Top 5 Questions Customers Ask About Fusion Data Intelligence

Here at Apps Associates, we have implemented Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence numerous times and have worked and are working with many other clients who are evaluating Fusion Data Intelligence.  We are often asked questions about Fusion Data Intelligence and we thought it would be helpful to document the Top 5 questions we get from our clients about Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence.

1. What is included with Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence (FDI)? 
   • Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence (FDI) is a bundled product from Oracle – meaning it includes multiple Oracle products in one ‘bundle’ or Stock Keeping Unit (SKU).
   • The Oracle FA bundle includes:
     1. Prebuilt Data Pipeline to extract data from Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps and load it into the FA data warehouse.  Oracle owns, maintains, upgrades and tests this data pipeline.  
     2. Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse (ADW) – full license with full capabilities – not a limited use license.  This is the data warehouse that receives the Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps data extracted by the prebuilt data pipeline.  In ADW, the ‘raw data’ from Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps is transformed by Oracle into a clean star schema data model to support efficient reporting and self-service analytics.
     3. Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) – full license with full capabilities – not a limited use license.  OAC is used for reporting against the data in the FA data warehouse (ADW).  
     4. Prebuilt KPI’s, Metrics, Reports and Dashboards – Oracle provides literally hundreds of prebuilt Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), metrics, reports and dashboards with each module of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence.
   • At present, there are 4 modules of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence – each of which are sold and licensed separately and have their own SKU:
     1. Fusion ERP Analytics
     2. Fusion SCM Analytics
     3. Fusion HCM Analytics
     4. Fusion CX Analytics.
2. Can we develop custom reports in Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence and can Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence be extended to include other, non-Oracle data sources?
   1. Yes – custom KPI’s, metrics, reports and dashboards can be developed in Fusion Data Intelligence.  Although developing custom KPI’s, metrics, reports and dashboards from scratch is fully supported in FDI, what we see more often is our clients starting with an out-of-the-box (OOTB) KPI or report and modifying it to reflect the unique aspects of their company (which is, of course, fully supported).
   2. Yes – Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence can be extended to include non-Oracle data sources.  You may recall in #1 above that I mentioned that the data for Fusion Data Intelligence is stored in Oracle ADW.  Well, ADW is a world class cloud data warehouse and data from any source can be loaded into ADW – and it is no different with ADW as a part of FA – data from any data source can be loaded into the ADW that is part of FDI.  Perhaps even more importantly, however, after the non Oracle data is loaded into FA’s ADW, Oracle provides a straightforward, browser-based utility to allow clients to join non Oracle data with Cloud Fusion Apps data from a data model and subject area standpoint. This allows reporting across Oracle Cloud Fusion data and non Oracle Cloud Fusion data in a seamless fashion.
3. Roughly how long does it take and what is the process for implementing Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence?
   1. Apps Associates provides a ‘Quick Start’ offering to get customers up and running quickly on Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence.  We will implement a single module of FDI in 6 weeks, any two modules in 8 weeks and any three modules in 12 weeks.  Please note that these timeframes do not include integration of non Oracle data sources into FDI’s ADW.
   2. The FDI implementation process is included in our ‘Quick Start Offering’ and is as follows:
      • Provision Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence instance
      • Create and associate users and groups (IDCS)
      • Configure security rules
      • Validate Cloud ERP/SCM/HCM/CX configuration parameters for Fusion Data Intelligence’s OOTB KPI’s
      • Configure Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence and the prebuilt data pipeline
      • Execute the FDI data pipeline to extract data from Cloud ERP/SCM/HCM/CX and load it into FDI’s ADW
      • Validate the OOTB KPI’s, metrics, reports and dashboards
      • Conduct User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
      • Conduct End User Training and Knowledge Transition to the going forward operational team
      • Plan for and execute migration to production for FDI
          
4. Doesn’t Oracle Cloud ERP/SCM/HCM already have everything I need for reporting and analytics?   Why do I need Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence?
   • Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps have taken a giant leap forward with respect to reporting vs Oracle’s on premises versions like EBS, Peoplesoft and JDE.
   • Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps include Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) which enables reporting directly against the data in Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps.  For OTBI, the subject areas are defined and maintained by Oracle.
   • Customers find OTBI to be very helpful for operational reporting – especially any reporting that needs to be real time.
   • However, the OTBI subject areas cannot be modified by the end users and it is difficult to do cross-subject area analysis with OTBI.  OTBI is not able to access any data outside of Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps and OTBI struggles in terms of performance as data volume grows over time.
   • Companies are seeing the value of Fusion Data Intelligence in the areas of strategic performance reporting, drill down analytics by analysts to uncover hidden insights, cross-subject area analytics, seamless trend reporting across current and historical data , reporting and analysis across multiple Oracle and non-Oracle data sources and flexibility to create KPI’s and reports of any kind using any data.
5. Oracle Cloud ERP/SCM/HCM are updated quarterly by Oracle.  Will I have to retest FDI’s data pipeline, KPI’s and reports each quarter?  Does Oracle help with that?
   • Customers of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence do not have to worry about maintaining or testing the prebuilt data pipeline as the Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps are upgraded over time.  Before a new enhancement is added to Oracle Cloud Fusion Apps, Oracle will test the impact of the enhancement on the prebuilt FDI data pipeline.  If any updates are required to the prebuilt data pipeline as a result of the Cloud App enhancement, Oracle will make those changes and test them. 
   • The confidence that comes with knowing that your data pipeline will not gradually become obsolete over time is one of the main benefits of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence. 

About the Author

Myles is the Vice President of Data, Analytics and AI at Apps Associates. He has 30 years of experience designing, building and deploying large scale data warehousing and business intelligence systems. Myles is a thought leader in the area of data strategy, modern data architecture and advanced analytics and frequently speaks at industry conferences. Before getting back into consulting about 9 years ago, he held senior executive positions in the Financial Services and Medical Device industries. Myles has significant international experience having served in Director roles in Tokyo, London and Hong Kong. He specializes in helping companies extract value from their data and transform themselves into data-driven organizations.