SchoolofBusiness

Prototype System for Solidarity Fund of Lebanese Universitys Teachers Prepared By: Mohammed Sulieman Ali Saleh Submitted To: Dr: Adeeb Eit

A Graduate Project Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Management Information Systems Summer 2011-2012 Beirut Campus

Dedication
To my late Father, may his soul rest in peace, and may Allah grant him a high place in Jannah. To my mother who has always been there with me in glad times and sad. To my family, thank you for believing in me. Please don't ever doubt my dedication and love for you. MyclassmatesandteachersIalsodedicateyoumysuccesshopingyouachieve thesameandreachsuccessaftersuccess.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I'M GRATEFUL TO MY PROJECT GUIDE DR.ADEEB EIT FOR THE

GUIDANCE, INSPIRATION AND CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS THAT HELPFUL ME IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS PROJECT.

I ALSO THANK

MY COLLEAGUES WHO HAVE HELPED IN SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE PROJECT.

Abstract
The System of Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers (SFLUT) is dealing with complex data that comes from many different places (Hospitals, Pharmacies, School, Laboratories), the system is struggle to utilize and integrate data comes from these places, so, there is no integrated for information management and decision making process. Based on these facts , there is a need for an effective system to capture, collate, and distribute the Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers (SFLUT) data. Therefore, the data warehouse concept implementation on the Solidarity Fund system is the best solution to integrate data of Solidarity Fund system. Data warehouse has been used to support decision-making process in many sectors such as engineering, healthcare, defense and retailer sectors. The research problem that is going to be addressed is, how can data warehousing assist the decision-making process in the Solidarity Fund system about the financial medical assistance for hospitalizations , which is given to members of the Solidarity Fund . The aim of our project is, to investigate what decision-making issues are faced in Solidarity Fund with the current information system and how can decision-making improved by implementing data warehouse. As a part of the research, I will develop a suitable data warehouse prototype based on the Solidarity Fund system needs to improve the current decision-making process and facilitate access to data of members transactions that will be used in decision-making process or support decision with alternatives when making a decision. Also I will develop a website for hospitalization files used by members to follow up their transactions that are inside the Solidarity Fund and it used to get information about their medical files when they need this information. The Solidarity Fund committee can use a data warehouse to follow up the medical history of members when they were made a decision about members transaction.

The methodology used to conduct this project consisted of two parts. The first part reviewed the literature to define the background knowledge about data warehousing, decision support system, decision making process, and the role of data warehouse in decision making and supporting decision making. Also in this part identify data warehouse modeling, ER model, dimensional model, and give an example about each model. The second part is the practical part; in this part I was gathered information from the forms that are used in the current system and used in the current decision-making process, also I did an interview with information technology manger about following up decision-making process and about designing prototype website which used by the Fund's members.

Part one

Table of Content Dedication.. Acknowledgement.... Abstract...... Table of Content....... List of figures..... Theoretical Part........ 1.1 Problem of Statement .. 1.2 Objectives 1.3 Background. 1.3.1 Decision Making.. 1.3.2 Decision Support Systems.... 1.3.2.1 Characteristics of DSS 1.3.2.2 Capabilities of DSS 1.3.2.3 Decision Support System Component. 1.3.2.3.1 Data Management Component. 1.3.2.3.2 Model Management Component.. 1.3.2.3.3 User Interface Management Component. 1.3.2.3.4 Knowledge management component... 1.3.3 Data Warehouse Concepts .. 1.3.3.1 Data Warehouse Definitions . 1.3.3.2 Historical Background 1.3.3.3 Data Warehouse characteristics .. 1.3.3.4 Data Warehouse Architectures 1.3.3.4.1 Extract Transform Load . 1.3.3.4.1.1 Extract 1.3.3.4.1.2 Transform .. 1.3.3.4.1.3 Load .. 1.3.3.4.2 Data Marts 1.3.3.4.3 Meta Data . 1.3.3.4.4 Front-End-Tools . 1.3.3.4.4.1Reports .. 1.3.3.4.4.2 Data Mining .. 1.3.3.4.4.3 Query . 1.3.3.4.4.4 On Line Analysis Processing (OLAP) .. 1.3.4 Data Warehouse and Decision Making Process .. 1.3.5 How Can Data warehouse Contribute to Support Decision making . 1.3.6 Data Warehouse and OLAP 1.3.6.1 The role of OLAP in Accessing Data .. 1.3.6.2 The Role of OLAP in Managing Data . 1.3.6.3 The Role OLAP in Analyzing Data .. 1.3.6.4 The Role OLAP in Presenting Data .
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1 2 3 5 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 16 17 17 17 18 19 20 20 21 21 21 24 25 25 26 27 27 28 30 31 31 32 33 34

1.3.7 Data Warehouse Modeling .. 1.3.8 Why Data Warehouse Modeling is Important 1.3.9 Types of Modeling . 1.3.9.1 ER Modeling 1.3.9.1.1 Entities .. 1.3.9.1.2 Attributes .. 1.3.9.1.3 Relationships ... 1.3.10 Diagram ER model .. 1.3.11 Dimensional Modeling 1.3.11.1 Facts .. 1.3.11.2 Dimensions 1.3.11.3 Measures .. 1.3.12 Diagram dimensional model star-schema and snowflake schema . 1.3.13 Multidimensional model .. 1.3.13.1 Data Cube . 1.3.13.2 OLAP Operation on a multidimensional model ... 1.3.14 Types of data warehouse .. 1.3.15 The differences between Operational Database System and Data warehouse system . 1.3.16 Data Warehouse and the Web technology . 1.4 The organization background . 1.4.1 Lebanese University .. 1.4.1.1 History .. 1.4.2 Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers and Assistance .. 1.4.2.1The administrative mechanism of the affiliation and to benefit from the Fund: .. 1.4.2.2 Affiliates and Beneficiaries from the Fund . Part two Practical part . 2.1 Method used 2.2 current decision-making process 2.3 data warehouse prototype development .. 2.3.1 Data source 2.3.2 The proposed data warehouse model for the solidarity fund . 2.3.3 The design data model for data warehouse prototype 2.3.4 Tools used to develop the data warehouse prototype . 2.4 The website development ... 2.4.1 Tools used to develop website .... 2.4.1.1 Visual studio 2.4.1.2 Active Server Page(ASP) .. 2.4.1.3 Csharp programming Language (C#) .

35 36 36 36 37 37 37 37 38 38 38 38 39 39 39 40 41 42 43 44 44 45 45 46 46 48 48 48 49 49 50 50 52 52 54 54 58 59 60 60 61 62

Part three Conclusion and Recommendation 3.1 Conclusion.. 3.2 recommendation Appendix A
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Appendix B 80 Bibliography . 83

List of Figures: Figure1.1: component of decision support system Figure1.2: Data warehousing Architecture Figure1.3: Data marts in Data warehouse Figure1.4: Data Mining focuses on analyzing the data content rather than simply responding to question Figure1.5: flow of the decision making process. Figure1.6: How can data warehouse deliver information to decision maker. Figure1.7: OLAP Maps from client to DW Figure1.8 OLAP and DW objects mappings Figure1.9: ER diagram Model Figure1.10: dimensional model star schema. Figure1.11: Dimensional model-Snowflake Schema Figure1.12: dimension hierarchy Figure 1.14: cube data Figure2.1: Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers (SFLUT) System Figure2.2: the proposed data warehouse model for solidarity fun. Figure2.3: data warehouse snowflake schema conceptual data model. Figure2.4: the website Login page. Figure2.5: the website main page Figure2.6: the member " "transaction on the hospital data mart 5 11 15 19 20 22 23 24 29 30 31 32 32 41 42 43 44 45 45

Theoretical part: 1.1 Problem of Statement:

The current system of Solidarity fund suffering from the problem of data integration with systems of hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, that has been contracted with the Solidarity fund. also the current system suffering from other problems such as, the administration of hospitals can not used its system in order to enter the transaction of members who has been treated at hospital to the system of fund directly, the members of fund cannot used the current system from the outside fund to follow up their transaction and their medical history which help them in the current hospitalization case and also could be used the system to help a doctor to make a suitable decision about the member situation based on this history, also the committee cannot used the current system to follow up the medical history of member and cannot used this system to support their decisions about the current transaction of member inside the fund based on this history. To solve these problems we are developing a data warehouse prototype and website those are used as following, the data warehouse used as a repository of historical medical data for members and can used the measures of data warehouse to calculate the value of financial medical assistance automatically when the transaction of member entered to the system, and the website could be used as a data access tool to helps members follow up their transaction inside the fund and used the website as a tool to link the system of fund to the systems of hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, and schools. Using a data that is storing in the data warehouse and using a website to access those data help managers and committee of fund to gather the required historical information about member, when they are need to make a decision about the current transaction of member and then make a suitable decision for this transaction.

