Augmented Reality, Skype, icalendar and Custom Visualizations for MicroStrategy Mobile Ben Craigo 29 Jan, 2013
Brief Overview of InfoCepts
Helping Our Customers Derive Value from their Data since 2004 High Quality Low Cost Global Delivery Model with Savings Up to 40% Over 370 people devoted to delivering Business Analytics and Information Management Solutions 370 Founded and led by BI professionals We have one of the largest number of MicroStrategy Consultants worldwide Focus on culture and excellence 3
Our Global Presence Canada Ireland Netherlands Ukraine USA Gibraltar Israel India Singapore Australia South Africa 4
Our Services Data Management BI Strategic Services BI Application Development & Management Data Governance & Enterprise Information Business Analytics Stewardship Strategy and Planning Text Analytics Data Quality BI Metrics Management Predictive Analytics Data Integration BI Centers of Excellence BI Application Customization Unstructured Data Program Administration and Integration Integration Services Technology Managed Metadata Management Service Oriented Services Master Data Management Architecture Program/Project Data Analysis Master Data Management Management Data Design B2B Integration Messaging End-to-End BI Services Portfolio 5
Technologies BI Data Integration Databases MicroStrategy, IBM Cognos, Microsoft BI, Pentaho, Spotfire, Tableau Informatica, SQL Scripts, SSIS, ODI, Talend, Composite, Kettle, Teiid Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM Netezza, Teradata, DB2, Greenplum, AsterData, Vertica, PostGreSQL Custom MicroStrategy SDK, Cognos SDK, Java,.NET, Flex, Objective C, Yahoo YUI, Load UI, SOAP UI, Puppet Scripts, Groovy, EXT JS, Apache Siddi /Maven Big Data Specialized Hadoop, Hive, Map-Reduce, Cloudera, Riak, Apache Flume, Cassandra TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks, SPSS, Clarabridge Text Mining Platform, Rapid Miner, Rapid Analytics, RDataMining, RobotLegs Flex 6
Industries Retail Healthcare Telecom Insurance Education Online Media Pharmaceuticals Financial Services Hospitality 7
Our Current Services and Solutions Services BI Application Development and Support Data Integration and Information Management Data Visualization Custom BI Development Data Quality and Testing Solutions Mobile BI Design and Development Dashboard Design and Development Big Data BI Application Management and Optimization BI Extranets 8
Extending MicroStrategy Mobile platform for High ROI
Mobile BI Evolution Advanced Features Standard Reports and Dashboards Transactions and Collaboration Write-back capability Integrating business enabling mobile apps Location Awareness View charts and reports Real-time data refresh Offline Access Advanced Visualizations Augmented Reality Drill-down, Filtering, etc. 10
MicroStrategy is ranked #1 amongst Mobile BI vendors Source: Dresner Mobile Computing / Business Intelligence Market Study 2013 11
Extending MicroStrategy Mobile BI When your users need more than just Out of the box Enterprise Integration Custom Navigations and Workflows Business Specific Visualizations Additional advanced features for end users 12
Extending MicroStrategy Mobile BI How we achieve it @ InfoCepts? PROCESSES EXPERTISE WHAT YOU GET Custom Mobile BI and Analytics program Data Visualization & Storyboarding Agile BI Methodologies and Adaptability MicroStrategy Web & Mobile SDK App Development Frameworks Core MicroStrategy Development Extended MicroStrategy Mobile App Aligned with your business requirements & Enterprise Ecosystem 13
Extending MicroStrategy Mobile BI What it takes? Effort required Based on what you choose to customize and extent of customization Approximately 30-40% more for standard extension per dashboard Maintenance Usually low. Additional effort for potential changes in the MicroStrategy API Support ~80% of support needs can be handled by MicroStrategy developers For advanced support scenarios New Visualizations, workflow or add-on functionality MicroStrategy Mobile SDK developers are needed 14
MicroStrategy Extensions - Skype, icalendar, Logout and Offline functionalities
Sales Rep App Use Case A field sales representative has to meet several clients daily Call planning and scheduling is a big challenge Needs to submit call reports immediately Needs to manage logistics as schedule changes dynamically Needs to collaborate with colleagues/ vendors on the fly Data access and security is very important 20
Extending MicroStrategy Mobile BI Logout icalendar Skype Click to call Offline Functionality 21
Logout When a field sales rep works in a multi tenant environment, where the device is shared amongst sales reps. Information security is important for the sales reps. Log out functionality provides information security Efforts: The custom logout functionality built with MicroStrategy Mobile SDK Back of the code, the session gets killed from server and cache related to that session on device gets wiped out and hence the information is secured Benefits: Ability to maintain security of the information in shared devices Supports offline mode. In offline mode, the logout feature allows the app to close and navigates to iphone/ipad Home Screen In offline mode any other user (other than the one who just logged out) won t be able to login to the device 22
