Assignment Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) Paper

Introduction

Assume your organization sells cars and there are 5 models of cars. The company sells all over the United States and so the organization is broken down into regions of the country which include East, West and Central. Further, each region has multiple dealerships that sells cars and each dealership has many salespeople. If you wanted to find total sales for the company or a region you could simply query the database. Because this data is made up of multiple facets (different models of cars, different regions, different dealerships, different sale people), if you want to delve further into analyzing the data, such as comparing dealership sales and within region by model, you would need to look at these different aspects of the data for comparison. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a concept used just for this purpose. PivotTables are a good example of an OLAP technology.

Instructions

Write a 2 page paper on the concept of OLAP. Summarize an example of a dataset that could be used for OLAP. Compare and contrast OLAP to database querying. Explain the benefits of using OLAP to analyze data for the example youve presented. Last, expand on how PivotTables and PivotCharts fit the mode of being an OLAP tool.

Writing Requirements

        2 pages (approx. 400 words per page), not including title page or references page

        Cite 2 different sources in paper

Tips for Success

Instead of just Googling for answers try using an University Library databases and/or library guide for this course.

Weekly Learning Goal(s): [No.2]

2.    Evaluate how PivotTables and PivotCharts, which is based on the concept of Online Analytical Processing, can be used in business to analyze data to aid in decision making. (CLO #5)