Szymon Serwin | Business Intelligence | 12.04.2021
Many implementations of tools in companies start from a bottom-up initiative. It often turns out that one of the employees starts using a tool to facilitate their work, recommends it to a colleague, and so the tool begins to be used more widely in the organization, the natural consequence of which is an official implementation. An example of such a tool is Qlik Sense, a system that facilitates independent data analysis. You do not need any programming knowledge to test them, and you can develop a simple application yourself, using a free account. In the article, I will guide you step by step how to do this.
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The example of Michał Rogalski proves that bottom-up initiatives can turn into large-scale projects. Michał is a young data analysis specialist and enthusiast who has created a database on the coronavirus pandemic, based on publicly available sources and available to everyone. Today, everyone, even if they are not as passionate about data as Michał, can conduct an analysis for their own purposes using widely available Business Intelligence tools.
Nowadays the range of Business Intelligence tools on offer is huge. The most well-known of these tools are:
Today I would like to focus mainly on the cloud version of Qlik Sense, because it is a good choice if you want to test the tool’s capabilities for your own purposes. I will show you how to easily create an analytical application that can initiate the implementation of Qlik Sense throughout the entire organization. You can try the cloud version of Qlik Sense for free for 30 days. To access the tool, you just need to create an account on the Qlik website:
An advantage of the cloud version is that you can use it on any device – Windows PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone, regardless of whether it’s an Android or iOS device.
The first step is the hardest to take. And how to take it in the world of data analysis? Once we have access to Qlik Sense in the cloud version, a simple Excel sheet is enough to start with. We will develop an application based on this – don’t worry, no programming knowledge is required here. I will also use publicly available sources to show how to easily build an application that analyzes data on the coronavirus pandemic.
The final result is as follows:
And the report looks like this:
Due to the fact that subsequent reports will be created according to the same scheme, we can copy the entire report and replace the measures with those that analyze daily test increments (new_tests) in subsequent copies. To copy a given report, just go to Application Overview, select the report, right-click on it and select Duplicate.
This way you have just developed your first data analysis application without coding.
After replacing the measures with those calculating the number of tests, the report looks like this:
At the beginning I mentioned implementations in organizations inspired by bottom-up initiatives. Let’s imagine that you have tested the tool’s capabilities, and data analysis painted such a picture that you have managed to reach the CEO and convince him to implement the Business Intelligence system at your company.
What now?
In the case of commercial implementations, it is worth having the support of a technology partner. All you need to do is reach out to a company with Business Intelligence implementations in their portfolio. At JCommerce, we implement both Qlik Sense and the aforementioned Microsoft Power BI solutions. As part of the project, Business Intelligence specialists will:
Low-code, no code solutions and Data Democracy are becoming increasingly important. As you can see, thanks to their combined forces, creating your own analyses based on simple data is a piece of cake, and the results may surprise you. Even larger and more complex data sets can be analyzed in a similar way, provided that they are properly prepared during the initial implementation. As a result, business users who are unfamiliar with complicated programming languages can create their own reports using the “Drag and Drop” option and taking advantage of simple aggregation functions. If you are interested in this subject, please contact us to discuss how your company can take advantage of the possibilities created by analytical tools.
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