Skype Click to call Field Sales reps are always on the move and need information about the prospect or inputs from colleagues. Skype can be used to make calls Efforts : Pass parameterized value (mobile number) and code from MicroStrategy to invoke Skype app No MicroStrategy customization required Benefits: On tap of a mobile number driven from MicroStrategy report grid / value pops up Skype app and dials the number clicked from the app Pre-requisite is to have Skype installed on your device with sufficient amount / plan in your Skype account to make the calls 23
icalendar Field Sales representative need to create new appointments with the prescriber. icalendar adds the appointment to the calendar of the iphone / ipad device Efforts: Create MicroStrategy widget using mobile SDK with add and delete call / event from calendar Integration of widget with dashboard Widget needs to be deployed across all environments Benefits: Keeps a track of all events and appointments, Can check for conflicts with other appointments. Can support features like Alarm, reminders, recurring events Can sync up with icloud or Microsoft SharePoint There are no pre-requisite to have icalendar on device as Calendar comes as a built in app 24
Offline Functionality Sales field representatives need to visit locations where connectivity is poor where the network signals are blocked for safety reasons (like hospitals) Efforts: Implement using selectors instead of prompts No MicroStrategy customizations Benefits: Ability to navigate and see data for all the screens in offline mode. Perform any operations like transactions. Transactions completed in offline mode will be submitted as soon as user comes online Pre-requisite Pre-cache all the documents upfront Offline mode does not support rendering of maps as it requires active connection to the server 25
InfoCepts AVID (Advanced Visualizations and Interactive Displays) Program
Advanced Visualizations are among the top BI priorities for Enterprises Source: Dresner Business Intelligence Market Study 2013 27
Advanced Visualization and Interactive Displays (AVID) A custom visualization library for MicroStrategy Mobile App A set of visualizations which are not available out of the box with MicroStrategy Built as native Apple ipad widgets Business specific use cases for complex data analysis Available as built in MicroStrategy visualization option Adhoc visualizations as per customer needs 28
Advanced Visualization and Interactive Displays (AVID) 29
Methodology Select a business use case Generic use case Business specific use case Identify visualization Third party/open source if available Build from Scratch Develop a fully customizable interactive visualization Integrate it with MicroStrategy through Custom Mobile framework and SDK Reporting Custom Widget creation Ready for Use 30
Architecture Extended MicroStrategy app AVID Engine AR Engine MicroStrategy MicroStrategy Mobile Server MicroStrategy iserver MicroStrategy Document AVID Custom Widget MicroStrategy Report MicroStrategy Metadata 31
Technologies D3 JS 32
Demo/Video 33
Limitations and Challenges Limitations Each widget needs a defined dataset and set of attributes and metrics in predefined order Challenges MicroStrategy Integration Dataset creation and parsing 34
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality technology is ready for the enterprise According to Gartner, the adoption of Augmented Reality (AR) technology will increase dramatically in the next five years AR implementation categories Location-based : A device uses sensors to provide information based on a user s location Examples Identifying next best prospects in an area Identifying retail outlets in a neighbourhood Identifying location of an object in a warehouse using barcode or QR code Computer vision: Tracking sensors identify an object and provide information on it 36
AR has become one of the Mobile BI priorities for Enterprises Source: Dresner Mobile Computing / Business Intelligence Market Study 2013 37
Our AR Widget with MicroStrategy Integrated with MicroStrategy Mobile Blends BI information with live camera video feed Mashes up location data with the MicroStrategy data with real time predictions Provides on-field, efficient and real-time analysis for Sales Representatives, Store Managers/ Supervisors More possibilities with wearable technologies in future 38
Augmented Reality widget implementation Create Geo coded MicroStrategy report Use core location manager to get current user location information AR widget Logic to plot data points: Calculate view angle based on device camera orientation using device compass Calculate distance of business points from current user location (Latitude - Longitude based distance calculation using Havesine formula) Filter data points based on radius Markers over camera view for AR perspective. Size of markers directly proportional to distance from current user location Callouts on click of markers showing business point details Use of Google Navigator API for getting directions 39
Components and Technologies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40
Limitations and Support Requirements Limitations App might not update the locations due to GPS service failing to initialize on the device Google maps navigation would be non-functional in offline mode Widget needs a defined dataset. Attributes and metrics should be in predefined order Support Required Data points should be added to MicroStrategy report for new geographic locations 41
Thank You!