Training - Course Description

Course:
Pentaho Agile BI

Course Number: SLN3000
Audience: Technical users who create reports and dashboards using established data models, including: Report Designers, Technical Business Analysts, and Power Users
Level: Introductory – This course is intended for customers new to Pentaho Business Analytics
Delivery Method: Instructor-led online, private on-site (please contact us for on-site pricing)
Duration: 1 Day
Public Training Cost: USD $650 (1 credit)
Course Placement: This course is the third course in the Content Creator learning path. It is intended for customers who have had some previous exposure to Pentaho Business Analytics and are interested in agile solution development.

Course Schedule:

In the schedule below, click the course title for detailed information on the class, click the provider link for information on the authorized training provider, or click the Register Now link to enroll.

Location Language Provider Date/Time Availability
Online English Register Now
Online English Register Now
Online English Register Now

Note: All courses provided by Pentaho-EMEA are offered in the Central European time zone. All US courses (provided by Pentaho) are offered in the Eastern time zone. Beginning in July, 2013, all US courses will be offered in the Central time zone.

Course Overview:

Agile BI represents a new approach to prototyping and validating business intelligence solutions. With Pentaho Agile Business Intelligence, users are able to collapse a multi-step and lengthy BI project cycle into a single integrated process, collaborate and iterate easily, and quickly drive to full deployment. By enabling analysts and end-users to rapidly examine, manipulate, model and visualize business data, Agile BI accelerates the discovery of new information and helps organizations establish the value of BI projects before committing to long-term investments.

Using a combination of instructor-led presentations and hands-on exercises, this course presents Agile BI using the Pentaho unified data integration, data modeling and data visualization development environment.

Course Benefits:

  • Learn how to simplify complex BI implementations using a single design environment that unifies data integration, data modeling, and data visualization
  • Enable seamless collaboration between developers and business users using Agile-enabled tools
  • Use Agile BI to dramatically reduce “time-to-value” and to ease the difficulty of building and deploying Business Intelligence solutions
  • Interactive, hands-on training materials significantly improve skill development and maximize retention

Skills Achieved:

At the completion of this course, you should be able to:

  • Identify the architecture of the Pentaho platform
  • Define Agile BI and identify how Agile BI can be leveraged to develop your Business Intelligence solutions
  • Use Pentaho Analyzer to create analytical reports
  • Create reports using Pentaho Interactive Reporting
  • Visualize and develop data analysis and reporting models
  • Use Pentaho Data Integration to create simple transformations
  • Use Pentaho Dashboard Designer to create graphical views of your data

Course Prerequisites:

It is recommended that customers have some prior exposure to Pentaho Business Analytics before taking this course, but this is not required. Some knowledge of relational database systems is preferred but is also not required.

Course Requirements:

Online courses require a broadband Internet connection, the use of a modern Web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox), and the ability to connect to the WebEx Training Center. For more information on WebEx Training Center requirements, see http://www.webex.com. Online courses use Pentaho’s cloud-based exercise environment. Students are provided access to a virtual machine used to complete the exercises.

For online courses, students are provided with a secured, electronic course manual. Printed manuals are not provided for online courses. When an electronic manual is provided, students are encouraged to print the exercise book before class begins, though this is not required.

Students attending this course on-site should contact their Customer Success Manager for hardware and software requirements. You can also email us at training@pentaho.com for more information regarding on-site training requirements.

Course Agenda:

Day 1

Module 1: What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence defined
Why BI projects fail - the problems
Abandonment

Module 2: What is Agile BI?

Why should you take an Agile approach?
What are the expected benefits?
How does Agile BI fit into IT?

Using Module 3: Using Pentaho Data Integration to Create an Analytic Environmen

PDI basics
Logging in/ Repository
Data Connections
What are steps/Drag and Drop
Hops – Data Flow
Input Steps: CSV, Excel, Flat Files Access
Output Steps: CSV, Excel, Table Output
Creating a database table from a spreadsheet

Module 4: Saving the Analytic Environment

Objective— At the end of this session the student will be comfortable logging into the Pentaho User Console, running and scheduling reports.

Logging in and using the Pentaho User Console
The workspace
Toggle bar

Module 5: Analyzer Reports

Objective— At the end of this session the student will be able to create and save a report with filters, calculations, totals and charts.

Available field pane
Types of fields
Field panel
Types of filters
Calculations, totals and sorting
Displaying grand totals and subtotals
Displaying totals as average, min, and max
Creating new calculated fields
Charting
Help

Module 6: Ad-Hoc Reporting

Objective— At the end of this session the student will be able to view and report from their analytic data model using the ad-hoc reporting.

What is a metadata model
Saving a metadata model
Using the report wizard
Saving the report
Scheduling/e-mailing the report

Module 7: Creating Customized Dashboards

Objective— At the end of this session the student will be able to create a rich variety of dashboards and save them using the Pentaho Dashboard Designer.

Starting the dashboard
Template, themes, adding a dashboard title
Creating a data connection
Creating a tabular report
Creating charts – pie, bar, area, line, dial
Inserting a file into the dashboard
Inserting a URL into the dashboard

Module 8: Going Forward

Objective— At the end of this session the student will understand the steps involved in getting the analytic environment into production.

The road to production
Setting expectations
When are you ready for a formal BI project?
Earning the right to invest in BI based on demonstrated value
What are the required investments? What will they cost?
Dimensional modeling
Deployment scenarios
Hosting / on-premise
Staffing scenarios
Connectivity
Implementing production ETL (server-side PDI)
Roles / responsibilities / tasks