One of the biggest challenges Business Intelligence architects face today is user adoption. As architects we have to ask ourselves what are we doing wrong. At times we have the BusinessObjects infrastructure and tools in place but no one seems to be using them. Unfortunately there are is no silver bullet for this issue, but there are things we can do that when added together can start to have an impact.
One place to start is by pulling some system stats on user activity. You can write some admin tool queries or use a tool like Sherlock® to pull this type of information. Next, start interviewing some of the users who have access but never use it to find out why. Here are some examples of answers you might hear:
- I got logged in but did not know what to do after that
- I needed it when I requested access but it took so long to get it that I had already solved my problem another way and just never went back to it
- Business Objects has some of the data I need but not all of it so I can not use it
- I was having a problem doing something and could not find anyone to help me
- I have backend access and Microsoft Access so I don’t need use InfoView
- I had a report built that i was using for awhile but we don’t need it anymore so I don’t use it
Over the next several weeks we are going to take deep dives into approaches for dealing with all of these problems and a few others. Some of the topics will be theoretical and some of them include hands on examples. Some of the upcoming topics will include:
- Finding and assimilating your Microsoft Access super users
- Excel in the garden of good and evil
- Adding new users: don’t lose them before they start
- Business Objects Support Desk: whats that?
- User Focused Business Objects Training
Please check back for the latest installment or follow me on Twitter to be notified when the next installment is available.
Chris Greer
EV Technologies Guest Blogger