Also a doctor can use the data warehouse and website to follow up the patient's medical history and then he/she can take suitable decision about the current condition of the patient.

1.2 Objectives:
In our project and by using data warehouse and website we can present the following objectives 1- Improve access to patients data to follow up their medical history for all their previous transactions. 2- Improve the decision-making process for the management of the Solidarity fund services to its members. 3- Calculate the financial assistance which would be given to the members by the Solidarity fund for their patients transaction or for his/her transaction. 4- The members can use the website to follow up all their transaction inside the fund, also to follow up all their patients transactions without need to go to the Solidarity fund every time. 5- The doctors can use the website to follow up the complete picture of patients medical history such as tests, diagnosiss and symptoms etc to support them and to made the right decision at the right time about the patients current case.

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1.3 Background:
In this section, I was reviewed the literature to define the background knowledge about data warehousing, define decision support system, define decision making process, and the role of data warehouse in decision making and supporting decision making. Also in this section identify data warehouse modeling, ER model, dimensional model, and give an example about each model.

1.3.1 Decision making:

Decision-making is a process of choosing among alternative courses of action for the purpose of attaining a goal or goals. According to Simon (1977), managerial decisionmaking is synonymous with the whole process of management. Consider the important managerial function of planning. Planning involves a series of decisions: What should be done? When? Where? Why? How? By whom? Managers set goals, or plan; hence, planning implies decision-making. Other managerial functions, such as organizing and controlling, also involve decision-making. 1 Decision-making involves a process of thinking about the problem leading to the need for data and modeling of the problem (loosely speaking: understanding the relationships among its different aspects). This leads to interpretation and application of knowledge. Making a decision implies that there are alternative choices to be considered, and in such a case we want not only to identify as many of these alternatives as possible but to choose the one that has the highest probability of success or effectiveness and best fits with our goals, desires, lifestyle, values, and so on. The two important ideas here are that first, there must be some genuine alternatives to choose from among. Note that "Do it" or "Don't do it" does not qualify as a set of alternatives. Only "Do this" or "Do something else" really qualifies. Second, every decision must be made in the light of some standard of judgment. This standard usually gets expressed in the form of criteria, which reflect the values and preferences of the decision maker. These values and

Decision support systems and intelligent systems 7th ed, EfraiITl Turban, Jay E., Aronson, 'and ,Jing-PengLiang, published by Asoke K. Ghosh @ 2005

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preferences are often influenced by corporate rules or culture, law, best practices, and so forth. 2

1.3.2 Decision support system:

DSS is a computer-based system that supports choice by assisting the decision maker in the organization of information and modeling of outcomes. The DSS provides a framework through which decision makers can obtain necessary assistance for decision making through an easy-to-use menu or command system. A DSS will provide help in formulating alternatives, accessing data, developing models, and interpreting their results, selecting options or analyzing the impacts of a selection. In other words, the DSS provides a vehicle for accessing resources external to the decision-making process for use in that choice process. Decision support systems are most useful when it is not obvious what information needs to be provided, what models need to be used or even what criteria are most appropriate. Said differently, they are useful when it is not obvious a priori how the choice should be made. Furthermore, since DSS proceed with requests from decision makers in the order and manner selected by the user (and not necessarily linear in their application), they tend to be associated with situations where users proceed differently with each problem. However, that does not mean a DSS cannot be useful for a more structured problem. 3

1.3.2.1 Characteristics of DSS:

Handle large amounts of data like database searches Obtain and process data from different sources including internal and external data stored on mainframe systems and networks. Provide report and presentation flexibility to suit the decision maker's needs Have both textual and graphical orientation like charts, trend lines, tables and more. Perform complex, sophisticated analysis and comparisons using advanced software packages. Support optimization, satisfying, and heuristic approaches giving the decision maker a great deal of flexibility in solving simple and complex problems.

2 3

h p://www.virtualsalt.com/crebook5.htm,byRobert Harris,date61/11/2012 Decision support system for business intelligence 2nd ed, Vicki L. Sauter, Copyright 2010 by John Wiley & Sons.

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Perform "what-if" and goal-seeking analysis

1.3.2.2 Capabilities of DSS:

Support for problem-solving phases including the intelligence, design, choice, implementation and monitoring Support for different decision frequencies that range from one-of-a-kind (i.e., merging with another company) to repetitive (i.e., how much inventory to purchase this week) One-of-a-kind decisions are handled by an ad hoc DSS Repetitive decisions are handled by institutional DSS Support for different problem structures ranging from high structured and programmed to unstructured and non-programmed Support for various decision-making levels including operational-level decisions, tactical-level decisions and strategic decisions. 4

1.3.2.3 Component of DSS: 5

Decision support systems vary greatly in application and complexity, but they all share specific features. Typical Decision support systems have four components: data management, model management, knowledge management and user interface management.

Figure1.1: component of decision support system.

4 5

h p://www.ijcse.com/docs/IJCSE110201054.pdf,byK P TRIPATHI, date 17/11/2012 h p://dsssystem.blogspot.com/2010/01/componentsofdecisionsupportsystems.html,date17/11/2012

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1.3.2.3.1

Data Management Component:

The data management component performs the function of storing and maintaining the information that you want your Decision Support System to use. The data management component, therefore, consists of both the Decision Support System information and the Decision Support System database management system. The information you use in your Decision Support System comes from one or more of three sources: Organizational information: you may want to use virtually any information available in the organization for your Decision Support System. What you use, of course, depends on what you need and whether it is available. You can design your Decision Support System to access this information directly from your companys database and data warehouse. However, specific information is often copied to the Decision Support System database to save time in searching through the organizations database and data warehouses. External information: some decisions require input from external sources of information. Personal information: you can incorporate your own insights and experience your personal information into your Decision Support System. You can design your Decision Support System so that you enter this personal information only as needed, or you can keep the information in a personal database that is accessible by the Decision Support System.

1.3.2.3.2

Model Management Component:

The model management component consists of both the Decision Support System models and the Decision Support System model management system. A model is a representation of some event, fact, or situation. As it is not always practical, or wise, to experiment with reality, people build models and use them for experimentation. Models can take various forms. Businesses use models to represent variables and their relationships. For example, you would use a statistical model called analysis of variance to determine whether newspaper, TV, and billboard advertizing are equally
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effective in increasing sales. Decision Support Systems help in various decision-making situations by utilizing models that allow you to analyze information in many different ways. The models you use in a Decision Support System depend on the decision you are making and, consequently, the kind of analysis you require. For example, you would use what-if analysis to see what effect the change of one or more variables will have on other variables, or optimization to find the most profitable solution given operating restrictions and limited resources. Spreadsheet software such as excel can be used as a Decision Support System for what-if analysis. The model management system stores and maintains the Decision Support Systems models. Its function of managing models is similar to that of a database management system. The model management component cannot select the best model for you to use for a particular problem that requires your expertise but it can help you create and manipulate models quickly and easily.

