Business Intelligence/Dashboards Career?

[waterg2]

I have approximately 12 years of experience in Crystal Reports. I’ve taking several programming courses and gravitate towards writing formulas and SQL scripts. I have also worked with Cognos and taken several courses.

I’m interested in taking some classes to expand my knowledge in the area of Business Intelligence/Dashboard, but would like to get a better sense of what that profession entails.

I should mention I do not have a degree, but have taken many courses to expand my knowledge in specific areas to further my career. If I move forward with taking courses I would go through SAP….but I’m also open to suggestions.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Waterg2

 

[johnherman]

Dashboards typically include summary statistics and KPI, Key Performance Indicators. This implies that you would either have knowledge about the business or work closely with a BA who has knowledge of the business. If you don't have business knowledge and need to work with a BA, then you must bring strong dashboard skills to the table. Expertise in Ease of Use, Drill Down and Across, ETL and Disparate Data Sources, and other things like that. I'm not a Dashboard person, but I know enough to pass on what I did. Suggest you do an internet search. Also, sometimes some vendors supply dashboard training. However, much of their dashboard training will be product specific. I think there is at least one book on the subject as well, do a search on the net or at Amazon.

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adaptive uber info galaxies (bigger, better, faster than agile big data clouds)

 

[johnherman]

Aaah. I didn't answer the BI part. There are dozens of books on BI and the field stretches from the Business Analyst I mentioned above thru to back-end people who design tables, extracts, and reports for the BA's and end users. The hottest thing in BI now is "Analytics", which is one of those buzzwords that means different things to different people, especially to vendors. Again, I think a quick internet search on BI is a good start. As with the Dashboards, if you know the business, you'll have a stronger resume. So, if you've been working in Banking, then BI in Banking is a bigger plus. Same for Health Care, Retail, etc.

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adaptive uber info galaxies (bigger, better, faster than agile big data clouds)

 

[waterg2]

Thank you John for the feedback! I will take your suggestion and continue my research on the internet etc.

Regards, Waterg2

 

[hilfy]

Waterg2,

If you're interested in doing BI consulting, the company I work for is always looking for new folks. We work almost exclusively with the SAP BusinessObjects suite of products and we do a LOT of on-the-job training.

You can find more information here:

http://www.decisionfirst.com/careers/

-Dell

DecisionFirst Technologies - Seven-time SAP BusinessObjects Solution Partner of the Year

http://www.decisionfirst.com