Reporting and Analytic Data Marts:

Enable the Power of LBI

LBI is a powerful set of tools that is neatly integrated with the Lawson environment. However, writing reports against thousands of tables in the Lawson transactional database can be a challenge for several reasons:

• You need to be very familiar with the Lawson table structure to develop reports
• The average report contains six joins
• Therefore Information does not get optimally distributed or used
• Performance is affected as reporting is in contention with the production server
• On Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) is impossible without aggregated data (data cubes)
• Executive level dashboards (graphics, stop lighting) are very difficult to develop
• Drill thru from an executive dashboard, to an OLAP cube, to a detailed Crystal report, to the Lawson transactional Drill Around is virtually impossible

A well designed data mart solves all these problems and more! 

What is a Data Mart?

A 'data mart' is a repository of an organization's transactional data base set up in a way to facilitate fast retrieval of correct data without slowing down the operational systems of the organization (i.e. PR, GL). Besides speed, an oft-stated goal is to make data retrieval much easier than it would be if data were to be retrieved directly from the operational systems. Reporting tools like LBI are certainly required but having a data base (data mart) designed just for reporting and analysis to use these tools against is often necessary before larger organizations get strategic value from their ERP investments.

The transactional data is often transformed before ending in its final form in the data mart. As an example there is no field in Lawson called "headcount". By extracting certain fields in the Lawson HR transactions file and applying the appropriate algorithm the Absolute data mart creates a field or measure in the data mart called "headcount". After we have extracted the raw Lawson HR data and transform it into 140 best practice measures we create a monthly bucket for each employee. Reporting by time period now becomes very easy. For example just click on "headcount" and pick a time period such as "Quarter 1 2003" and you have your report. When we implement this solution we will go back in time to when you first went live with Lawson. Trending information that is critical to senior management will magically appear.

A data mart serves a specific function or department. Multiple data marts form an enterprise data warehouse. We can use our techniques and know how to help you build data marts for Patient Accounting and your Electronic Medical Record.

Presentation Options

The data marts reside in a SQL 2005 relational data base so most presentation tools can be used without any difficulties. SQL 2005 offers a robust data aggregation or cubing capability that allows the LBI Scorecard to perform the On Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) function. Robust OLAP capability is functionality that few Lawson organizations currently possess. Your senior management will be very impressed! While LBI has some obvious advantages we also offer Cognos and Microsoft as report layer tools.

Also, our solutions were designed to be ERP system agnostic. That means Lawson HR customers who have a best of breed recruiting or training system can map that data to our data mart. This technique allows the recruiting system and Lawson HR to appear very integrated when in fact they may be minimally integrated.

Most organizations struggle just producing low value reports regardless of the reporting tools being used. True Business Intelligence offers an organization a clear strategic advantage. If your senior management is serious about changing the game please call Terry Wier at 612-746-1644.

Lawson HR Data Mart

Lawson Financial Data Mart

In addition to the star schema formatted dimension and fact tables there also is a set of Report Friendly De-normalized Summary Tables that makes financial reporting in Crystal Reports very easy.

Procurement Data Mart

Absolute is looking for a partner to sponsor the development of the Procurement Data Mart. Likely candidates would include Health Care organizations who realize people costs and materials are their top two cost categories and feel if they could turn their raw Lawson data into information they could save a significant amount of their material spend.

Our requirements list so far includes the following: