Pentaho Business Analytics workflow

Pentaho Business Analytics is a combined business analytics and data integration platform that allows business users, data scientists, and IT administrators to easily access, explore, and visualize their data. Pentaho empowers business users to make information-driven decisions that positively impact their organization’s performance, data scientists to use a full-spectrum of tools to create robust data models, and IT to rapidly deliver a secure, scalable, flexible, and easy to manage business analytics platform for the broadest set of users.

Workflow stages

Use these sections to move from evaluation to production:

• Evaluate and learn Pentaho Business Analytics

• Develop your BA environment

• Go live for production - BA

Evaluate and learn Pentaho Business Analytics

As you explore Pentaho Business Analytics, you will be introduced to the major components, watch videos, work through hands-on examples, and learn about the different features.

Go at your own pace. Feel free to dig into the documentation or to contact Pentaho sales support if you have questions.

Use the sections below to get familiar with Business Analytics:

• Tour the User Console and create your first reports

• Explore and learn data source basics

• Learn about Report Designer

• Discover more about Pentaho Business Analytics

• Next steps

Tour the User Console and create your first reports

The User Console is a web-based design environment where you can analyze data, create interactive reports, dashboard reports, and build integrated dashboards to share business intelligence solutions with others in your organization and on the internet. In addition to its design features, the User Console offers a wide variety of system administration features for configuring the Pentaho Server, managing Pentaho licenses, setting up security, managing report scheduling, and tailoring system performance to meet your requirements.

If you have installed the trial download on your laptop or desktop machine, you are ready to get started exploring. If you have the software installed on a server, and want to use your machine to point to it, see Develop your BA environment for details.

Lesson	Do This	Notes
Tour the User Console	Quick tour of the Pentaho User Console	Understand the features of the User Console View the sample reports on the Samples tab of the Getting Started section
Create Your First Reports and Dashboards	Getting Started with Analyzer, Interactive Reports, and Dashboard Designer	Created and saved an Interactive Report Created and saved an Analysis Report Created and saved a custom Dashboard
Schedule Your Report	Learn about scheduling reports. See the Pentaho Business Analytics document for details.	Scheduled a report to run and email automatically. Received your report through email after the schedule runs.

Explore and learn data source basics

If you have already worked with the Steel Wheels sample data and want to learn how to create your own data sources and data models with Pentaho, use the Data Source Wizard. The Data Source Wizard helps you define a data source that contains the data you want to use and guides you through the creation of your evaluation data model for use in creating reports.

After you define a data source, you can make it available to other evaluators so they can create reports and analysis by simply picking the data source from the data source list. Any number of reports can be created using a single data source.

Lesson	Do This	Notes
Create Your First Data Source	Create a Data Source Tour the Data Source Wizard See Pentaho Business Analytics for instructions.	Understand how the Pentaho Server and Data Source Wizard work together to create usable data sources and data models. Explore the Data Source Wizard interface. Learn the basics of creating a data source using the Data Source Wizard.
Choose Data Source Types	Choose a data source type See Pentaho Business Analytics for instructions.	Learn about the different data source types supported by the Data Source Wizard. We recommend using a CSV data source for evaluation.
Create Your First CSV Data Source	Create a CSV data source See Pentaho Business Analytics for instructions.	Import a CSV data file using the Data Source Wizard. Create the CSV data source. We recommend creating a report using this new CSV data source, then refining the data model with the Data Source Model Editor as needed.
Refine Your Data Source Model	Edit multidimensional data source models. See Pentaho Business Analytics for instructions.	(Optional) Edit your evaluation data source model using the Data Source Model Editor.
Inline Model Editing	Read Working with Analyzer measures in the Pentaho Business Analytics document.	Learn how to edit your data models while working in Analyzer.
Learn about Streamlined Data Refinery	Learn how to work with Streamlined Data Refinery See Pentaho Data Integration for instructions.	Learn how Streamlined Data Refinery works.

