As with any application, ensure team mem-

bers are only given the appropriate access
permissions for their job function to prevent
any mishaps.
Taking advantage of automated

data corrections and data healing
Data healing is a term used to describe the functionality
where the system detects and fixes a data or spreadsheet
column that came in as the wrong data type. It informs
users of invalid data, such as inconsistent formats and
possible misspellings, based on reference knowledge and
proposes corrections with single-click recommendations.
For example, if data was imported and it was eight num-

bers, the system can analyze the context and make the
appropriate changes, such as converting it into the date
format of MM-DD-YYYY.
Now imagine that change being made in multiple col-

umns in data sets with tens of thousands of entries (or
more!). Needless to say, it’s quite the timesaver. This
capability is only possible because of embedded machine
learning capabilities.
31
Enhancing the Mobile
Experience
According to Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Ameri-
cans own a smartphone, up from 35 percent just eight
years ago. With so many people utilizing mobile devices,
it’s no wonder that more and more people are conducting
business via their cell phones.
After all, business doesn’t stop just because you’re not at

your desk. It’s important to be able to access the infor-
mation you need, when you need it. And when you’re
talking analytics, it’s even more important that the
information be the most up to date.
Exploring Natural Language

Processing
One of the core capabilities of Augmented Analytics is
natural language processing (NLP). NLP allows for speech
recognition or voice queries when using mobile devices,
but also allows you to search by typing natural text
instead of a query language like SQL.
For example, if you want to analyze phone revenue in

Germany for a specific data range, you can just type
Revenue for Germany for phones for 2012 to 2014 instead of
needing to know SQL and the names of the fields in the
32
databases (for example, Sales Rev_ EMEA AND phone_
product and years_ 2012 + years 2014).
Facilitating collaboration
and data sharing
Collaboration between colleagues is important even when
you’re on the road. The analytics app learns who you like to
share and collaborate with, making future collaboration with
them seamless. Since everyone is working from the same
data set, you can make public comments, create private dis-
cussions, and even share insights via third-party apps.
Intelligent Assistants with

proactive analytics
Augmented Analytics will get you the right data at the
right time, and it’s all up to date. It’s no different with
the mobile app. Thanks to machine learning, the app
learns what data you’re the most interested in and serves
you the latest view of your key metrics. Figure 2-5 shows
recommended charts based on data that has been inter-
acted with in the past.
This feature can be triggered by a schedule you set or

geo-location. So, if you cross a geo-fence on your way to
your destination, your data is automatically refreshed in
real time. Furthermore, you’ll get alerts whenever your
data is updated.
33
FIGURE 2-5: The app shows charts based on data previously
interacted with.
34
IN THIS CHAPTER
» Discovering the benefits of
self-service capabilities
» Enhancing your efficiency with
centralized analytics
» Exploring the value of scalable
cloud analytics
» Managing many different data
sources
» Experimenting with various
business scenarios
» Taking business reporting to the
next level
Chapter 3
Choosing the Right
Analytics Solution
A
number of business analytics solutions on the
market today promise to make your life easier.
While they can provide access to data sets and
35
have built-in reporting capabilities, those features are
often run-of-the mill features.
Today’s business landscape requires next-generation

data analysis and visualization capabilities in a solution
that offers the most up-to-date data sets in easy-to-
understand formats so that anyone can make informed
business decisions in the moment that they need to.
In this chapter, we go through the features of cloud ana-

lytics and why these capabilities are important factors to
consider as part of your analytics investment and when
choosing the right analytics solution.
Additionally, this chapter address how to move from tra-

ditional data analysis to self-service analytics and how
this is freeing up your IT team to do other important
tasks. The self-service support allows you to access the
data whenever you need it, without the intervention of
others. But it also includes built-in analytics support for
driving the analysis forward yourself, without having to
code or build statistical models from scratch.
Augmented Analytics (AA) includes embedded Artificial

intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to drive
intelligent and trustworthy insights on data. By aug-
menting your analysis with techniques such as AI and
ML, you are moving beyond traditional, human-driven
analytics, adding new dimensions and value to your ana-
lytical results.
36
Some of the most helpful functions in data analysis can
now be done with one click, ensuring important insights
are delivered to decision-makers quickly. These features
are explained in this chapter.
Speeding Up with Self-Service