1.3.2.3.3

User Interface Management Component:

The user interface management component allows you to communicate with the Decision Support System. It consists of the user interface management system. This is the component that allows you to combine your know-how with the storage and processing capabilities of the computer. The user interface is the part of the system you see through it when enter information, commands, and models. This is the only component of the system with which you have direct contract. If you have a Decision Support System with a poorly designed user interface, if it is too rigid or too cumbersome to use, you simply wont use it no matter what its capabilities. The best user interface uses your terminology and methods and is flexible, consistent, simple, and adaptable. For an example of the components of a Decision Support System, lets consider the Decision Support System that Lands End has tens of millions of names in its customer database. It sells a wide range of womens, mens, and
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childrens clothing, as well various household wares. To match the right customer with the catalog, lands end has identified 20 different specialty target markets. Customers in these target markets receive catalogs of merchandise that they are likely to buy, saving Lands End the expense of sending catalogs of all products to all 20 million customers. To predict customer demand, lands end needs to continuously monitor buying trends. And to meet that demand, lands end must accurately forecast sales levels. To accomplish these goals, it uses a Decision Support System which performs three tasks: Data management: The Decision Support System stores customer and product information. In addition to this organizational information, Lands End also needs external information, such as demographic information and industry and style trend information. Model management: The Decision Support System has to have models to analyze the information. The models create new information that decision makers need to plan product lines and inventory levels. For example, Lands End uses a statistical model called regression analysis to determine trends in customer buying patterns and forecasting models to predict sales levels. User interface management: A user interface enables Lands End decision makers to access information and to specify the models they want to use to create the information they need.

1.3.2.3.4

Knowledge Management Component:

The knowledge management component, like that in an expert system, provides information about the relationship among data that is too complex for a database to represent. It consists of rules that can constrain possible solution as well as alternative solutions and methods for evaluating them. For example, when analyzing the impact of a price reduction, a Decision Support System should signal if the forecasted volume of activity exceeds the volume that the projected staff can service. Such signaling requires the Decision Support System to incorporate some rules-of-thumb about an

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appropriate ratio of staff to sales volume. Such rules-of-thumb, also known as heuristics, make up the knowledge base.

1.3.3 The data warehouse concept:

1.3.3.1 Data warehouse definition:
Data warehouse is a collection of decision support technologies aimed at enabling the knowledge worker (manger, executive, and analyst) to make and faster decisions. 6 Data warehousing is a collection of methods, techniques, and tools used to support knowledge workerssenior managers, directors, managers, and analyststo conduct data analyses that help with performing decision-making processes and improving information resources. 7 A data warehouse is a collection of consistent, subject-oriented, integrated, timevariant, non-volatile data and processes on them, which are based on available information and enable people to make decisions and predictions about the future. 8

1.3.3.2 Historical Background:

DW systems have evolved from the needs of decision-making based on integrated data, rather than an individual data source. DW systems address the two primary needs of enterprises: data integration and decision support environments. During the 1980s, relational database technologies became popular. Many organizations built their mission-critical database systems using the relational database technologies. This trend proliferated many independent relational database systems in an enterprise. For example, different business lines in an enterprise built separate database systems at different geographical locations. These database systems improved the operational aspects of each business line significantly. Organizations, however, faced the needs of integrating the data which were distributed over different database systems and even the legacy database systems in order to create a central knowledge management repository. In addition,

6 An overview data warehousing and OLAP technology, Chaudhuri, S., & Dayal, U.(1997), page1, http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/76058/sigrecord.pdf , date 5/11/2012 7 Data Warehouse Design: Modern Principles and Methodologies, Matteo Golfarelli @2009, Stefano Rizzi ,McGraw-Hil, page 4. 8 Building the Data Warehouse, Immon, W. H., 1996,Wiley Computer Publishing (2nd Edition).

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during the 1990s, organizations faced increasingly complex challenges in global environments. Organizations realized the need for decision support systems that can analyze historical data trends, generate sophisticated but easy-to-read reports, and react to changing business conditions in a rapid fashion. These needs resulted in the development of a new breed of database systems that can process complex decision making queries against integrated, historical, atomic data. These new database systems are now commonly called data warehousing systems because they store a huge amount of data much more than operational database systems and they are kept for long periods of time. A data warehousing system these days provides an architectural framework for the flow of data from operational systems to decision-support environments. With the rapid advancement in recent computing technologies, organizations build data warehousing systems to improve business effectiveness and efficiency. In a modern business environment, a data warehousing system has emerged as a central component of an overall business intelligence solution in an enterprise. 9

1.3.3.3 Data warehouse characteristics:

Subject-Oriented: Information is presented according to specific subjects or areas of interest, not simply as computer files. Data is manipulated to provide information about a particular subject. Integrated: A single source of information for about understanding multiple areas of interest. The data warehouse provides one-stop shopping and contains information about a variety of subjects. Non-Volatile: Stable information that doesnt change each time an operational process is executed. Information is consistent regardless of when the warehouse is accessed. Time-Variant: Containing a history of the subject, as well as current information. Historical information is an important component of a data warehouse. Accessible: The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to provide readily accessible information to end-users.

h p://people.cs.aau.dk/~simas/dat5_08/papers/DWSFoundationsArchitectureRegularEntry7.pdf,date 51/11/2012

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Process-Oriented: It is important to view data warehousing as a process for delivery of information. The maintenance of a data warehouse is ongoing and iterative in nature.

1.3.3.4 Data Warehouse Architecture:

Figure1.2: Data warehousing Architecture Source (http://www.enggjournals.com/ijcse/doc/IJCSE10-02-09-010.pdf). DW includes tools for extracting data from multiple operational databases and external sources; for cleaning, transforming and integrating this data; for loading data into the data warehouse; and for periodically refreshing the warehouse to reflect updates at the sources and to purge data from the warehouse, perhaps onto slower archival storage. In addition to the main warehouse, there may be several departmental data marts. Data in the warehouse and data marts is stored and managed by one or more warehouse servers, which present multidimensional views of data to a variety of front end tools: query tools, report writers, analysis tools, and data mining tools.

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Finally, there is a repository for storing and managing metadata, and tools for monitoring and administering the warehousing system. 10

1.3.3.4.1 Extract Transform Load: 11

The term ETL which stands for extract, transform, and load is a three-stage process in database usage and data warehousing. It enables integration and analysis of the data stored in different databases and heterogeneous formats. After it is collected from multiple sources (extraction), the data is reformatted and cleansed for operational needs (transformation). Finally, it is loaded into a target database, data warehouse or a data mart to be analyzed. Most of numerous extraction and transformation tools also enable loading of the data into the end target. Except for data warehousing and business intelligence, ETL Tools can also be used to move data from one operational system to another.

1.3.3.4.1.1 Extract:
The purpose of the extraction process is to reach to the source systems and collect the data needed for the data warehouse. Usually data is consolidated from different source systems that may use a different data organization or format so the extraction must convert the data into a format suitable for transformation processing. The complexity of the extraction process may vary and it depends on the type of source data. The extraction process also includes selection of the data as the source usually contains redundant data or data of little interest. For the ETL extraction to be successful, it requires an understanding of the data layout. A good ETL tool additionally enables storage of an intermediate version of data being extracted. This is called "staging area" and makes reloading raw data possible in case of further loading problem, without re-extraction. The raw data should also be backed up and archived.

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h p://www.enggjournals.com/ijcse/doc/IJCSE100209010.pdf,byG.SatyanarayanaReddy,Rallabandi Srinivasu,date8/11/2012 11 http://www.etltools.org/,date6/11/2012

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1.3.3.4.1.2 Transform:
The transform stage of an ETL process involves an application of a series of rules or functions to the extracted data. It includes validation of records and their rejection if they are not acceptable as well as integration part. The amount of manipulation needed for transformation process depends on the data. Good data sources will require little transformation, whereas others may require one or more transformation techniques to meet the business and technical requirements of the target database or the data warehouse. The most common processes used for transformation are conversion, clearing the duplicates, standardizing, filtering, sorting, translating and looking up or verifying if the data sources are inconsistent. A good ETL tool must enable building up of complex processes and extending a tool library so custom user's functions can be added.

