INFO 200:

FOUNDATIONS OF
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Fall 2023
CE 13: Reporting Systems and OLAP
Sirine Taleb
Slides: From Pearson Book
11/19/2023
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
 CHAPTER
EXTENSION 13

Reporting Systems and OLAP

STUDY QUESTIONS
Q1: How do reporting systems enable people to create information?
Q2: What are the components and characteristics of reporting
systems?
Q3: How are reports authored, managed, and delivered?
Q4: How are OLAP reports dynamic?

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Q1: HOW DO REPORTING SYSTEMS ENABLE
PEOPLE TO CREATE INFORMATION?
▪ Example:

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Q1: HOW DO REPORTING SYSTEMS ENABLE
PEOPLE TO CREATE INFORMATION?
▪ A reporting system is an information system that enables people to create
information by processing data from disparate sources and delivering that
information to the proper users on a timely basis.

▪ Difference between data and information.

▪ people conceive information from data.
▪ People do so by seeing data presented in a meaningful context.

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Q1: HOW DO REPORTING SYSTEMS ENABLE
PEOPLE TO CREATE INFORMATION?
▪ Reporting systems
▪ Create meaningful information from disparate data sources
▪ Deliver information to user on time
▪ Generate information by:
▪ Filtering data
▪ Sorting data
▪ Grouping data
▪ Making simple calculations

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RAW SALES DATA: LIST CONTAINS LITTLE OR
NO INFORMATION

This list of raw data is hardly a

meaningful context. It is just a
list of data. We can create a
meaningful context for this
data by sorting by customer
name.

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SALES DATA SORTED BY CUSTOMER NAME
We can create a meaningful context for this data by sorting by
customer name

Create
information
by sorting

In this format, we can see that some customers have

ordered more than once, and we can readily find their orders.
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SALES DATA SORTED BY CUSTOMER NAME AND GROUPED BY
NUMBER OF ORDERS AND SHOWING PURCHASE AMOUNTS

Create information
by grouping and
summing

Notice that the reporting tool not only grouped the orders, but
it also computed the number of orders for each customer and
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the total purchase amount per customer.
SALES DATA FILTERED TO SHOW REPEAT
CUSTOMERS
Suppose we are interested in repeat customers. If so, we can filter the groups of
orders to select only those customers that have two or more orders.

Create information by
filtering & formatting

If your goal is to identify your best

customers, this report shows data in
a far more useful context than first
figure and will save you considerable
work.

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Q2: WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS
OF REPORTING SYSTEMS?
▪ In the remainder of this chapter extension, we will consider the components and functions of these reporting
systems as well as some examples.

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 COMPONENTS OF A REPORTING SYSTEM
Data from disparate data sources are read
and combined, using filtering, sorting,
grouping, and simple calculating, to
produce meaningful contexts.

MEDIA

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 COMPONENTS OF A REPORTING SYSTEM

• A reporting system maintains a

database of reporting metadata that
describes reports, users, groups,
roles, events, and other entities
involved in reporting activity.
Reporting systems use metadata to
prepare and deliver reports to the
proper users on a timely basis. MEDIA
organizations can prepare reports in a
variety of formats.

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Q2: WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS
OF REPORTING SYSTEMS?
Whether it is standalone, part of an IS, or as part of Data warehouse (DW):
• Reads and combines data from different data sources
▪ Filters, sorts, groups, simple calculations to produce meaningful contexts
• Uses Metadata to prepare and deliver reports

• Report characteristics
– Type (Static, Dynamic, Query, OLAP)
– Media (paper, digital, etc…)
– Mode (Push, pull)

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 SUMMARY OF REPORT
CHARACTERISTICS
• Static reports are prepared once from
underlying data, and do not change. A
report of past year’s sales is a static report.

• Dynamic reporting systems read most

current data and generate reports using
that fresh data; for instance, a report on
sales today and a report on current stock
prices.