Learn about Report Designer

Pentaho Report Designer is a report creation tool that you can use by itself, or as part of the Pentaho Suite. It allows professionals to create print-quality reports based on data from virtually any type of data source.

These resources in the Pentaho Report Designer document will help you get familiar with the Report Designer interface, and guide you through the creation and publishing of a print-quality report.

Lesson	Section in document	Notes
Explore the Report Designer Interface	Explore Report Designer	Tour the Report Designer interface before you begin building reports.
Report Designer Workflow Overview	Learn about Report Designer workflow	Look over the workflow concepts for Report Designer.
Create Your First Report	Create your first print-quality report	Create a report. Add a chart and parameters to your report. View and then publish your report.
Refine the Look of Your Report	Design print-quality reports	Explore more advanced features of Report Designer, beginning with report elements.
Add a PDI Data Source	Add a PDI data source	Add a PDI data source and use it to create a report in Report Designer.

Discover more about Pentaho Business Analytics

• The Pentaho Analyzer, Interactive Reports, and Dashboard Designer plugins provide in-depth details about creating eye-catching business intelligence deliverables for your user community. See the Pentaho Business Analytics document for details.

• If you are a system administrator, check out the Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics document. Both have details on configuring and administering your Pentaho Server using the User Console, as well as a section on the variety of things you can do to maintain your server manually.

Next steps (evaluation)

• Contact Pentaho to learn more about how Business Analytics can be tailored to meet your business needs.

• Continue with Develop your BA environment.

Develop your BA environment

This workflow outlines how to set up a Pentaho Server for BA development. It also covers how to build, refine, and test BA content.

This workflow is similar to the Trial Download Evaluation experience. The difference is you configure the server fully. You also work with your own report designers and data scientists. You can also engage Pentaho professional services.

Before you start, consider Pentaho training classes. Training helps you install and configure the server. Training also helps you build data models and BA applications.

Set up your Pentaho Server

Use this checklist to verify requirements. Then install and configure the Pentaho Server and BA design tools.

Verify system requirements

• Review required components in Components Reference.

• Review required drivers in JDBC drivers reference.

• Acquire one or more servers that meet requirements.

• Obtain the correct drivers for your system.

Obtain software and install the Pentaho Server

• Download the Pentaho software from your Sales Support representative.

• Install the software using Install the 30-day trial of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Sign in using Quick tour of the Pentaho User Console.

• Tour Administration.

• Change the default administrator password.

Change the Pentaho Server fully qualified URL

• Follow Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics instructions to change the server URL.

• If multiple machines point to one server, confirm all clients use the new URL.

Configure the Pentaho Server

• Manage licenses. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Configure server data connections. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Configure email for scheduled reports. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Review schedule management. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

Configure BA design tools

Do this only on a development system. Do not configure design tools on your production server.

• Configure design tools and utilities. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Configure each tool’s data connections. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

Import data sources and data models

Create data sources and models that support agile BA development.

Choose data source types

• Choose a data source type. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Review relational versus multidimensional models.

Create data sources and models

• Tour the Data Source Wizard. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Learn how the server and wizard produce usable sources and models.

Create database table data sources

• Create a database table source. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Create initial data sources and preliminary models.

Learn about Mondrian schemas

• Create and modify Mondrian schemas. See Pentaho Schema Workbench.

• Add a Mondrian data source.

• Adapt the schema for Analyzer.

• Refine the schema in Schema Workbench.

Create reports and further refine data models

Work with data scientists and business analysts at this stage. This improves the quality of models and reports.

As you prepare to move to production, use data sources from:

• Pentaho Schema Workbench

• Pentaho Metadata Editor

Create Analyzer reports, Interactive reports, and dashboards

• Follow Pentaho Business Analytics instructions.

• Create Interactive and Analyzer reports.

• Create a dashboard.

• Verify results match what you need.

• If needed, refine models with your data team.

Create a report with Report Designer (optional)

• Follow Pentaho Report Designer instructions.

Refine your data source model

• Edit multidimensional models. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Refine Mondrian schemas. See Pentaho Schema Workbench.