1.3.3.4.1.3 Load:
The loading is the last stage of ETL process and it loads extracted and transformed data into a target repository. There are various ways in which ETL load the data. Some of them physically insert each record as a new row into the table of the target warehouse involving SQL insert statement build-in, whereas others link the extraction, transformation, and loading processes for each record from the source. The loading part is usually a bottleneck of the whole process. To increase efficiency with larger volumes of data we may need to skip SQL and data recovery or apply external high-performance sort that additionally improves performance.

1.3.3.4.2 Data marts:

Data mart is a group of related fact tables and their corresponding dimension tables containing the measurements of business events, categorized by their dimensions. Data marts exist in dimensional data stores. 12 A data mart, if populated from a data warehouse, contains a subset of the data from the data warehouse. If this is the case, then it is generally considered to be a dependent data mart and can be implemented relatively quickly as the data has already been
12 Building a Data Warehouse with Examples in SQL server, by Vincent Rainardi, apress, Copyright 2008,page 74

With Examples in SQL Server

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collected and integrated within data warehouse. The quality of its content is directly dependent upon the contents of the data warehouse. Independent data marts are those that are developed without regard to overall data warehouse architecture, perhaps at the departmental or line-of-business level, typically for use as a temporary solution. As the independent data mart cannot rely on an existing data warehouse for its content, implementation will take longer than a dependent data mart. Regardless, for a data mart operating independently of any other data mart or data warehouse, it is still important that the data within it be complete and accurate. If not, erroneous analysis is likely to occur and invalid conclusions drawn. An independent data mart may be the only viable approach when the existing enterprise warehouse is being built incrementally and the data needed by the data mart users is not yet available from the warehouse. Building a corporate data warehouse on a subject by subject approach is certainly a reasonable and proven strategy. Many organizations that have tried to populate their enterprise data warehouses with data for all requested subject areas prior to initial rollout have found that this was akin to attempting to trying to boil the ocean, the task was simply too overwhelming to be realistically accomplished in anything other than a phased approach. It is reasonable to assume that an organizations independent data marts will ultimately be combined. Eventually they will lose their independence as individual data needs are ultimately satisfied through an enterprise data warehouse. Combining the content requirements of these independent data marts to determine the contents of the enterprise data warehouse will be significantly easier if each data mart contains high quality, complete data. This bottoms up approach of using the requirements of existing independent data marts to then determine the requirements of a data warehouse from which they will be populated has been effective in organizations where several departments first needed to quickly implement their own solutions. These organizations could simply not wait for their top down data warehouse to first be built. A common problem that exists in many organizations is the inability to quickly combine operational data about the same entity such as a customer or vendor that exists in multiple systems. A classic example occurred when banking institutions first started adding new service offerings such as investment accounts to their more traditional savings and checking account offerings. Many of these new services were supported by
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systems that existed independently. When the bank needed to see all of the current financial information it had about a customer, it needed to combine and consolidate data from all of these systems, assuming of course it could identify that a customer whose account information resided in several systems, was the same customer. As this need became increasingly more important, the operational data store (ODS) came into vogue. A primary difference between data warehouses and operational data stores is that while a data warehouse frequently contains multiple time-stamped historical data snapshots, with new snapshots being added on a well-defined periodic schedule, an operational data store contains current values that are continually in flux. A data warehouse adds new time-stamped data values and retains the old ones; an operational data store updates existing data values. While the initial load and continual updating of the operational data store are classic examples of data integration, the ability to identify and link different accounts each captured from a different system, as belonging to the same customer is also a classic example of data quality. This underscores the importance of, and interdependence between, data quality and data integration, when solving real-world business problems.13

Figure1.3: Data marts in Data warehouse

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http://www.pbinsight.com/files/resourcelibrary/resourcefiles/pbbidatawarehousingkeystosuccesswp usa.pdf,date7/11/2012

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1.3.3.4.3 Metadata:
Meta-data is information about data. It allows business users as well as technical administrators to track the lineage of the data they are using. Meta-data provides information about where the data came from, when it was delivered, what happened to it during transport, and other descriptions can all be tracked. What can you do with meta-data? It is widely held that there are two types of meta-data: technical, or administrative meta-data, and business meta-data. Administrative meta-data includes information about such things as data source, update times and any extraction rules and cleansing routines performed on the data. Business meta-data, on the other hand, allows users to get a more clear understanding of the data on which their decisions are based. Information about calculations performed on the data date and time stamps as well as meta-data about the graphic elements of data analysis generated by front end query tools. Both types of meta-data are essential to a successful data mart or warehouse solution. How well the data warehouse replenishment solution you choose manages and integrates meta-data may affect the performance of presentation tools and the overall effectiveness of the data warehouse. 14 Metadata for the data warehouse environment is one of the most important aspects. Metadata helps the DSS analyst find what data is in the warehouse and use that data effectively and efficiently. Some of the components of data warehouse metadata are: the structure and contents of the warehouse, the mapping of data into the data warehouse, the extract/transformation history, alias information, status information, volumetrics, aging purging criteria, summary/calculation data between levels of the warehouse, data relationship artifact information, relationship history information,

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http://www.uet.vnu.edu.vn/~thuyhq/Courses_PDF/$considerations.pdf,ConsiderationsforBuildingaRealtime DataWarehouse,ByJohnVandermay,date7/11/2012

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 ownership/stewardship information, access information, reference/encoding table information, and Data model-design relationship information. 15 (To see more details about each component from of metadata look for article METADATA IN THE DATA WAREHOUSE by W. H. Inmon.)

1.3.3.4.4 Front-End-Tools:
1.3.3.4.4.1 Reports:
This approach is oriented to those users who need to have regular access to the information in an almost static way. For example, suppose a local health authority must send to its state offices monthly reports summing up information on patient admission costs. The layout of those reports has been predetermined and may vary only if changes are applied to current laws and regulations. Designers issue the queries to create reports with the desired layout and freeze all those in an application. In this way, end users can query current data whenever they need to. A report is defined by a query and a layout. A query generally implies a restriction and an aggregation of multidimensional data. For example, you can look for the monthly receipts during the last quarter for every product category. A layout can look like a table or a chart (diagrams, histograms, pies, and so on). A reporting tool should be evaluated not only on the basis of comprehensive report layouts, but also on the basis of flexible report delivery systems. A report can be explicitly run by users or automatically and regularly sent to registered end users. For example, it can be sent via e-mail. Keep in mind that reports existed long before data warehouse systems came to be. Reports have always been the main tool used by managers for evaluating and planning tasks since the invention of databases. However, adding data warehouses to the mix is beneficial to reports for two main reasons: First, they take advantage of reliable and correct results because the data summed up in reports is consistent and integrated. In addition, data warehouses expedite the reporting process because the architectural

15

http://www.inmoncif.com/registration/whitepapers/ttmeta1.pdf,date7/11/2012

25

separation between transaction processing and analyses significantly improves performance. 16

1.3.3.4.4.2 Data mining:

Data mining is a relatively new data analysis technique. It is very different from query and reporting and multidimensional analysis in that is uses what is called a discovery technique. That is, you do not ask a particular question of the data but rather use specific algorithms that analyze the data and report what they have discovered. Unlike query and reporting and multidimensional analysis where the user has to create and execute queries based on hypotheses, data mining searches for answers to questions that may have not been previously asked. This discovery could take the form of finding significance in relationships between certain data elements, a clustering together of specific data elements, or other patterns in the usage of specific sets of data elements. After finding these patterns, the algorithms can infer rules. These rules can then be used to generate a model that can predict a desired behavior, identify relationships among the data, discover patterns, and group clusters of records with similar attributes. Data mining is most typically used for statistical data analysis and knowledge discovery. Statistical data analysis detects unusual patterns in data and applies statistical and mathematical modeling techniques to explain the patterns. The models are then used to forecast and predict. Types of statistical data analysis techniques include linear and nonlinear analysis, regression analysis, multivariate analysis, and time series analysis. Knowledge discovery extracts implicit, previously unknown information from the data. This often results in uncovering unknown business facts. Data mining is data driven (see Figure below). There is a high level of complexity in stored data and data interrelations in the data warehouse that are difficult to discover without data mining. Data mining offers new insights into the business that may not be discovered with query and reporting or multidimensional analysis. Data mining can help discover new insights about the business by giving us answers to questions we might never have thought to

