BI for a retail environment

A little more about the project.....

Basically we're producing a BI system for a major retailer (who has both shops and an on-line presence). They already have a good idea of what their KPIs are, and how they want their end-user environment to look.

The data come from a variety of sources, but mainly :

• On-line sales system (this system also handles mail order/telephone orders sales)
• EPOS (the tills in the shops)
• Finance (particularly Supply Chain data)
• Various local databases (HR, etc) in Access, Excel and FoxPro

We have started on the ETL and I don't think it's going to be pretty. I'll expand in another post.....

The reporting environment must be flexible and have the ability for the users to add their own charts/reports. These are not techncial users. We are currently looking at various front-ends including Excel 2007, Strategy Companion and Proclarity, but I think we are going to end up writing something specific for them.