Analytics
Do more, faster. With self-service analytics, you no longer
have to rely on the IT department to access, prepare, and
analyze and collaborate on the data you need to work with.
You can do it all yourself, which means quicker insights.
Make the most informed decisions whenever and wher-

ever you need to, utilizing helpful features, such as data
visualization, where you can explain the results of your
analysis using things like automated chart
recommendations.
Self-service is more than just access to visualizations,

however. Self-service analytics helps your business stay
nimble with faster time to insights.
Some key features for self-service analytics include
» Data preparation for the business user
» Data visualization for self-service visual analytics
» Collaboration for shareable and traceable analyses
37
Furthermore, chances are that your average business
user isn’t a covert data scientist, and they’re not devel-
oping algorithms and custom coding analytics tools in
their free time.
You shouldn’t have to be a data scientist or experienced

statistician to analyze complex data and create stunning
visualizations that clearly tell the story. Although most
data scientists think that the value is in building models
from scratch, the benefits are many of using analytics
solutions with prebuilt and embedded algorithms and
models that are ready to be used at any time.
That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an option to import

customized models, however. If your company utilizes a
specialized model, Oracle Analytics allows you to import
it, to be utilized right alongside the embedded ones.
Focusing Your Efforts with

Centralized Analytics
It’s not uncommon for companies to have solutions that
keep the organization’s data secure — yet still accessible
to the appropriate people — and a different solution to
ensure that everyone who does need access to data is able
to get the most up-to-date analytics available. But that
doesn’t have to be the case.
38
Centralized analytics allows you to keep all the important
behind-the-scenes functions that used to be handled by
disparate systems, all within one, all-encompassing
solution, implemented on-premises or in the cloud.
Enterprise security
Keeping data secure at all times is, of course, key and
must be part of the solution design from start. Oracle
Analytics solution protects customers’ sensitive data
through integrated security solutions and high levels of
machine learning based automation. Automation with
ML is important since it decreases the administrative
security workload for the users, as well as minimizes the
risk of human error.
Single source of truth

Having a single source of truth is one of the top reasons
why companies utilize business intelligence solutions.
It’s so easy for the chain of command of spreadsheets
and other data documents to get lost and for figures to be
edited, and as a result, the data is no longer the cleanest
and most recent available.
When you can’t trust the data you’re working from, you
should not be making any business decisions, let alone
ones that could cost your company money.
You can be sure the data you’re working from is the most
up to date and problem-free, because everyone accesses
39
the data from the same centralized location. Oracle Ana-
lytics offers a unified, consolidated view of data across
the organization.
Enjoying a Scalable Cloud-

Based Solution
Companies are constantly growing, and they need an
analytics solution that grows with them. In a time when
financial resources are at a premium, it’s important that
the system they utilize be one that will continue to serve
them, regardless of how much they grow over time.
Cloud deployment is one option with Oracle Analytics and

with it comes the ability to quickly scale up (or down) as
your business needs evolve and the elimination of wor-
ries surrounding running out of space.
If your business isn’t ready for a cloud-based solution,

Oracle Analytics’s on-premise deployments are just as
robust and can be customized to fit your growing needs.
Finally, Oracle Analytics offers a hybrid cloud-based

solution that doesn’t have to be either completely on-
prem or completely in the cloud.
With growth comes changing resource needs. When you

started out, maybe the company had only 200 employees
of which half needed access to the data. You had no need
40
to restrict any data access either, as everyone needed
access to everything.
As time goes on, however, and teams grow in size, there

will be employees who don’t need access to all the com-
pany’s data. When you pair an analytics system with
governance, restricting their access to only certain data
sets is quick and easy. Rapid setup capabilities let organi-
zations immediately create environments for efficient
deployment with an agile approach.
Have you merged with another large corporation and now

