SOLUTIONS

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

WHITEPAPER

Now that we have achieved a growing number of happy dashboard users, we have gained some insights on what makes a dashboard or Business Intelligence project successful. We will share some of those insights along with an explanation of the techniques behind successful projects.

This paper will take you deeper in the world of our dashboards, our specialization in media and the way we work with our clients. However, before we start, lets define Pointlogic’s dashboards.

To protect our clients’ information, all the screen shots use dummy data.

1. INTRODUCTIONIn today’s media landscape, effective decision-making relies on having quick and easy access to the right and most actual information available. As a complement to the various planning and simulation solutions that Pointlogic delivers to optimize our client’s marketing and communication strategy, dashboards are an accessible solution that allows you to simplify access to data and to uncover insights coming from multiple data sources in a timely, resource-saving manner.

However, many of the people we work with have built dashboards in the past and were somewhat disappointed with those experiences.

At Pointlogic, we specialize in developing dashboards that are used to monitor and analyze the reach and impact of media and marketing campaigns, in conjunction with various brand metrics.

Our dashboards are always custom-made, integrating multiple relevant data sources and using the most granular data available, ideally on a respondent / person level. This results in dashboards that allow users to quickly create insights and become experts in their data and not in the software.

• Dashboards to monitor ratingsand audiences• Dashboards to monitorpromotional campaigns and theireffects• Dashboards to monitor brand KPIsfor network advertisers

FOR ADVERTISERS:

• Dashboards to monitor brand KPIs and perceptions within or acrossmarkets• Dashboards to monitor salesfluctuations alongside marketingefforts

FOR SPORTS LEAGUES:

• Dashboards to monitorpromotional campaigns and theireffects• Dashboards to monitor andcompare global ratings

2. WHAT IS DASHBOARDING?

The high demand from users has accelerated the evolution of dashboard solutions, enabling them to evolve from a showcase of business metrics to a holistic decision making tool – which allows users to track performance, monitor key metrics and anticipate the next business moves. In addition, features like drill down and zoom-in have pushed the interactivity of the modern-day dashboarding to higher-than-ever standards.

The dashboards that we develop for our clients are more than just a visual display of the most important business metrics on one screen. We consider a dashboard much more than that and prefer to speak about visual analysis tools for various reasons:

• dashboards are highly interactive and usually provide functionalities like filtering and drill downs;

• dashboards are primarily used to analyze and evaluate the performance of past campaigns andcreate actionable insights on how to improve future campaigns;

• dashboards are typically used by data analysts, researchers and planners that want to look beyond thedata and find patterns to improve communication planning.

Furthermore, our dashboards are highly-customizable and flexible, with a high-array of design and reporting options, which results in solutions that enable you to integrate and consolidate your big and small data for effective reporting and decision-making. We include information from multiple data streams and devices, including tracker data, tv rating data, social media conversations, searches and credit card purchases, as well as tablet, mobile and desktop usage figures. These datasets can be manipulated for up-to-the minute reporting in our dashboards to leverage instant insights based on the ever-increasing collection of data at your disposal.

Pointlogic has built a range of BI dashboards, for several client groups in the media and marketing industry:

FOR TV NETWORKS:

3.CASE STUDYOne of our clients, a premium cable network who had heavily leveraged on air promotional time, in order to drive viewership to both movies, sport matches and series, had multiple years’ worth of data on the performance of their campaigns. The big challenge this client had was to leverage the data in an efficient way to evaluate and compare campaigns and the viewership these promotions drove. This client already tried out two other software solutions but both failed for various reasons:

1. the data set was too big which resulted in a solution that was extremely slow to use;

2. the campaigns needed to be evaluated and compared on a large array of audience targets preferablydynamically generated instead of pre-defined.

For this client, we were able to deliver a fast and user-friendly dashboard solution that solved the above issues and allowed them to compare every possible campaign and show, across every possible target and across multiple years by unifying samples.

In addition, the dashboard was so comprehensive that, thanks to the accessibility of the dashboard, we saved our client days of work every month, by compiling all data in one easy-to-use and exportable report. Moreover, the dashboards enabled standardized reporting across the entire company and helped them to drive consistency and ensure accuracy across all departments.

4. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS:FROM ETL TO DASHBOARDING

Before understanding how dashboards work, let us first start with explaining how we get from data to the insights. Each Pointlogic Business Intelligence project consists of two main phases: Data processing (ETL) and Dashboarding.

ETL (EXTRACT, TRANSFORM, LOAD)

A typical BI project will make use of multiple data sources. The goal of the ETL step is to store the data in a consistent way so that the dashboard can work off structured data coming from one place.

1. The first step of the ETL phase is to extract the data fromeach individual source (which often requires customizedmethods).

2. In the transformation step, we ensure the data from thevarious sources is made consistent and linked.

3. The final step is to load the data into a project-specific datawarehouse.

This data warehouse not only makes the data available for easy querying, analyzing, and reporting, but also forms a solid base for possible future extensions of the project, such as modelling and predictive analysis.

