AnalyseWorks Setup

AnalyseWorks - Setup

What will get done during installation?

GroupWorks will install AnalyseWorks and ensure that the demo works
GroupWorks will ensure that other users on the Local Area Network (LAN) can use it (assistance from your IT support may be required, particularly if users cannot directly run batch files)
You will have a brief demo of what AnalyseWorks can do, using the demo database
Some time will be required for GroupWorks staff to understand your data and see how it should be presented in AnalyseWorks, in how many data marts focussed around which business entities, if the data will always be reloaded from scratch or there will be partial loads
Discuss issues such as security, logos for reports etc
The rest of the time available will be split between getting your data such that it can be used by AnalyseWorks, and user training

How much of our data can be set up during installation?

As you'd expect, this depends on your data
If your data is already available in a suitable format with correct column names, a few minutes!
If it lives in a variety of secured databases and needs much careful work to combine, clean, error check, translate field names etc then it is likely to take longer than the standard installation time

What do I need to ensure is in place first?

Staff with knowledge of operational systems are available
There is good access to properly configured systems to develop and test the import
Test data of suitable (fairly small) size is available
For more complex data marts, staff to assist with the development

What steps are involved in setting up a moderately complex data source?

Get a definition of the data source(s) required, with the structure, and field names required
Have a manageable amount of test data available (so that it can be test-loaded quickly)
Decide if the processing will be done in Access or in a database procedure (or both)
Make a first guess at the structure of the data mart to be used by AnalyseWorks
Construct the empty table(s) and populate manually with one or two rows of data
Generate the AnalyseWorks definitions for the data from the tables
Check that it makes sense from within AnalyseWorks, refine as necessary
Develop the Access (Visual Basic for Applications) code or database procedures to load the data
Test the load function, compare data in the generated database against initial data
View test data in AnalyseWorks to have another check that it looks OK
Change the load mechanism to work on Live data, and run it if there is calculated to be time
Optimise the data mart if necessary, and make any concomitant changes to the load process
User training