CIS 624 Fall 2003 Assignment 1 – Cognos OLAP Software
Due: Start of Class on
09/25/02
Task:
There
is a multidimensional data cube available called “Great Outdoors” on a La Salle
computer science www server. Access it and the Cognos PowerPlay software by
accessing http://www.lasalle.edu/~redmond/teach/624
then looking for “research materials”, then for Cognos software. Following that
link will bring you into PowerPlay with a choice of data cubes. Use the “Great
Outdoors” link for this assignment!!
There are 9 tasks described below. Hand in a printout for each.
Many also ask questions of you – answer those. We will have ½ of the
evening for you to work on the assignment – please ask questions if it is
unclear what a task is (generally they are looking into parts of the
hypothetical business that seemed interesting). Please put your name on all
printouts.
Details:
- Outdoor
Product sales revenues are down. Show revenues by outdoor product subcategories
by year. Question: What subcategory experienced the largest
revenue decline (in $, not by percent) between 1996 and 1997?
- Overall
revenues change over the two years is showing mixed results across
different locations. Show a clustered bar graph illustrating the change in
revenues over the two years by world region. Make sure that the graph
emphasizes the desired info!! (i.e. make it EASY to determine the
answer) Question:
What world region had relatively flat revenues over the time period?
- Biggest
revenues are though “Camping Chains”. Show the top 5 camping chains by
total revenues (for both years combined) ordered by total revenues. (Have
years go across) Question: What is the difference in total
revenues between the #1 and #2 selling camping chains? (calculate this by
hand based on info in the table).
- We are
interested in how things are going via the GO Outlets in the Americas.
Show by product category (going down), by year (going across), revenues
via GO Outlets in the Americas. Question: Which category has
the highest revenues total over the two year period?
- Show
the same revenues as a percent of total 2 yr revenues for the category
(e.g. values in the “outdoor products” row would be the percent of the
total “outdoor products” revenues for the two year period) Question: Which category
has the highest percentage of its revenues from GO Outlets in the Americas
in 1997?
- Returning
to overall revenues in dollars (all products, all locations, …), show
a line graph, showing quarterly revenues for the whole two
year period for each of the 3 product categories. Make sure your graph
emphasizes trends over time.
- Show
Environmental Line product subcategory revenues (going down), broken down
into locations (nested within subcategories, going down), by Year (going
across).
- There
seems to be a huge increase in revenues of bio-friendly soaps in the
Americas. Show revenues for bio-friendly soaps, by soap kind (going down)
– show country (within the Americas only) (nested within soap kind, going
down) by year (going across). Question: What soap/country
combination contributes most
towards the increase in dollars of revenues we are investigating?
- Question:
What city within the U.S. is most responsible for the big jump of
RiverKind Soap revenues in the U.S. in 1997? Show RiverKind Soap revenues by city (going down) and year
(within the U.S. only) (going across)