Power BI – Explain Self-Service Business Intelligence (SSBI).

Self Service Business Intelligence (SSBI) allows a user to filter, sort, analyze and visualize data himself without the intervention of an organization’s BI team or IT teams. Some features of SSBI are:

• It allows a user to gain insights into the data without having any background or prior experience in using BI tools. 
• SSBI ensures that the user interface is user-friendly for nontechnical users at the same time the interface must also provide advanced features for technically skilled persons. 
• In SSBI, everything such as creating a data model, accessing the data, and preparing the data is done by the user itself.

Why is SSBI important?

We know that data is an integral part of any organization and is the main driving force of a business. An organization that does not have the expertise in interpreting the data, cannot survive in today’s market. Today with the rising amount of data and big data coming into the picture, this data has become all the way more important. Thus the importance of SSBI is as follows:

• SSBI aims to shift the responsibility of interpreting the data from IT teams to business executives.
• This helps to bridge the existing data gaps in the organizations. 
• With the use of SSBI, which has a very interactive UI, and no or minimal coding, an executive can perform complex and tedious tasks with minimal effort and expertise.

Features of SSBI

All BI tools have three main functions: gathering data, analyzing, and visualizing it. Let’s look at some Features of a self-service BI tool:

• Drag and Drop interface: An SSBI tool comprises a drag-and-drop interface that allows the user to drag various components to create a dashboard or reports according to one’s requirements.
• Interactive Reports: SSBI reports also allow users to perform various operations on the generated reports such as drill down, pivot, scale up, etc. in order to get more detailed insight into the data through the generated report.
• Data Connectors: An SSBI also enables a user to connect to various data sources such as the data warehouses, data centers, and data present in the ERP system of an organization or CRM system.
• Location Intelligence: SSBI should also allow a user to view the various aspects of a business according to spatial and geographical boundaries.
• Personalized Dashboards: A user can design and edit his dashboard according to his needs. A user may keep the most frequently used tools and report types on the top of the dashboard.

Advantages of SSBI

• Better utilization of resources: As SSBI does not require a user to be very practical knowledge, so the IT team of an organization does not need to create queries, or dashboards to execute on the SSBI tool and can be utilized for various other purposes which will save the time and effort of the IT team and can be put to some better productive work.
• Faster Decision Making: SSBI allows users to take quick decisions by analyzing the reports generated which can prove beneficial for a business in real-time.
• Increased agility and flexibility: SSBI functionality is not limited to the creation of reports only. Users can also adapt the reports to their own needs. When data from external sources, such as Excel spreadsheets, CSV files, etc., needs to be integrated into reports, it can be done easily.
• Involves Everyone: SSBI makes sure that each business user can access the data and make interpretations out of it. As the database is decentralized, everyone can access it. As everyone is involved in generating data, SSBI ensures that everyone can visualize the data when needed.
• Lower Costs: SSBI allows for the reduction of costs for a business in the long run. Organizations that use a self-service approach in delivering analytics spend way less on IT support per BI user than those who do without self-service. This lower cost is due to the fact that the visualization tasks can be shifted to normal business users instead of the technically skilled people that charge a lot more than the business users.
• Multiple data sources: An SSBI platform ensures that the data can be used from various sources as the data in a business may not be stored in a central place. Thus data from various sources such as data warehouse, cloud, on-premises data centers, ERP systems, etc. can be used in integration with each other.
• Instant Insights: SSBI allows a business user to obtain the data instantly and generate reports on the go quickly and easily for analysis and making decisions. This saves the time of requesting the IT team for data and reports.
• Mobile Enabled: SSBI software is mobile friendly and allows users to view and generate reports even through mobile devices by connecting to the internet.

Disadvantages of SSBI

• Inaccurate Results: SSBI is particularly used to relieve the burden on the IT department of an organization. It is possible that the end user may not be very experienced in interpreting the BI results and may take the wrong decision due to the wrong interpretation of the visualization.
• Wrong Interpretations: It may be possible that the reports generated through SSBI are spread among multiple users which will lead to different interpretations and cause confusion. The reports may be analyzed very quickly by a new person but the same report can be analyzed in depth by a business analyst or a data scientist.
• Resistance from employees: Employees might fear that the SSBI will take away their jobs and create a sense of insecurity among them. Thus they will try to resist the implementation of the SSBI. Moreover, some employees may also be reluctant to learn to use the tool effectively. This will lead to the wastage of the investment done for SSBI.
• Time Consuming: Sometimes it is possible that the model which needs to be created is quite simple and can be developed in no time but a user might make things complex which consumes more time. Further, it needs to be made secure by adding code to manage the security of the IT team. 
• Licensing Cost: As SSBI is used by a business user independently, organizations need to get a separate license for each user which adds to the licensing costs.
• Wastage of Time: Business users need to learn to use SSBI on their own and thus they do not know how much content to learn. Thus they may end up seeing those BI queries that are not needed for the task they are assigned. This will lead to a waste of human resources as well as time.