have an immense amount of data to manage? With a
cloud-based solution, you can just rapidly scale in the
cloud to meet growing needs.
Supporting Various
Data Sources
Chances are, your data is going to come from various
sources. Companies often hesitate when utilizing new
analytics programs because not all solutions connect to
other data sources, severely limiting your ability to work
with rich data sets.
For example, we all have data in different applications,

such as CRM, HR, finance, and supply-chain systems.
Each system has its own reporting capabilities. While you
can pull the reports, analyzing all this data holistically is
41
difficult. After all, even if you have two sets of data right
in front of you, it’s difficult — if not impossible — to get
a unified view across all the data without merging it.
Figure 3-1 shows the key elements of choosing the right
analytics solution.
Centralized Multiple Data Sources
Oracle Analytics
Scalable Business Scenario

Analytics
Augmented Analytics Self-Service Comprehensive
FIGURE 3-1: Elements of the right analytics solution.
However, if you move out of the report view and focus on

the data instead, Oracle Analytics allows you to analyze
across all data sources using existing connectors, giving
you the big picture of the business performance. All of this
is done in real time, through existing connectors, which
allows you to
» Improve strategic decision-making by leveraging

both the historical state of your business as well as
the current state
42
» Leverage machine learning to uncover new
business opportunities with access to hidden
patterns
» Optimize business processes with improved

productivity and efficiency
Exploring Different
Business Scenarios
One of the most useful capabilities of Oracle Analytics is
the ability to simulate different complicated business
scenarios to ensure that you’re making the best, most
informed decision you can make using the most current
data available.
Oracle Essbase takes complex financial modeling and

turns it into easy-to-understand, fully visualized what-
if scenarios. It brings together available data sets from
across the business and creates a multidimensional busi-
ness model with a single click.
It supports what-if analysis for varying conditions to

forecast business performance levels. You can collaborate
in the data analysis, including modeling multiple
assumptions and their effect on the business.
43
It’s not just for complex data analysis, however. Oracle
Essbase is a solution for generating basic workflows as
well.
Empowering Your Enterprise

Reporting
In businesses today, it’s no longer enough to present data
utilizing your run-of-the-mill suite of office productiv-
ity tools. Sure, those are sufficient, but not if you really
want to impress your audience and present the data in a
visual form that will not only look highly professional but
makes it easy for everyone to understand and follow.
The data has a story to tell and the enterprise reporting

capabilities with the report designer built into Oracle
Analytics allows you to do just that.
You can quickly and easily prepare customized role-

based analytic reports with an intuitive drag-and-drop
graphical report design tool. Key personnel will always
have consistent access to the latest information because
you can automatically schedule report execution and
delivery in a mass production environment.
44
IN THIS CHAPTER
» Making the most of connected
business functions
» Determining how different
departments benefit analytics
Chapter 4
Exploring Ten or So
Business Benefits
of Augmented
Analytics
E
very business function in a company benefits from
taking data-driven decisions. Whether it’s for bud-
geting, campaign planning, or human capital, data
gives you a fact-based view of the business landscape.
45
A data-driven approach also helps pinpoint areas that
need more attention, positive or negative.
However, you must be able to trust the data used for

decision-making. Staying on top of your data manage-
ment procedures to ensure data quality is crucial, but so
is having access to fresh, relevant, and representative
data. It’s important that the data can be accessed in real
time and that it’s handled in a way that it ensures a single
source of truth. In other words, it’s imperative that every
department — every business function — draws from
the same pool of data.
In this chapter, you learn about ten or so business func-

tions that benefit from utilizing Augmented Analytics in
today’s dynamic and connected businesses.
Describing the Value in IT