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 SUMMARY OF REPORT
CHARACTERISTICS

• Query reports prepared in response to

requests entered by users. (Ex: Google
Search Engine). Within an organization, a
query report could be generated to show
current inventory levels. The user enters
item numbers, and the reporting system
responds with inventory levels of those
items at various stores and warehouses.

• OLAP reports allow user to dynamically

change the report grouping structures. Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Ltd.
REPORT MEDIA
▪ Printed on paper
▪ PDFs—Portable Document Format
▪ Delivered to computer screens and mobile devices. Applications for CRM and
ERP systems. Additionally, companies sometimes place reports on internal
corporate Web sites for employees to access.
▪ Digital dashboards

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 A digital dashboard, which is an electronic display that is
customized for a particular user. Vendors like Yahoo! and MSN
REPORT MEDIA provide common examples. Users of these services can define
content they want—say, a local weather forecast, a list of stock
prices, or a list of news sources—and the vendor constructs the
▪ Digital dashboards example display customized for each user.

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REPORT MEDIA
▪ Printed on paper
▪ PDFs—Portable Document Format
▪ Delivered to computer screens and mobile devices. Applications for CRM and
ERP systems. Additionally, companies sometimes place reports on internal
corporate Web sites for employees to access.
▪ Digital dashboards
▪ Alerts: Users can declare that they wish to receive notification of events, say, via
email or on their cell phones.
▪ Exported from report generator to another program such as Excel
▪ Published via Web service: The Web service produces the report in response to
requests from the service-consuming application. This style of reporting is
particularly useful for inter-enterprise information systems like supply chain
management.
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REPORT MODE
Modes of reports
▪ Push report to users according to a preset
schedule (notifications based on certain
criteria) Users receive the report without any
activity on their part.
▪ Pull report users request from web portal or
digital dashboard. To obtain a pull report, a
user goes to a Web portal or digital dashboard
and clicks a link or button to cause the
reporting system to produce and deliver the
report.
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Q3: HOW ARE REPORTS
AUTHORED, MANAGED AND
DELIVERED?
Three functions of
Report authoring
a reporting system
• Connecting to data sources, create report structure, format report
• Examples: MS Access, Visual Studio (can connect to many different
data sources)

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CONNECTING TO A REPORT DATA SOURCE USING VISUAL
STUDIO

A report author is using Visual

Studio to connect to a database
that contains source data and has
just entered a SQL statement,
shown in the lower center portion
of this display, to generate a
report. Visual Studio can be used
to format the report as well.

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Q3: HOW ARE REPORTS
AUTHORED, MANAGED AND
DELIVERED?
Report authoring Three functions of
• Connecting to data sources, create report structure, format report
a reporting system
• Examples: MS Access, Visual Studio (can connect to many different
data sources)
Report management
• Defines who receives what reports, when, what format, and by what means
• Defines user accounts and user groups
• Most report management systems allow the report administrator to define
user accounts and user groups and to assign particular users to particular
groups. For example, all of the salespeople would be assigned to the sales
group, all of the executives assigned to the executive group, and so forth.
All of these data are stored in the reporting system’s metadata shown in
Figure above.
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HOW ARE REPORTS
DELIVERED?

Three functions of
Report delivery function a reporting system
▪ Pushes reports or allows pulling reports based on metadata
▪ Delivered via an email server, Web site, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA*) services, or other
program-specific means
▪ Security components ensure only authorized users receive reports
▪ For queries, serves as intermediary between users and report generator. It receives user query
data, such as the item numbers in an inventory query, passes the query data to the report
generator, receives the resulting report, and delivers the report to the user.

*a method of software development that uses software

components called services to create business applications
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Q4: HOW ARE OLAP REPORTS DYNAMIC?

▪ OLAP is an acronym for Online Analytical Processing.