16

Building a Data Warehouse with Examples in SQL server, by Vincent Rainardi, apress, Copyright 2008,page 2728

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ask. 17

Figure1.4: Data Mining focuses on analyzing the data content rather than simply responding to question (Data modeling techniques for data warehouse)

1.3.3.4.4.3 Query:
Query and reporting analysis is the process of posing a question to be answered, retrieving relevant data from the data warehouse, transforming it into the appropriate context, and displaying it in a readable format. It is driven by analysts who must pose those questions to receive an answer. 18

1.3.3.4.4.4 On Line Analytic Processing (OLAP):

OLAP is a family of analysis and report- generating tools that are used to access large databases. It enables partially aggregated data or full reports to be stored in a multidimensional format for fast, convenient access and analysis. OLAP methods are based on databases that allow multidimensional views of business data. OLAP is useful for visualization of relationships between pre-designated variables. OLAP applications are used achieve a higher view of the data such as total sales or profitability by product line, sales territory, or market segment. The OLAP database is usually updated in batch mode from multiple sources. OLAP is optimized for analysis and reporting. In contrast, users of on-line transaction processing (OLTP) applications are involved with creating, updating, or retrieving individual customer records. OLTP databases are optimized for updating transactions. An OLAP system essentially stores answers to predefined business questions for report
17 Data Modeling Techniques for Data warehouse, by Chuck Ballard, Dirk Herreman, Don Schau, Rhonda Bell, Eunsaeng Kim, Ann Valencic, IBM Corporation, International Technical Support Organization,page 28 18 Data Modeling Techniques for Data warehouse, by Chuck Ballard, Dirk Herreman, Don Schau, Rhonda Bell, Eunsaeng Kim, Ann Valencic, IBM Corporation, International Technical Support Organization,page 26 27

generation needs. The user can choose from a predetermined set of options for types of data and display formats. Output is typically in the form of charts, graphs, tables or maps. OLAP solves the problem of distributing information to large numbers of users with diverse reporting needs. OLAP relieves the long response times that can be encountered when many users need to repeatedly query large databases for extended periods of time. OLAP tools are powerful and fast tools for generating reports on data, whereas data mining tools find patterns in the data. OLAP users are constrained in the questions they can ask since OLAP and only answer the questions that the data formats were designed to address. They cannot go back to the original data and search for new solutions. Therefore, data mining is more powerful than OLAP. about OLAP see section (Data warehouse and OLAP).
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For more details

1.3.4 Data warehouse and decision making process:

Any type of organization or activity that needs to be managed requires managerial decision-making. Managerial decision-making mainly involves discussion and consideration of alternatives that aim to achieve the objective that has been set. Generally, the decision-making processes involve the preparation of information, particularly the alternatives, prior to the meeting, and choosing courses of action during the meeting. In achieving the objectives, there exist steps or processes to ensure the success of the decision-making process and also the quality of the decision outcome. The decisionmaking processes comprises of establishing objectives, generating alternatives, explore alternatives and evaluating alternatives as shown in Fig. below.

Figure1.5: flow of the decision making process. Source (http://ijimt.org/papers/273-D10326.pdf). The objectives normally are set up to ensure those participating in the meeting are aware of the meeting scope. Awareness of the scope will direct the effort for finding the

19

http://www.ipeduk.com/marketing_information_system.pdf,byRobertR.Harmon,date7/11/2012

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information during the preparation for the meeting. While finding the information, some low-level tasks such as categorize, cluster and compare are performed by the managers as they attempt to understand the information. Through the understanding activity, information, particularly the alternatives that will be considered at the meeting, is developed and will be evaluated for implementation. For the decision to meet the managerial objectives, the member of the decision-making processes, particularly the managers, must determine what information to use, how and where to find it and what to do with it. Thus, the dependency on information not only exists in the business process but also in the decision-making processes, so the retrieval of the data associated with certain managers role from the data warehouse is crucial for a good decision. 20 Data warehousing is a collection of decision support technologies, aimed at enabling the knowledge worker (executive, manager, and analyst) to make better and faster decisions. It serves as a physical implementation of a decision support data model and stores the information on which an enterprise needs to make strategic decisions. The data warehouse supports on-line analytical processing (OLAP), the functional and performance requirements of which are quite different from those of the on-line transaction processing (OLTP) applications traditionally supported by the operational databases. Data warehouses provide on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tools for the interactive analysis of multidimensional data of varied granularities, which facilitates effective data mining. Data warehousing and on-line analytical processing (OLAP) are essential elements of decision support, which has increasingly become a focus of the database industry. 21 Data warehouse provides architecture and tools for business executives to systematically organize, understand and use their data to make strategic decisions. The next figure displays how data warehouse can deliver the information to decision maker.

20 21

h p://ijimt.org/papers/273D10326.pdf,byMuzaffarHamzahandAnthonySobey,date8/11/20120. h p://www.enggjournals.com/ijcse/doc/IJCSE100209010.pdf,bySatyanarayanaReddy,RallabandiSrinivasu, PurnaChanderRaoM,andSrikanthReddyRikkula,date10/11/2012

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Figure1.6: How can data warehouse deliver information to decision maker.

1.3.5 How can Data Warehouse contribute to support decision making process?
Supporting managerial decision-making is critically dependent upon the availability of integrated, high quality information organized and presented in a timely and easily understood manner. Data warehouses have emerged to meet this need. They serve as an integrated repository for internal and external dataintelligence critical to understanding and evaluating the business within its environmental context. A data warehouse is a repository into which are placed all data relevant to the management of an organization and from which emerge the information and knowledge needed to effectively manage the organization. 22 Decision Support Systems (DSS) rely on a data warehouse to assist the users, especially the managers, to make intelligent decisions for the organization. To support correct and quality decision-making, the data warehouse should integrate the information associated with the managers by the roles and business processes of the managers.The data warehouse should integrate the job roles and decision making processes into finding the information that is available for specific managers within the

22

Developmentsindatawarehousing,H.J.Watson,Communica onsoftheAIS8(2001).

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enterprise-wide data warehouse. Roles of managers will specify the relevant tasks while business process will indicate the flow of information at specific decision point.

1.3.6 Data warehouse and OLAP:

Online analytical processing (OLAP) enables data from a data warehousing environment to be made available to users in a usable format, thus providing strategic information for decision making. OLAP supports business decision making and business intelligence. In contrast to data warehousing, OLAP provides the channel that connects the online user and online data. Through this channel the user is connected with the information they need to perform various analytical activities including drill down and roll up, slice and dice, and visualizing data in various ways. OLAP tools support many kinds of multidimensional data analyses such as statistical and ratio computation, aggregation, comparison, and forecasting. Interest in OLAP is increasing because it puts more powerful tools online to deliver the right kind information to the right user.

1.3.6.1 The role of OLAP in accessing data:

To enable quick and easy access to the business data for better analysis, mappings from data warehouses to OLAP are necessary. OLAP systems focus on objects including cubes, measures, dimensions, hierarchies, and hierarchical levels, which provide mechanisms for accessing and analyzing the data in a data warehouse. In this mapping, data flows from DW objects, such as fact and dimension tables, to OLAP objects, such as cubes, dimensions, and hierarchies, as depicted in Figure bellow. The data are transformed during each flow between the objects. Through this mechanism various client tools can be applied by users to perform decision making activities.

