Data Strategy Platform Solutions - Data Integration and One Truth Repository

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Use case – Data Integration and One Truth Repository

Our client currently produces reports in tools such as Excel and PowerPoint for many reporting requirements, pulling data manually from data sources such as Financial, CRM and Audit systems. This is labour intensive, time consuming and error prone, as well as resulting in visualisations that are not engaging and effective.

The objective for this solution was to architect a new business intelligence platform to streamline the process for collecting and preparing this data, centralising the storage of the data, improving the development and deployment life cycle of reports, and to produce rich, visually compelling and interactive reports that can be embedded within bespoke applications.


Business Requirement

 
Provide a central, accurate repository and model of data to act as a single authoritative, consistent and reliable source
 
 
Improve development and deployment times for reports and dashboards
 
 
Provide richer, more compelling and interactive reports
 
 
Consolidate storage and delivery of reports to achieve greater consistency
 
 
Make access to reports and dashboards simple and fast
 
 
Embed dashboards and reports within bespoke applications and web services


The PTR Solution

The solution implemented was built around Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Azure Analysis Services, Azure AD, Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake and Power BI.

  • Azure SQL Database to host a newly designed Data Warehouse
  • Azure Analysis services to host a Tabular Model
  • Azure AD to service User Authentication & Authorisation to Power BI, Azure SQL Database and Azure Analysis Services
  • Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2 to provide a single repository for source data
  • Azure Data Factory to facilitate ELT pipelines to extract data from the Data Lake, load data into Staging tables in the Data Warehouse, transform data by manipulating it into a desired tabular structure for consumption
  • Power BI for a Self-Service Business Intelligence tool set 


The Benefits

  • Newly designed Data Warehouse fit for purpose
  • Central Tabular Model providing unique and complex business calculations, measures and KPIs, and a single authoritative source of truth
  • Single sign on across the whole Data Platform enabling highly granular User Access Control to reports, source data and administrative functionality
  • Single repository for source data in its native format
  • Pipelines and dataflows tailored to meet real-time operational reporting requirements, and extensible for future enhancements such as direct source load to data warehouse, or direct source load to Power BI for live reporting
  • Delivery of rich, engaging visualisations empowering users with insight, interactive analysis and the ability to answer their own questions swiftly using a trustworthy, consistent single truth Tabular Model