▪ is a reporting technology that provides the ability to sum, count, average, and perform other simple arithmetic operations on
groups of data.
▪ The remarkable characteristic of OLAP reports is that their format is dynamic. The viewer of the report can change the report’s
structure—hence the term online.
▪ OLAP reports have the same characteristics as Excel Pivot tables, so if you know how such tables work, you have the essence of
the idea about OLAP. The major difference is that OLAP is designed to process tens and hundreds of thousands of records; such
volume would be impossible in Excel.

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Q4: HOW ARE OLAP REPORTS DYNAMIC?

▪ OLAP is an acronym for Online Analytical Processing.

▪ OLAP is the technology (computer processing) behind many Business Intelligence (BI) applications.
▪ OLAP is an approach to answering multi-dimensional analytical (MDA) queries of Business Data swiftly
▪ OLAP provides the capability for complex calculations, trend analysis, and sophisticated data modeling.
• OLAP provides ability to sum, count, average, and perform other simple arithmetic operations on groups of data

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Q4: HOW ARE OLAP REPORTS DYNAMIC?
OLAP reports: An OLAP report has measures and dimensions.

▪ Dynamic
▪ Measure: item summed, averaged or processed in OLAP report
▪ A measure is the data item of interest. It is the item that is to be summed or
averaged or otherwise processed in the OLAP report. Total sales, average
sales, and average cost are examples of measures.
▪ Dimension: category or class
▪ A dimension is a characteristic of a measure. Purchase date, customer type,
customer location, and sales region are all examples of dimensions.
▪ Cube: measure with associated dimensions
▪ OLAP vendors and products Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Ltd.
Q4: HOW ARE OLAP REPORTS DYNAMIC?
▪ Figure shows a typical OLAP report. Here the measure is Store Sales Net, and the dimensions are Product Family and
Store Type. This report shows how net store sales vary by product family and store type. Stores of type Supermarket, for
example, sold a net of $60,259 worth of nonconsumable goods.

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Q4: HOW ARE OLAP REPORTS DYNAMIC?
OLAP reports: An OLAP report has measures and dimensions.

▪ Dynamic
▪ Measure: item summed, averaged or processed in OLAP report
▪ A measure is the data item of interest. It is the item that is to be summed or averaged
or otherwise processed in the OLAP report. Total sales, average sales, and average
cost are examples of measures.
▪ Dimension: category or class
▪ A dimension is a characteristic of a measure. Purchase date, customer type, customer
location, and sales region are all examples of dimensions.
▪ Cube: measure with associated dimensions
▪ A presentation of a measure with associated dimensions like that in previous Figure is often called an OLAP cube or
sometimes simply a cube. The reason for this term is that some products show these displays using three axes, like a
cube in geometry.
▪ OLAP vendors and products (such as Tableau)
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WHAT IS OLAP?
OLAP is an acronym for Online Analytical
Processing.
OLAP performs multidimensional analysis
of business data
OLAP provides the capability for complex
calculations, trend analysis, and sophisticated
data modeling.

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WHAT IS OLAP?
Another Example

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 OLAP CUBE: TYPICAL OLAP REPORT
EXCEL FUNCTIONALITY: PIVOT TABLE, HERE: MEASURE IS STORE
SALES NET, DIM: PRODUCT FAM, STOR TYPE

OLAP Product Family by Store Type

Stores of type
Supermarket,
for example,
sold a net of
$36,189 worth
of
nonconsumabl
e goods.

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OLAP
▪ The distinguishing characteristic of an OLAP report is that the user can alter the format of the report. Next
Figure shows such an alteration.

INFO 200 – AUB – Fall 2023 – Dr. Sirine Taleb 11/19/2023 33

OLAP SALES REPORT BY PRODUCT FAMILY, STORE COUNTRY, STATE, STORE TYPE. USER
ADDED DIMENSIONS STORE COUNTRY AND STORE STATE TO THE HORIZONTAL DISPLAY

Product-family sales are now

broken out by the location of the
stores. Observe that the sample
data include only stores in the
United States and only in the
western states of California,
Oregon, and Washington.