Like other departments in a company, IT departments
also have limited resources. So, how do you avoid that the
IT department becomes a bottleneck? The answer is Aug-
mented Analytics along with self-service capabilities.
This approach allows departments who would tradition-
ally lean on the IT department for data to access and
manipulate data on their own. This is an efficient way to
make data and analysis easily available to more users, but
it also increases efficiency in the analysis and drives
shorter lead-times.
46
However, when the human element is intro-
duced into data analysis and manipulation,
there are many opportunities for errors and
anomalies.
By automating routine data management steps and uni-

fying the data into a single centralized data storage,
accuracy and consistency can more easily be maintained.
This facilitates cutting down on the intervention needed
from the IT department and enables the IT department to
maintain focus on its own analytics efforts in prioritized
areas, as well as free up time for IT innovation.
Enabling Proactive Marketing

Campaigns
Data is the secret to any marketing department’s success.
When you have relevant data supporting your real-time
analytics, you can gain better clarity for your own mar-
keting campaigns and also support your customers in a
relevant way.
With Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence capa-

bilities embedded in your analytics solution, marketing
campaigns can be automatically personalized to fit cus-
tomer preferences. This will help you understand your
customers better.
47
These capabilities also allow you to perform predictive
analysis resulting in proactive marketing campaigns.
With live streams of data and ML support embedded, you
can engage with customers in real time and perform
analysis at the same time, for example, in a social media
setting. It will help you optimize customer conversions,
more easily measure ROI, and enable you to stretch your
marketing budget even further.
Improving Financial
Reporting Efficiency
By letting the data guide you to new insights,
instead of just blindly following your report-
ing templates, you can turn insights into
dynamic financial reporting that offers a
wider context to your data-driven decisions.
By using an Augmented Analytics solution with embed-

ded ML functionality and automated actions, you will
also reduce the risk of influencing financial results due to
human bias. An important aspect to consider is that con-
necting and structuring your various types of data in a
common data storage will increase your financial report-
ing efficiency and provide a better base for accurate
models.
48
In most companies, the data types that are
needed are residing in different databases
and applications across the organization.
Consolidating the company’s data will help
facilitate that you’re always working from a
single source of truth.
Enabling Proactive Sales

Break down the sales cycle and take an in-depth look at
all the different variables that come into play when con-
sumers make purchases. To understand the driving force
behind a purchase, you need to analyze the data and look
for patterns of behavior.
For example, when you think about your customers, you

must study them from a customer lifetime value perspec-
tive. You should ask questions such as the following:
» Why is this customer attracted by my products

or services?
» What are their buying patterns?
» How can I increase sales to a certain type or group

of customers with similar purchasing patterns?
» Who are my top customers?
49
» How can I make them stay loyal and avoid churn?
» How do I set the right price?
When you have access to a self-service based analytics

solution with real-time sales data, you can analyze price
sensitivity and understand how to utilize dynamic pric-
ing based on what the data is telling you. It is possible to
explore various price models and test price sensitivity
very efficiently.
Depending on your sales model and how closely you work

with your customers, you may get an immediate response
on your dynamic price model and therefore be able to
easily adapt to the customer response.
Improving Human Capital

Management (HCM)
More and more Human Capital Management (HCM)
leaders are starting to use data more strategically to try
to better understand how their decisions affect the daily
business.
It is clear that when HCM leaders are supported by data

visualizations and predictive modeling capabilities, they
become empowered to identify elements that can impact
their overall budget. This includes payroll metrics for
insights on elements such as benefits, overtime, and
absenteeism.
50
Recruiting and Keeping
Your Talent
Predictive analytics allows you to anticipate workforce
needs to ensure your goals align with business needs. The
result is, of course, to determine the right skills that sup-
port your long-term objectives.
Are your attrition rates higher than usual? To answer that

question, you have to ask yourself whether you’re using
the right sources of data. For example, tapping into
insights from employee sentiment analysis, as well as
data from the company on-boarding experience is vital
for gaining a better understanding of what is going on.
The right data can help shed light on why attrition rates
are going up and better understand what isn’t working
in your recruitment efforts. After all, it’s more cost-
effective to keep an employee you already have than to
continually find new ones to replace them.
Increasing Supply-Chain
Efficiency
The supply chain is made up of numerous independent
pieces that have direct and indirect impacts on each
other. By using data and analytics to gain better control
over your supply chain, you’re able to make more
51
informed decisions and get a better understanding of
process inefficiencies.
It’s not a question of using data sometimes,