Figure1.7: OLAP Maps from client to DW OLAP systems enable decision makers to interact with the data quickly and effectively. It provides preprocessed aggregates, where pre-calculated and derived data are stored

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in aggregate structures in the cube. This organization is supported by an OLAP engine that updates aggregated data periodically. Aggregates at all hierarchical levels along all dimensions are quickly available by joining the facts to hierarchy and level keys, greatly improving the efficiency of the system. In this way, OLAP connects clients to decision support data and maps business measurements, through OLAP cubes and measures, to numerical facts in data warehouse fact tables. It also maps business subject areas through OLAP dimensions and hierarchies to dimension tables in a data warehouse. Further, it maps business descriptive attributes through dimensions and hierarchical attributes to data warehouse dimension table attributes. Figure bellow shows objects in each environment in this mapping.

Figure1.8 OLAP and DW objects mappings

1.3.6.2 The role of OLAP in managing data:

OLAP systems manage data around cubes in multidimensional databases. The cube contains measures for each unique combination of the dimension and aggregated values formed by the dimension hierarchies. A dimension may contain one or more hierarchies to assist analysis from different perspectives along the dimension, thus satisfying various needs. For example, the time dimension may have a hierarchy for calendar year and a hierarchy for fiscal year. OLAP manages relationships between cubes and dimensions, and between cubes and hierarchies, forming the edges of the cube so that analysis can be performed along either dimensions or hierarchies. An OLAP cube contains all levels of data, from the detailed level to the top level. The lowest level of details maintained in the cube determines the lowest level of granularity
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of analysis that can be performed. For example, along the calendar year hierarchy in the time dimension four levels could be defined for the hierarchy from top to bottom: all years, calendar year, calendar quarter, and month. Data for each level are aggregated and stored in the cube. These aggregates at each level include the values for intersection with each level of other dimension/hierarchies defined, such as country, region, state, in the OLAP system. In this way, any time an aggregation analysis is performed, a reference to the level, or level key, will be sufficient to retrieve the previously summarized data without calculation against raw data in the underlying data warehouse. OLAP cubes also contain both base and derived data. Base data are mappings from an underlying data warehouse such as data for sales. The derived data are analysis-specific calculated data such as sales year-to-date (Ytd) and year-todate percentage change previous year (Ytd % Chg Pr Year). Therefore, a typical query does not need to perform additional calculations on the fly, since aggregations and derived values have already been calculated and stored within the cube by an OLAP engine. OLAP enables quick and easy information retrieval by managing multidimensional data in cubes and hierarchies. This provides the capability of users having online access to the data, and being able to interact with the data. Through such access decision makers can perform analysis, including slicing and dicing, drill down and roll up, with any salient data and can manipulate data in any desired way to reveal information. All of above analysis activities would not be possible if the user does not have online access to the data or information is returned in an unacceptable format.

1.3.6.3 The role of OLAP in analyzing data:

Although the standard structured query language (SQL) for relational databases provides functions to perform basic aggregation operations, it is weak, from any perspective, in the complex calculations for needed analytics. OLAP needs to support complex calculations, complex analytical processing, and what-if analysis. Analytical operations are performed by an OLAP engine that prepares the derived data for storage as a value in the cube. To support advanced analytical processing, an enhanced family of aggregate and analytic SQL functions have been introduced. OLAP support for an extensive set of analytic functions facilitates responses to complex business queries, thus making
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analyzing and reporting significantly easier. Some examples of advanced aggregation functions include ROLLUP, CUBE, GROUPING, GROUPING SETS, RANKING, and relative contribution functions, as listed in Table below. In addition, an OLAP engine extends SQLs new analytical capabilities and provides even more powerful analytic functions to perform hierarchy navigation and calculations involving ranking, time series, ratio, percentage, and the difference between time periods. The analytic functions enable decision makers to make advanced calculations for comparisons and identify trends. Sophisticated calculations are embedded within the cube to enhance the analytic process. These calculations often involve data from many rows and inter-row calculations. For example, a calculation may compare the current years sales for each region and product category with sales from the same period in the previous year and two years prior. The OLAP cube structure is designed to accommodate this type of analysis.

Drill down and roll up analysis is performed along dimension hierarchical structures, with which decision makers analyze how a particular data value contributes to the whole. For example, if a report shows an unexpected low on the sales for a given product category, a drilldown is needed to examine the detailed numbers within that product category. OLAP systems maintain hierarchy views that encapsulate all of the hierarchical information of the dimension so queries can traverse seamlessly from any level to its parent/ancestor or children/descendants. 1.3.6.4 The role of OLAP in presenting data: To answer complex analytical questions, results from OLAP data need to be presented comprehensively to the end users in meaningful and easily understood ways. At the
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same time, the values in the result set need to be dynamic, that is permit manipulation, to support further interaction from the users. Dashboards and scorecards are often used to summarize measures. They monitor key aspects of the organization operations showing and monitoring the health of the essential aspects of the business. The presentation of analytics has to be flexible enough to support interactive report generation, including graphical and chart representations. To support multidimensional analysis, hypercube pivoting allows users to look at the data in the cube from any perspective. To support hierarchical analysis, drill down and roll up allow users to retrieve information at any level along the dimension hierarchies. Multidimensional analysis enables users to focus on specific slices of the cube to perform a more detailed analysis in the operation of slice and dice. All of above analytic result presentations are online with the data in the OLAP cube. Consequently, users obtain almost instantaneous results when they change the cubes perspective, or perform drill down to the next level along the dimension. It is generally not acceptable performance if the required chart or report is not displayed within a reasonable period of time. OLAP supports various client tools in interactive reporting and chart generation. Further, it supports different types of users ranging from novices to power users with straightforward user interfaces, preprocessed reports, complex analysis tools, and even an advanced query capability to enhance the manipulation and analysis of information in the cubes. Other aspects of presenting data to end users include various capabilities in formatting data to enhance the clarity of a report and utilizing visualization tools with constraints to reveal important information that otherwise may not be readily obvious. Reports can be stored with customized filters and selected data ranges for future use. Moreover, OLAP provides a flexible environment for the creation of exploratory analysis report on top of the cube data. 23

1.3.7 Data warehouse Modeling:

Data modeling is part of every data processing task even in data warehouse; we consider two basic data modeling in our project, ER modeling, and dimension modeling.

23

h p://asbbs.org/les/2011/ASBBS2011v1/PDF/W/WangJ.pdf,byWangJiangping,KourikJanetL,MaherPeterE, date10/11/2012

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In the next section we review why data modeling is important for data warehouse. Then We describe the basic concept and characteristics ER modeling and dimensional modeling.

1.3.8 Why Data Modeling is Important for Data Warehouse? 24

Visualization of the business world: Modeling gives us the ability to visualize what we cant yet realize. ER model used us a tool that can help in analyzing business requirements and in designing data structure. Dimension modeling gives us a capability to visualize the very abstract question that the business end users are required to answer. Utilizing dimensional modeling, end users can easily understand the data structure and fully exploit the data. Without the data model, it would be very difficult to organize the structure and contents of data in the data warehouse. The essence of the data warehouse architecture: the data model plays the role of a guideline, or plan, to implement the data warehouse. ER modeling has primarily focused on eliminating data redundancy and keeping consistency among the different data sources and applications. Consolidating the data in dimensional data models of each business area before the real implementation can help assure that the result will be an effective data warehouse and can help reduce the cost implementation. Different approaches of data modeling: ER and dimensional data modeling are very different from each other. There are can be no definite answer on which is best, but there are guidelines on which would be the better selection in a particular circumstances or in a particular environment.