• All data is contained within the Qlikview dashboard. Combined with Qlikview’s powerful associative engine,this results in a fast performance.

• Qlikview dashboards are easy to understand and use, so the user can get started immediately, without goingthrough an extended learning phase.

• Any selection made in a certain sheet of the dashboard is carried immediately throughout the entiredashboard. This enables the user to see his ‘story’ unfold and view its implications for the entire data set.

• Qlikview offers a wide range of charts and report formats which allows us to present each report in the waybest suited to the data, its context, and the user’s needs.

• Qlikview dashboards are available online and are accessible on multiple devices.

DASHBOARDING

When creating a dashboard , we usually start with a design. In this design, we incorporate any requirements the client may have, but also our own experiences with building applications and turning data into insights.

The next step is to implement the design into an actual dashboard. Pointlogic dashboards are built and deployed in Qlikview. Qlikview is a third party solution and is currently one of the leading Business Intelligence platforms.

We have selected to use Qlikview to develop dashboards, as it offers our clients a number of distinct advantages:

Source: Grid TM Scoring

For dashboards based on respondent survey data, we include an ‘Audience selection’ screen, where demographic features can be combined to create an audience. The reports in the other screens will then be calculated for this audience. Pointlogic can pre-define complex audiences (that will be used multiple times).

For dashboards on TV reach, similar selections can be made for exposure types, so that exposures on certain days, in certain time periods, and/or on certain channels can be analyzed.

5.DASHBOARDS FEATURESNow that we explained the technical aspects of a BI project, let us walk through the features that our Pointlogic dashboard solutions have to offer to each client.

SELECTIONS AND FILTERSAll selections and filters are carried over in the entire dashboard. To keeping track of what is selected at any time given, you can check the ‘Current Selections’ box. All user selections can be saved as ‘Bookmark’, to be accessed another time, if needed.

AUDIENCE OR EXPOSURE SELECTION

USER JOURNEYSWe create ‘User Journeys’ to prevent the user from losing his/her way among the various reports. In addition, in every report, a ‘Help’ button with additional information can be added.

BENCHMARK AUDIENCES We can calculate benchmark indices in order to compare result for various selections.

CHART TYPESA wide variety of chart and table types is available. Some examples are below.

EXPORTINGAll reports are exportable to Excel as a table. The charts can also be copied as a bitmap or image.

BRANDING AND CUSTOMIZATIONPointlogic can follow your style guide and branding rules, include banners and/or backgrounds to the various tabs. We can use a variety of fonts and we can predefine the colors used in charts, so that it is consistent with the look and feel of your other tools.

6. BI PROJECTS VS. MODELLINGPROJECTSOur dashboarding solution is a holistic decision making tool, which allows you to track performance, monitor key metrics and anticipate the next business moves. However, if you think your business might require different orientation, methods or methodology, you can check the differences and similarities between BI and modelling projects, or you can read our 'Advanced media analytics and channel planning software' whitepaper.

CONNECTIVITY AND DATA UPDATESAs previously mentioned, multiple data sources can be combined in the data warehouse. The update frequency of the data warehouse and dashboard can be set according to your needs. It is also possible to update the dashboard from an external data source by means of an API or other interface.

MULTIPLE USER ACCESSThe dashboard is hosted online, ensuring immediate access, without having to install any software. Depending on the plan you choose, multiple users can use the dashboard at the same time (under concurrent user licenses). In addition, we manage all admin functions and we can limit data and functionality based on user login.

UNLIMITED DATA STORAGE IN THE WAREHOUSE Warehouse storage size, does not impact the dashboarding solution costs. However, the biggest limitation can be the speed of the dashboard. However, it could impact the speed of the dashboard. Keep in mind that, at some point, too much data in combination with a large amount of reports will influence your dashboard performance.

UNIQUE DASHBOARD AND PROJECT-BASED COSTSEvery dashboard that we create is unique, with its own features when it comes to data, reporting, functionality, etc. The main factors that influence pricing are: the number of data sources, respondent level data or aggregated data, survey length, number of dashboard users and update frequency.

OrientationMethods

UsersMethodology

Big Data

Bi projects

RearviewReporting (KPIs, Metrics) Automated Monitoring/ Alerting (thresholds) Dashboards, Scorecards

Reporting (KPI’s, metrics Dashboards

Differences SimilaritiesModelling projectsFuturePredictive Modelling, Descriptive Modelling Data Mining

Bi projects

Business Analysts

Yes

Modelling projects

Business Analysts

Yes

If you have any questions about our solutions and Business Intelligence projects, don't hesitate to contact us:

MARCEL VAN DER KOOI, EVP Global Business+31 10 281 60 60, kooi@pointlogic.com

Advanced (curve-based) modellingSimulation