but establishing a data-driven organization
allows your organization to optimize supply-
chain performance on a continuous basis. By
integrating data from across the enterprise,
you will allow executives, managers, and
employees to make more informed and
actionable decisions every day.
Other important supply-chain benefits are increased vis-

ibility into the complete supply-chain process, including
areas such as
» Procurement and spend analysis
» Supplier performance and payable analysis
» Inventory analysis
Problems arise, however, if important data becomes (and

remains) siloed and inaccessible to employees and man-
agers. Making the data available and reliable is key to
driving well informed and fact-based decisions in your
company.
With an Augmented Analytics solution, it becomes easier

to consolidate data sources. You can add various predic-
tive analytics applications as needed to assist you in
52
performing real-time status optimized orders, increas-
ing sales, and gaining control of payments coming in.
Optimizing Procurement
Procurement management has countless moving parts
that all need to sync up in order for processes to continue
to run smoothly.
A good analytics solution provides visibility into spend-

ing across departments with access to real-time data so
that budgets can be stretched. It consolidates data sources
to assess inventory levels, predict product fulfillment
needs, and identify potential backlog issues.
The solution offers deeper visibility into every aspect of

sourcing and procurement analytics and helps organiza-
tions gain a better understanding of how the spending
looks. It supports identification of areas for improved
efficiency, as well as oversight into aspects like spending
by category and account.
When data management is improved, it also translates

into timely, compliant, and proactive contract manage-
ment. Streamlined visualizations of data and findings
also make it easier to spot trends and share insights with
a variety of stakeholders, increasing the chance of mak-
ing a bigger impact overall.
53
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Project Editor: Kelly Ewing Business Development

Augmented analytics includes embedding AI, often in the

Now that AI and ML are incorporated into analytics along

With the right analytics solution, you can be sure that

Data analysis isn’t just about collecting data from IT or

About This Book

The information marked by this icon is

Look for this icon when you want a few tricks

Be careful. When you see this icon, you’re

Shifting the Landscape of

Whatever the case is, they’re doing themselves a disserv-

Companies now recognize that they’re sitting on gold-

This powerful shift fundamentally changes how data

Decoding the Former

While nothing is inherently wrong with thinking about

It’s important to recognize that if you’re stuck

That’s why it’s so important for companies to approach

Data shouldn’t be looked at as a one-size-

Ignoring Key Performance

Furthermore, how can you course-correct when it’s

Handling Bottlenecks and

The following sections describe what happens in an

Lacking real-time access to data

Another issue with a lack of real-time access to data is

Facing data silos, disparate data

Common scenarios include team members changing a

That’s what happens when there are dispa-

There’s a lot of talk about needing to “break down the

Managing the challenges with

In a perfect world, every business process-related system

Unfortunately, this world isn’t perfect, and there will

Not only is this severely limiting the aggregation and

Early on, take the time to understand the cur-

For example, if your company aspires to become a truly

Focusing on the overall business goal and

In this chapter, you discover what Augmented Analytics

The fact of the matter is that in most cases, modern busi-

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Figure 2-1 shows the relationship between AI-powered

Traditional Self-Service Augmented

FIGURE 2-1: AI-powered analytics versus business value.

Augmented Analytics includes embedded Artificial Intelli-

Improving and facilitating

With the right solution, a single source of

Utilizing AI to drive business

Augmented Analytics is all about augmenting

Predictive Natural Language

FIGURE 2-2: The five components of Oracle’s Augmented

» Data Enrichment and Preparation: Uses machine

» Visualization Recommendations: Instantly get

» Predictive Analytics: Includes one-click forecasting,

» Proactive Personalized Analytics: Located within

Discovering Data Visualization

Learning about data visualization

In data visualization, the system autogenerates a view of