Closing the Gap between Data Mining and Business Users of Business Intelligence Systems

Abstract

Since Lunh first used the term Business Intelligence (BI) in 1958, major transformations happened in the field of information systems and technologies, especially in the area of decision support systems. BI systems are widely used in organizations and their importance is recognized. These systems present themselves as essential parts of a complete knowledge of business and an irreplaceable tool in the support to decision making. The dissemination of data mining (DM) tools is increasing in the BI field, as well as the acknowledgment of the relevance of its usage in enterprise BI systems. BI tools are friendly, iterative, and interactive, allowing business users an easy access. The user can manipulate directly data, having the ability to extract all the value contained into that business data. Problems noted in the use of DM in the field of BI is related to the fact that DM models are complex in order to be directly manipulated by business users, not including BI tools. The nonexistence of BI tools allowing business users the direct manipulation of DM models was identified as the problem. More of these issues, possible solutions and conclusions are presented in this article.

Extending QMBE Language with Clustering

“…QMBE (Azevedo & Santos, 2012a;Azevedo & Santos, 2012b), which stands for Query-Models-By-Example, is a DM language based in the philosophy of QBE languages, above introduced. QMBE was developed as an extension of QBE languages, allowing business users to directly interact with the DM models, and to construct queries as a way to obtain answers to ad-hoc business questions.…”

“…Linking concepts related with QBE languages and with DM languages, a new DM language for BI, named as Query-Models-By-Example (QMBE) was conceived and implemented (Azevedo & Santos, 2012a). This new language previously developed by the authors of this paper is, by nature, user-friendly, iterative, and interactive.…”

“…A query on models and data is used in this example. A complete description of the language is presented in Azevedo and Santos (2012a)…”

“…With this in mind, the authors conceived and implementes a DM language, named as Query-Models-By-Example (QMBE), which is iterative and interactive in nature, thus allowing final business users to access and manipulate DM models. (Azevedo & Santos, 2012a;Azevedo & Santos, 2012b). Despite the importance of this language, it only addresses classification rules.…”