Funciones Predefinidas

Overview
At this point in our explanation of the Lifecycle, we climb out of the detailed back room issues of architecture and database design and development and move into the front room. The main front room development activity involves creating the starter set of canned reports we call end user application templates. This chapter is about the process of creating these application templates. Itstarts by defining the concept of the end user application and its role in providing access to business information. The bulk of the chapter provides a description of the process of creating these applications, divided in two major phases: specification and development. This is a very exciting point in the process because we finally get to see the business impact of all the design and developmentefforts that have occurred thus far. This chapter is a must-read for the entire team. Because technical details are specific to individual products, this chapter is not technical in nature. It does provide the basics so that the whole team can communicate effectively. The task of relating the general end user application approach to a specific technology is the responsibility of the end userapplication developer.

Role of the End User Application
End user applications fill a critical gap in meeting the organization’s range of data access needs. Figure 17.1 shows the range of reporting needs from operational to strategic. Strategic reporting and analysis occurs at the business opportunity level: longer term in focus and ad hoc in nature. Operational reporting occurs at the tacticallevel; it has shortterm impact, and is usually predefined. As we described in the data access tools section in Chapter 10, a large percentage of the warehouse user base will fall in between these two points.

Figure 17.1 The role of end user applications. Tip To most business professionals, ad hoc is simply the ability to change the parameters on a report to create their own personalized version ofthat report. This need shows itself through statements like “I want this report, but by month rather than quarter,” or “Can we see this report at the district level instead of region?” For many users, this is as ad hoc as they ever want to get. The end user applications provide the primary access tool for most of these business users. Figure 17.1 also shows the value provided by end userapplications. For power users,

17.2

these canned reports provide a set of reporting and analysis examples. They can use these reports as a learning vehicle and take them apart to understand how to achieve certain results. Or, they can use the reports as a starting point and make incremental modifications rather than starting from scratch. These reports also serve as a qualityassured reference pointfor various measures of the business. If an ad hoc user can tie query results back to results from the end user applications, they can be reasonably certain that they are using the appropriate query logic. The value to the push-button user is a little different. To this group, the end user applications represent a low-cost (i.e., easy to use, short learning curve) means to get at the informationin the data warehouse. The applications are typically more flexible and more current, in terms of how they view the business, than other alternatives. The organization overall gets value from the applications as well, because they provide an early delivery of information from the warehouse. Another valuable aspect of end user applications is the role they play in helping to define anorganization’s official standard reports. Once the data warehouse is in place, reports usually begin as part of an ad hoc exploration process—business analysts use the warehouse to determine a new way of looking at the business. The most valuable, enlightening alternatives become end user applications, almost in a Darwinian fashion. Over time, this new way of looking at the world trickles down to the...