1.3.9 Types of Modeling:

1.3.9.1 ER Modeling: 25
An ER modeling is represented by an ER diagram, which uses three basic graphic symbols to conceptualize the data: entity, relationship, and attribute.
24 Data Modeling Techniques for Data warehouse, by Chuck Ballard, Dirk Herreman, Don Schau, Rhonda Bell, Eunsaeng Kim, Ann Valencic, IBM Corporation, International Technical Support Organization,page page 35-36
25

h p://www.zenithresearch.org.in/images/stories/pdf/2012/Feb/ZIJMR/17_ZEN_VOL2ISSUE2_FEB12.pdf,MS. ALPAR.PATEL&PROF.(DR.)JAYESHM.PATEL,date14/11/2012

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1.3.9.1.1 Entity: An entity is defined to be a person, place, thing, or event of interest to the business or the organization. An entity has its own business definition and a clear boundary definition that is required to describe what is included and what is not. In ER modeling naming entity is important for an easy and clear understanding and communication. Each entity has a primary key to identify entity from other entities in the database. 1.3.9.1.2 Relationship: A relationship is represented with lines drawn between entities. It depicts the structural interaction and associations between entities in a model. A relationship is designated grammatically by a verb, such as owns, belongs, and has. 1.3.9.1.3 Attributes: Attributes describe the characteristics of properties of the entities. An attribute name should be unique in an entity and should be selfexplanatory. For example, simply saying date1 or date2 is not allowed, we must clearly define each.

1.3.10 Diagram ER Model:

Figure1.9: ER diagram Model

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1.3.11 Dimensional Modeling:

26

Dimensional modeling is a technique to conceptualizing and visualizing data models as a set of measures that are describe by common aspects of business. It is useful for summarizing and rearranging the data and presenting views of the data to support data analysis. Dimensional modeling focuses on numeric data, such as values, counts, weight, balances, and occurrences. Dimensional modeling has several concepts: facts, dimensions, measures (variables). 1.3.11.1 Fact: A fact is a collection of related data items, consisting of measures and context data. Each fact typically represents a business item, a business transaction, or an event that can be used in analyzing the business or business processes. In a data warehouse, facts are implemented in the core tables in which all of the numeric data is stored. 1.3.11.2 Dimension: A dimension is a collection of members or units of the same type of views. In a dimensional model, every data point in the fact table is associated with one and only one member from each of the multiple dimensions. That is, dimensions determine the contextual background for the facts. Many analytical processes are used to quantify the impact of dimensions on the facts. 1.3.11.3 Measure: A measure is a numeric attribute of a fact, representing the performance or behavior of the business relative to the dimensions. The actual numbers are called as variables. For example, measures are the sales in money, the sales volume, the quantity supplied, the supply cost, the transaction amount, and so forth. A measure is determined by combinations of the members of the dimensions and is located on facts.

26 Data Modeling Techniques for Data warehouse, by Chuck Ballard, Dirk Herreman, Don Schau, Rhonda Bell, Eunsaeng
Kim, Ann Valencic, IBM Corporation, International Technical Support Organization,page page 42-43

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1.3.12 Diagram dimensional model stare-schema and snowflake

schema:

Figure1.10: dimensional model star schema.

Figure1.11: Dimensional model-Snowflake Schema

1.3.13 Multidimensional Model:

1.3.13.1 Data Cube:
Dimensional models define business processes and their individual events in terms of measurements (facts) and descriptions (dimensions), which can be used to filter, group, and aggregate the measurements. Data cubes are often used to visualize simple
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dimensional models, as in Figure below, which shows the multidimensional analysis of a sales process with three dimensions: PRODUCT (what), TIME (when), and LOCATION (where). At the intersection of these dimensional values there are interesting facts such as the quantity sold, sales revenue, and sales costs. This perspective on the data appeals to many BI users because the three dimensional cube can be thought of as a stack of two- dimensional spreadsheets. For example, one spreadsheet for each location contains rows for products, columns for time periods, and revenue figures in each cell.

1.3.13.2 OLAP Operations in a multidimensional data:

To explain OLAP operation in multidimensional data we take sales volume as a function of product, time, and Location. In this example the Dimensions hierarchical concepts are: Product, Location, and Time.

Figure1.12: dimension hierarchy

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When data represent in cube we can see it as in the following figure.

Figure 1.14: cube data

1.3.14Types of data warehouses:

In this section, we will show the different structures of database for identifying, which data warehouse structures is suitable for our data warehouse prototype? Ponniah describes basic data warehouse architecture types available. She has introduced five data warehouse architecture designs as in the following: 27 Centralized data warehouse: The centralized data warehouse models consider enterprise level information requirement. The warehouse contains atomic level data which is maintained in the third normal form and sometimes, summarized data will be stored. No separated data marts developed in this architecture. Independent data marts: the independent data marts are develop to meet the needs of individual the organization units. Several features can be identified in the independent data marts architecture. This features include :

27

Ponniah,P.(2010).DatawarehousefundamentalsforITProfessionals, http://books.google.com.au/books?id3PJTgyUIGK4&prinsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false date11/12/2012

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Each data mart is started directly from the operational systems. Data marts are built independently from one another.

Federated Architecture (FED): the data in the data warehouse integrates logically or physically using different methods such as keys, distributed queries. Hub and spokes architecture: This architecture is similar to centralized architecture. It contains atomic (detail) level data which are normalized into third normal form. There are independent data marts attached to this centralized data warehouse. The independent data marts acquire data from the centralized data warehouse. The centralized data warehouse act as a hub and the independent data marts act as spokes. Data mart bus architecture: the data mart bus architecture is designed according to the business requirements of the organization. At the beginning data mart architecture is designed with dimensions and measurements and later on, summarized data and are organized in star schemas.

1.3.15 The differences between Operational Database System and Data warehouse system: 28
In this section we will mentioning the difference between operational database and data warehouse to explain the reason behind use the data warehouse in our project. As we know the main task of operational database system is to perform online transaction and query processing so they achieve the day-to-day operation for their organization such as accounting, purchasing, registering, and so on. On the other side the data warehouse serve users and manager in the role of the decision making process. The majors of differences can be list as in the following points: Users and system orientation: An OLTP system is customer-oriented and is used for transaction and query processing by clerks, clients, and information technology professionals. An OLAP system is market-oriented and is used for data analysis by knowledge workers, including managers, executives, and analysts.
28 JiaweiHan,MichelineKamber,JianPei,DataMiningConceptsandTechniques,thirdedition,copy right @ 2012 by Elsevier Inc, page 128- 130. 42

Data contents: An OLTP system manages current data that, typically, are too detailed to be easily used for decision making. An OLAP system manages large amounts of historic data, provides facilities for summarization and aggregation, and stores and manages information at different levels of granularity. These features make the data easier to use for informed decision making.

Database design: An OLTP system usually adopts an entity-relationship (ER) data model and an application-oriented database design. An OLAP system typically adopts either a star or a snowflake model (see Section 4.2.2) and a subject-oriented database design.

View: An OLTP system focuses mainly on the current data within an enterprise or department, without referring to historic data or data in different organizations. In contrast, an OLAP system often spans multiple versions of a database schema, due to the evolutionary process of an organization. OLAP systems also deal with information that originates from different organizations, integrating information from many data stores. Because of their huge volume, OLAP data are stored on multiple storage media.

Access patterns: The access patterns of an OLTP system consist mainly of short, atomic transactions. Such a system requires concurrency control and recovery mechanisms. However, accesses to OLAP systems are mostly readonly operations (because most data warehouses store historic rather than up-todate information), although many could be complex queries.

1.3.16 Data Warehouse and the Web technology 29 :

Because the member needs to follow up the medical file of his patient or himself to retrieve the main information about the special transaction from outside (hospitals, pharmacies, and etc), so in this part, we mentioned how data warehouse interacts with internet via our website which will be designed. In this part we depicted the capabilities of data warehouse that it provides to web-based environment.

29 Building the Data Warehouse,Fourth Edition, W. H. Inmon, Wiley Publishing, Inc. Copyright @ 2005 43

The ability to absorb huge amounts of data. Once the data warehouse is equipped with an overflow storage mechanism such as alternate/near-line storage and once the Web data passes through a Granularity Manager, the data warehouse is equipped to effectively handle an infinite amount of data. The data is quickly moved through the Web environment into the data warehouse. In doing so, the volumes of data generated by the Web environment are not an impediment to performance or availability in the Web environment.

Access to integrated data. Web data by itself is naked and fairly useless. But once Web-generated data is combined with other corporate data, the mixture is very powerful. Web data once put into the data warehouse is able to be integrated, and in doing so, very useful information is created.