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OLAP
▪ With an OLAP report, it is possible to drill down into the data. This term means to further divide the data into
more detail as shown next.

INFO 200 – AUB – Fall 2023 – Dr. Sirine Taleb 11/19/2023 35

OLAP SALES REPORT BY COUNTRY, STATE, CITY AND
STORE TYPE

The user has not only

drilled down, but she has
also changed the order of
the dimensions. Prev Figure
shows Product Family and
then store location within
Product Family. This Figure
shows store location
and then Product Family
within store location.
the OLAP report now shows sales data for the four cities in
California that have stores.

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▪ Both displays are valid and useful, depending on the user’s perspective.

▪ A product manager might like to see product families first and then store location data.

▪ A sales manager might like to see store locations first and then product data.

INFO 200 – AUB – Fall 2023 – Dr. Sirine Taleb 11/19/2023 37

ROLE OF OLAP SERVER AND
DIMENSIONAL DATABASE
▪ Unfortunately, all of this flexibility comes at a cost. If the database is large, doing the necessary calculating, grouping,
and sorting for such dynamic displays will require substantial computing power.

▪ Accordingly, special-purpose products called OLAP servers have been developed to perform OLAP analysis.

INFO 200 – AUB – Fall 2023 – Dr. Sirine Taleb 11/19/2023 38

 ROLE OF OLAP SERVER AND DIMENSIONAL DATABASE

An OLAP server reads data from an

operational database, performs preliminary
calculations, and stores the results of those
calculations in an OLAP database.
(Databases that are structured to support
OLAP processing are called dimensional
databases.)

Normally, for performance and security

reasons, the OLAP server and the DBMS run
on separate computers.

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ROLE OF OLAP SERVER AND
DIMENSIONAL DATABASE

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WHAT IS OLAP?
OLAP is a computer processing that
enables a user to easily and
selectively extract and
view data from different points of
view.

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WHAT IS OLAP?
For example:

➢ A user can request that data be analyzed to display a spreadsheet showing all of a company's beach
ball products sold in Florida in the month of July
➢ Compare revenue figures with those for the same products in September, and then see a comparison
of other product sales in Florida in the same time period.

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WHAT IS OLAP?
To facilitate this kind of analysis, OLAP data is stored in
a multidimensional database.
Whereas a relational database can be thought of as two-
dimensional, a multidimensional database considers each
data attribute (such as product, geographic sales region, and
time period) as a separate "dimension."

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 WHAT IS OLAP?
OLAP software can locate the intersection of dimensions:
For ex.: All products sold in the Eastern region above a certain price during a certain time period and display
them.

OLAP pre-calculates ALL resulting combinations between dimensions TO DO ANALYSIS.

Vs.
Dimensional Relational Model where users can select from a list of dimension to generate the reports they want
and view it in the way they want it.

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OLAP, DATA MINING, AND DATAWAREHOUSE
WATCH: BI TOOLS OVERVIEW (OLTP, ETL, OLAP, MDX, BI REPORT)

▪ OLAP can be used for data mining or the discovery of

relationships between data items.
▪ An OLAP database does not need to be as large as a data
warehouse, since not all transactional data is needed.
▪ Data can be imported from existing relational databases to
create a multidimensional database for OLAP.

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OLAP PRODUCTS
Two leading OLAP products are Hyperion
Solution's Essbase and Oracle's Express
Server.
OLAP products are typically designed for
multiple-user environments
with the cost of the software based on the
number of users.

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DIGITAL DASHBOARD EXAMPLE

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ACTIVE REVIEW
Q1: How do reporting systems enable people to create information?
Q2: What are the components and characteristics of reporting
systems?
Q3: How are reports authored, managed, and delivered?
Q4: How are OLAP reports dynamic?

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Ltd.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Ltd.