Business Intelligence (BI)at Work

November 2, 2010

Timothy Hinds and Lisa Jenkins

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Agenda

• The BIAC – Timothy Hinds

• OSWER Projects – Lisa Jenkins

– Cleanups in My Community (CIMC)

– OSWER Performance Assessment Tool

(OSWER PAT)

• Questions

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What is BI?

• Business Intelligence (BI) is about getting the right

data to the right person in the right format at the right

time.

• BI is a broad category of applications & technologies

that:

– Gather,

– Store,

– Analyze,

– and provide Access to data

• BI applications enable and equip decision-makers,

analysts, and other information workers

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BI Functional Areas

• Query and Reporting– Reporting– Scorecards and dashboards– Alerts– Ad hoc query

• OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)– Multi-dimensional analysis– Integrated drill-down &

drill-through

• ETL– Data integration– Data profiling & cleansing– Interoperability

• Databases– Data warehouse, data marts– Metadata repositories

• Analytics and Modeling– Statistical analysis– Data modeling– Data mining– Advanced visualization

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What is the BIAC?

• The Business Intelligence & Analytics Center

(BIAC) was formed to enhance the Agency’s analytical

& decision-making capabilities by:

– Providing enterprise leadership and perspective

– Facilitating the sharing and reuse of knowledge and

experience

– Achieving economies of scale for BI tools and applications

– Supplying BI solutions, tools, and consulting

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What BI Products Are Available?

• The BIAC offers various BI products:

– BusinessObjects XI

– Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)

– Informatica PowerCenter

– SAS

• The BIAC offers centrally shared hosting for:

– BusinessObjects XI

– Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)

– Informatica PowerCenter

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What BI Services are Available?

• Shared Environment Hosting

• Advisory and Assistance Support

• IV&V (Independent Verification and Validation)

• Consulting Support

• Deployment Support

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Who Does the BIAC Support?

• Office of Technology Operations & Planning (OTOP)

• Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER)

• Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO)

• Office of Information Collection (OIC)

• Office of Water (OW)

• Office of Air and Radiation (OAR)

• Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA)

• Office of Research and Development (ORD)

• Office of Administration and Resources Management (OARM)

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How is BIAC Support Provided?

• Methodology - Agile

• ETL - Informatica

• Minimal Custom Code - Oracle Application Express

(APEX)

• Database – Oracle

• BI – Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

(OBIEE)

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What is Agile?

• An approach to development that emphasizes

collaboration, iteration, and adaptation

• Alignment of development with a customer’s needs,

goals, and budget

• Rapid adaptation to evolving requirements

• Rapid delivery of high-quality solutions

• Working solutions delivered within days or weeks rather

than months or years

• Frequent collaboration between developers and

business analysts

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Agile Solutions

Change Is a Natural Part

of the Solution

Days to Weeks

PlanDesign

andDevelop

Implement

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Typical BI Application Architecture

Pg 6

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ETL - Graphical User Interface

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Dashboards

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Reports

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BIAC Project Highlights

• BIAC Engaged by OSWER

– Agile Methodology

– Oracle Application Express

– Informatica

– Oracle Business Intelligence

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OSWER Overview

• EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency

Response (OSWER) has several applications being

developed and/or maintained by the BIAC.

• We will focus on 2 that are managed under the

OSWER IMO and SIO:

– CIMC

– OSWER PAT

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OSWER BI Project - CIMC

• Cleanups in My Community (CIMC)

– Web application that allows the public to locate cleanups

in their “communities” from a variety of environmental

programs, and to drill down to cleanup-specific data of

interest…Glorified Mashup!

– Primary users: residents, concerned citizens, potential

buyers and the real estate industry (bankers, insurers,

etc.).

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OSWER BI Project - CIMC

• Business Problem

– Were spending $23K/month just on maintenance (no

development).

– Some development cost/time estimates were exorbitant!

– Needed to reduce the maintenance and development

costs.

– Decided that updating the technology would be good,

too.

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CIMC – Data ETL

• Data is obtained from multiple sources

– Envirofacts: A central source for EPA data intended for the

public (ACRES, CERCLIS, FRS, RCRA).

– FRS: To determine “multiple program” cleanups.

– OW’s web service: To show water monitoring stations.

– Near future: Web services for state cleanup data, RCRA

facilities that aren’t “cleanups”, and EPA removals.

– System then links back to profiles in OECA’s ECHO, OW’s

monitoring data, Superfund CPAD and Envirofacts and, in

the future State web sites and epaosc.org.

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CIMC – Geospatial Connection

• Integrated GIS

– ESRI’s ArcGIS Server – query and filtering.

– ESRI’s JavaScript API front end.

– Earlier version integrated with Bing and, alternatively, you

could integrate with Google as well.

• Could enable us to integrate many layers from

ESRI’s web service as well.

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CIMC – Dashboards/Reports

• OBI allows reports that integrate data with

boilerplate language – without a lot of custom

coding.

• And to do the development very quickly.

• We also get the drilldown capability as a built in

feature which requires much less custom coding

(saves money and time).

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CIMC – Interface

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CIMC – Interface

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CIMC – Interface

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OSWER BI Project - OSWER PAT

• OSWER Performance Assessment Tool (OSWER

PAT) provides OSWER management/staff with a

tool that:

– Reduces burden by automating several aspects of a

previously very manual process of reporting.

– Improves QA by pulling data directly from source systems

(where possible), allowing central review of the data and

pushing the data directly to ACS.

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OSWER BI Project - OSWER PAT

• OSWER Performance Assessment Tool (OSWER

PAT) provides (continued):

– More timely access to the data throughout the year.

– Enables drill down to detailed data that support reported

measures.

– Enables ad hoc reporting to end-users for faster and

better responses to Congressionals and FOIAs.

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OSWER PAT – Data ETL

• Data is obtained from multiple sources

– ACRES, CERCLIS, LUST4, ICIS (and OECA system), new

RCRAInfo web services.

– Allows for manual data entry by specific authorized users

for measures that have no source systems.

– Meets OCFO requirements for batch upload to ACS.

• Plan to enable drill down to data in CIMC and other

source systems.

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OSWER PAT – Data Entry

• Oracle Application Express component:

– Edit records as needed.

– Use placeholder records to add data for measures with no

source system.

– Flexible to accommodate different program requirements.

• Oracle Access Manager

– EPA system manager manages user authorizations.

– Linked to Web Access Management system (so users can

use their LAN ID and Password).

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OSWER PAT– Dashboards/Reports

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OSWER PAT– Dashboards/Reports

Click on a region to drill down to a site list supporting the accomplishment!

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OSWER PA – Dashboards/Reports

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OSWER PAT – Dashboards/Reports

Pg #

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Questions

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Contacts:Timothy Hinds

BIAC Program Managerhinds.timothy@epa.gov

919-541-3584

Lisa JenkinsArchitect, Web Infrastructure Liaison, System Manager, GIS

Coordinator, OSWERjenkins.lisa@epa.gov

202-566-1941

BIAC Websitehttp://intranet.epa.gov/biac