SSBI Tools

• Alteryx: This tool helps in data preparation and data blending. It has an easy-to-use interface and allows users to organize, clean, and prepare the data.
• AnswerRocket: This tool helps to get the answers to business problems using natural language and does not require to use of any technical query language. It also supports AI and machine learning and allows us to do an advanced analysis of the data.
• Domo: It is a cloud-based mobile-based SSBI platform. The Domo platform enhances existing data warehouse and BI tools and allows users to build custom apps, automate data pipelines, and make data science accessible to anyone.
• Cognos Analytics: It has been developed by IBM. It provides users with the ability to create dashboards. This software can be hosted on-premises or deployed on the cloud.
• Looker: It is a BI and data analytics platform that is built on LookML, a modeling language developed by Looker. The product’s application for web analytics touts filtering and drilling capabilities, enabling users to dig into row-level details at will. Embedded analytics in Powered by Looker utilizes modern databases and an agile modeling layer that allows users to define data and control access.
• Power BI: It is developed by Microsoft. This tool has proved to be a revolutionary tool in the SSBI industry. It can be used with the help of Azure Cloud. It allows users to do data preparation, data discovery, and dashboards with the same design tool. It also makes it possible to use Office 365 for more control.
• Oracle: This SSBI tool is provided through Oracle Analytics Cloud and features an Oracle Data Visualization Desktop. It can be deployed on-premises or on the Oracle Cloud. This tool provides very advanced features to the users and most of the functionality is provided through drag-and-drop components. Users can also store the snapshots of the reports in their memory.
• Pyramid: It is served through The Analytics OS (Pyramid v2020). It is a server-based, multi-user Analytics OS environment that provides self-service capabilities. It allows the management of data across any environment. The tool enables those users to prepare, model, visualize, analyze, publish, and present data from web browsers and mobile devices.
• Zoho: Zoho Analytics is a self-provider enterprise intelligence and records analysis device that lets you encompass information from multiple resources, combine them collectively, and create cross-practical reports and dashboards. The product has a drag-and-drop builder.
• Salesforce:  It is built upon the Einstein Analytics Platform. It is available in a number of flavors based on role, industry, and included features. It helps users create advanced visualizations using customizable templates, third-party apps, or custom-built dashboards.
• Tableau: It can be accessed through Tableau Desktop. Other available tools are Tableau Prep, Tableau Server, Tableau Online, and Tableau Data Management. It can be used to access various data sources and is available on-premises or in the cloud. It also offers embedded analytics capabilities, and users can visualize and share data with Tableau Public.
• Yellowfin Suite: It is developed by an Australian BI company. It makes use of an ML algorithm called Assisted Insights that provides automatic answers. It has various pre-built dashboards. The company also offers native apps for mobile devices.
• ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot has been heavily promoted by way of synthetic intelligence and automation. it may sound complicated, but the ease of use is the product’s sturdy point to attain records intuitively using a full-stack architecture and in-reminiscence computing engine. The allotted Cluster manager presents configurable scaling options and affords help for present ETL solutions to ensure the right connectivity to the proper data resources. ThoughtSpot embody provides AI seek and analytics immediately from your present database and helps Google Cloud garage.
• TIBCO Spotfire: TIBCO’s product skills range from built-in integrated and API management to visual analytics, report integrated, and built-information process integrated. The built-in BI and analytics portfolio built-in two most important iterations: TIBCO Spotfire and TIBCO Jaspersoft. TIBCO Spotfire is the employer’s greater built-in platform. This built-in visualization, built-in-grade management, and superior analytics. TIBCO Jaspersoft supports integrated reports.
• TARGIT Decision Suite: TARGIT presents a present-day built-in integrated intelligence and analytics platform with built-in integrated competencies the solution works securely on-premises, with built-in integrated cloud, or integrated hosted built-in. TARGIT selection Suite supports all fundamental relational and multidimensional database technologies.

Difference between Power BI and SSBI

Following are the differences between the Power BI and SSBI:

Power BI	SSBI
The IT team is responsible for analyzing and visualizing the data.	The analysis and visualization of the data are performed by the business executives.
The process is time-consuming as the user needs to wait for the results from the IT team.	A business user can make the use of SSBI tool directly and get the results instantly.
The user has to approve the results received from the team.	The user has no need to approve the results as the reports are generated by the user himself.
The IT team is authorized to view and manage the data.	A business user can view the data but the security of data is handled by the IT team.
A business user does not require any training.	A business user is provided with the required training to use the SSBI software.