Jacopo, I still don't think I'm understanding the benefit of this being native in OFBiz as opposed to a cube style integration that mondrian/pentaho/etc might provide?
Obviously additional services will need to be created to denormalize and pick out relevant data regardless of the approach, but that's not really the meat and potatoes that the pentaho stuff is demonstrating. Mondrian is essentially taking relational database views (that can be based on star schemas) and creating the multi-dimensional cube that you're going to be ending up with ultimately if you're planning on using time as a dimension, only mondrian is prepared to take on many more dimensions as well. I understand wanting to benefit from the screen and form widgets, but to utilize multiple dimensions, I imagine you would be creating forms that could only be reused by multidimensional data anyway which is the same place you get with a pentaho integration except with pentaho you're also getting the on the fly query instead of being predefined. I'm really excited about this topic and see my calendar clearing up to be able to help but am afraid my toolbox may not be deep enough to provide help in the direction you're talking about. Which is fine. It just seems like a lot of time spent on something that appears to already exist and have minds that are in the industry of BI contributing to it. I'm still learning the penatho stuff and am by no means an expert, just curious as to what you're seeing on the surface that makes you want to stay inside OFBiz for the solution. --- Jacopo Cappellato <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > David, > > first of all, thanks for the insight, much appreciated. > > David E. Jones wrote: > > > > Jacopo, > > > > I like the idea of this approach, and it's something I've been > thinking > > about for a while. > > > > A good next step might be to do a PoC implementation with maybe > just one > > star schema using a simple-method to do the ETL, and a form widget > to > > report on the data. In that process we'll probably find some things > that > > are ugly and could use some tool extensions. > > > > I agree with you that we should start with a pretty simple PoC > implementation. However, while reading the book "The Datawarehouse > Toolkit" in my (spare?) time I'm taking notes about tool extensions > that > will help to build the datawarehouse; here are a few examples of > these > very preliminary requirements: > > 1) add support in the entity engine for view-entities that are stored > in > the db as sql VIEWs (it seems that we will need many different views > over the same shared dimensions; for example the "Date" dimension, > could > play different roles in the datawarehouse) > > 2) implement util methods to populate the Date dimension (that will > store all the days of the years of interest for the analysis) and the > > Time dimenstion (all the minutes of a day) > > etc... > > > BTW, there are some interesting generic star schemas in the Data > Model > > Resource Book. There is a sales one with some requirements in the > form > > of questions on page 370 of volume 1, and a model diagram on page > 371. > > > > I will definitely have a look at them. > > > The data warehouse entities should go into their own entity group, > a new > > group, with it's own datasource in the OOTB entityengine.xml file. > A > > good group name might be something like org.ofbiz.olap (as opposed > to > > oltp which characterizes most of the current entities. > > > > I agree with everything you write here; by the way Iìd like to > clarify > that the name "olap" here will be used in its original (generic) > meaning > of "Online Analytic Processing" and not to designate the underlying > technology of the db (that in my initial plan will be a relational db > > with star schemas and not an olap db with cubes). > > > Anyway, yeah this would be cool, and we already have a lot of tools > that > > would work really well here. > > > > I will try to write down some notes in the Confluence doc site and > see > if we can get this ball rolling... do you think that the upcoming > conference would be a good chance to speed up things? > > Jacopo > > > -David > > > > > > On Feb 16, 2007, at 12:15 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote: > > > >> Christopher, > >> > >> still nothing official or concrete, as far as I know. > >> I know that Chris Howe did some integration tests with OpenI: > >> http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/0AI > >> > >> I am seriously considering a different approach; while I'm > studying > >> the book "The Datawarehouse Toolkit" > >> (http://ofbiz.apache.org/documents.html), I'm trying to draft out > a > >> proposal for the implementation of base datawarehousing features > in > >> OFBiz (a separate set of entities for dimensions, facts and start > >> schemas; ETL services based on minilang, tools to manage the > >> dimensions tables and synchronization). > >> You'll find some of my notes here: > >> http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/2QI > >> My goal is this: once we have a set of star schemas (facts and > >> dimensions) derived from OFBiz entities and based on best > practices, > >> and the tools to manage the data in them, we could integrate a > visual > >> reporting tool to run reports against them (or just use, with some > > >> improvements the form widgets). > >> It may seem an ambitious plan, but I think that many of the > building > >> blocks to complete it are already in the framework, we'll just > have to > >> improve and fine tune them. > >> If you are interested in helping with this we could try to create > a > >> work group for this... > >> > >> Jacopo > >> > >> Christopher Snow wrote: > >>> Is there any work going on at the moment to build an ofbiz data > >>> warehouse and reporting infrastructure, for example the > integration > >>> of the Pentaho toolset? > >>> Many thanks ... > >>> --This message has been scanned for viruses and > >>> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > >>> believed to be clean. > >> > >> > > > > >