• Refine relational models. See Pentaho Metadata Editor.

• Recreate reports to validate changes.

• Repeat until results meet requirements.

Test environment quality

If you do quality assurance testing, upload content to the Pentaho Repository. Then download it to the QA server. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics for details.

Some organizations also run user acceptance testing after QA.

Next steps (development)

• Investigate security. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Plan scheduling for production. See Pentaho Business Analytics.

• Decide what content to promote to production. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.

• Check the Support Portal for service packs.

• Prepare to Go live for production - BA.

Go live for production - BA

This section explains how to move Pentaho content and server settings between servers.

This process usually uses two or three servers with identical configurations:

• BA content development

• Testing and QA (optional)

• Production

We recommend working with Pentaho professional services during production deployment.

Prepare for going live

This section has two parts:

• A checklist for setting up a Pentaho Server

• Prerequisites to complete before you go live

If your production server is already set up, start with the prerequisites.

Pentaho Server setup checklist

Task	Do this	Notes
Verify system requirements	Consult: - Components Reference - JDBC drivers reference	- Acquire one or more servers that meet requirements. - Obtain the correct drivers.
Obtain software and install the Pentaho Server	- Install Pentaho Suite. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Download and install the latest service pack. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Access the User Console. See Pentaho Business Analytics.	- Install the software. - Install the latest service pack. - Access the User Console, review Administration, and change the default administrator password. If needed, change the fully qualified URL for the Pentaho Server.
Change the server fully qualified URL	Change the Pentaho Server fully qualified URL if needed. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.	If many machines point to one server, change the URL and verify connectivity.
Configure the server	- Manage licenses. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Specify data connections. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Set up email for scheduled reports. See Pentaho Business Analytics.	- Set up data connections. - Configure email through Administration.

Prerequisites before you go live

Task	Do this	Notes
Compare configuration files	- Compare server configuration files. - Verify and increase memory settings. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.	- Identify configuration differences. - Commit a unified properties file to version control. - Increase memory settings as needed.
Verify data sources	- Specify data connections. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Define JNDI connections. See Install Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.	- Confirm data sources can be promoted. - Establish JNDI sources as replacements if needed.
Define security	- Define Pentaho Server security. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics. - Manage users and roles. See Pentaho Business Analytics. - Implement advanced security. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.	- Implement security. - Define users, roles, and permissions.
Upload content	Upload and download from the Pentaho Repository. See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics.	- Upload files and folders.

Compare configuration files

The most important server configuration settings are stored in the /server/pentaho-server/pentaho-solutions/system/ directory.

Some core settings are also inside the Pentaho WAR archive deployed to your application server. These settings should not change after initial setup.

Do not change the names of content files, data sources, solution directories, or other file names during promotion.

Set names during solution development. Keep names consistent through promotion.

Renaming can cause issues that you will not detect immediately. This can break QA and production content.

To ensure you selected all server configuration files, compare these directories in full:

• /pentaho-solutions/system/

• /WEB-INF/ inside your deployed pentaho.war

• /META-INF/ inside your deployed pentaho.war

Plugin directories for Analyzer, Dashboard Designer, Interactive Reports, and Community Dashboard Framework include binaries.

Binary differences usually indicate version differences. Focus on XML and properties files.

If you customized plugins, promote those changes too.

Move content to production server

This checklist summarizes best practices to promote Pentaho Server settings, data sources, and content.

Before you promote from development to production, complete the preparation and prerequisite tasks earlier in this page.

Task	Do this	Notes
Download content	- Upload and download from the Pentaho Repository.	- Move all desired content to production. - See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics for details.
Set up schedules and blockout times	- Manage schedules. - Prevent scheduling by setting blockout times.	- Set up production schedules. - Set up blockout times for maintenance. - See Pentaho Business Analytics for details.

Next steps (production)

These resources are helpful after your production server is live:

• See Administer Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics for guidance on maintenance and tuning.

• Pentaho Training and Education

• Support Portal for service packs