The ability to provide very good performance. Because the Web accesses the ODS, not the data warehouse, good performance is consistently achieved.

1.4 The organization background: 1.4.1 Lebanese University:

The Lebanese University is the only public institution for higher learning in Lebanon. Founded in 1951, it has 17 faculties as of 2006 and serves various cultural, religious, and social groups of students and teachers. The independent university enjoys administrative, academic, and financial freedom. Among its educational goals is creating a unique mix of cultures and providing the basic and necessary education to allow students to enter various professions. 30

1.4.1.1 History:
The Lebanese University was established in 1951 to serve the diverse social groups that make up Lebanese society, and to provide a high-level institution in which students can acquire university degrees. It was launched amid a growth in the number of students in grades 10-12.

30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_University,date23/08/2012

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The first departments were The High House of Teachers and The Statistics Center. On December 3, 1951, the first class of 68 students entered the university. On February 26, 1953, official decree No. 25 founded a center for financial and administrative at the university, called The Institution of Finance and Administration. The High House of Teachers was renamed to The High Teachers Institution. The next big change was 1959's regulating decree No. 2883, which, along with many others between 1960 and 1972, added more material into the structure of the university and legalized all of its activities, requiring students to take part as administrators within the different faculties. 31

1.4.2 Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers and Assistance:

The "Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teacher (SFLUT)" is a public establishment that is characterized by an abstract personality in addition to the financial and administrative independence. It provides many services such as scholarship for teachers children during all the educational stages and provides security on medical tests done by the teacher himself or by any member of his family in condition that he/she is not married including his mother and father and his sister/brother if she/he is not married and for other reasons stated in the discipline of the SFLUT. The medical services provided by the SFLUT are not restricted on the medical tests done in the laboratories but they also include security when the teacher or any member depends on him enters hospital or buys medicines from pharmacy in condition that they have contracted with the SFLUT and many other services stated below. 32

31 32

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_University,date23/08/2012 h p://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm,date25/08/2012

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1.4.2.1 The administrative mechanism of the affiliation and to benefit from the Fund:
Affiliation members of the teaching staff of full-time contractors and subject to the staffing of: fill out the special form to the Fund. Continuity affiliation and benefit retirees: deposit a copy of the Fund retirement decision issued by the Ministry of Finance. Continuity affiliation and benefit those who received compensation Exchange: deposit a copy of the Fund's decision indemnity issued by the Ministry of Finance, and the statement from the presidency of the Lebanese University, about the number of years of service with a written pledge about he not take advantage of any other fund offers the same services or better. To benefit the family and who with custody of the affiliated: affiliated submit a written request to the Fund's management requesting the inclusion of a wife or son or father or mother or brother or sister on his charge and attach the required documents[ 33 , 34 ]

1.4.2.2 Affiliates and Beneficiaries from the Fund:

Doctors and Assistance who are teaching at Lebanese University: Entering into staffing of, Contractors and full time, Retirees who have earned them a pension, Retirees who took the compensation payment in accordance with the retirement and dismissal, with the condition of not belonging to any other fund provide the same services or better and instead pay the annual subscription. Who received compensation payment with the condition that their services at the Lebanese University (staffing of or full-time) and arrived when they reach the legal retirement age to at least ten years and not

33 34

h p://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm,date25/08/2012. http://www.teacherssyndicatelb.com/AR/collaboration_in.asp,date25/08/2102.

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be affiliated to any other fund provides the same services or better and pay instead of annual subscription. Beneficiaries of the Fund's services: Members and their families [the husband (wife) and children] and who are in their custody (father or mother or brother or sister), and according to the system of benefits and services. 35 Services that are provided by the SFLUT: The hospitalization, pathological and treatment assistances because of a sickness or an accident. Scholarships for the teachers children. Birth and marriage scholarships. The death assistance for the family if the teacher is died or for the teacher if any member depends on him is died. Social services that are decided by the board of management. Housing loans. Discounts on prices and tariffs according to agreements hold by fund with profit and non-profit establishments. The contribution of the SFLUT in hospitalization: 90% of the expenses is paid by the fund if the teacher or one of his family members enters hospital and 10% paid by the teacher. 75% of the expenses is paid by the fund if the brother, sister, father or mother of the teacher enters hospital and 25% paid by the teacher. The contribution in expenses done outside hospital:

35

h p://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm,date25/08/2012.

47

85% out of the expenses paid for the teacher or any member of his family.

60% out of the expenses paid for the brother, sister, father or mother of the teacher.
36

36

h p://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm,date25/08/2012

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Practical Part:
In this part we will discuss the followings, The method will be used to get data from/to the data ware house, the current decision-making process and the develop prototype data warehouse for Solidarity fund, the develop a website to access data on the data warehouse and the tools and instrument used to develop the data warehouse and website limitations faced in this project.

2.1 Method used:

In order to develop our data warehouse prototype, we are using a data collection method for gathering the main information to design the data warehouse prototype and the forms that used by the fund to record the information about the member's patient's transaction. These forms were showed on the appendix A 37 . Also , I was doing an interview about designing the website, and what are the most important information can be displayed on this website?. This interview done with IT manager Dr.Iyad Zaarour, the interview showed on the appendix B 38 .

2.2 Current decision making process:

In order to get his/her financial medical assistance for his/her patient's transaction, the member must bring with him all papers of diagnosis, laboratory's testing, hospitalization, Pharmacy bills and so on about the case of patient. Solidarity fund system is doing separately from other systems of laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies, so, the member takes all these papers from all these places and delivering them to the Solidarity fund administration unit. Also the members need to fill the fund form about the medical assistance. After that, the committee checks all papers and retrieval the patient's medical history then the committee can make a decision about the patient's transaction, if the committee accept the transaction then they decide to give the financial assistance to the member, otherwise reject the transaction.

37 38

http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod,date13/12/2012 Dr.IyadZaarour,ITmanagerinthesolidarityfund,date13/12/2012

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The current process takes a long time till the members gets their financial assistance about their transaction , so the developing a data warehouse to integrate the Solidarity fund system with the other systems of hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies will improve the decision making process.

2.3 The data warehouse prototype development:

We will design a data warehouse prototype and website to improve the Solidarity fund decision making process and integrate the Solidarity fund system with other system of hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies. Using a data warehouse and website the transactions papers about patients case will be sent directly from hospitals, laboratories, and pharmacies to the fund system and then use these papers in making a decision about the patients transaction.

2.3.1 Data Sources:

The data comes to the Solidarity fund from hospitals where the member's patients doing the hospitalization, laboratories where the member's patients doing the diagnosing and testing, pharmacies where the member's patients bought the medicines, schools where the member's children studying. So we can depict the Solidarity fund system as showing in the following figure.

Figure2.1: Solidarity Fund of Lebanese University Teachers (SFLUT) System

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2.3.2 The proposed data warehouse model for solidarity fund:

After knowing the main systems that are played a main role to interact with solidarity fund system, we can depict the data warehouse structure as in the figure below.

Figure2.2: the proposed data warehouse model for solidarity fun.

2.3.3 The Design Data Model for data warehouse prototype:

The solidarity system contains the data marts, chronic disease data mart, normal disease data mart, pharmacy data mart, laboratory data mart and, so to extract the information from these data marts and stores data onto them, we proceeded to design a data warehouse prototype; the snowflake model was adopted, based on fact table and multiple dimensions. This model presented in the figure below.

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TransactionDateDimension Transactiondatekey(pk) Day Month Year Transactionbillingfact TransactionDatekey(fk) Teacherkey(fk) Hospitalkey(fk) Laboratorykey(fk) TeacherDimension Pharmacykey(fk) Teacherkey(pk) Totaltransactionbillvalue Teachername Contributionoffundonthebill Teacheraddress TeacherCollege

HospitalDimension Hospitalkey(pk) Hospitalname Doctorname

PharmacyDimension Pharmacykey(pk) Pharmacyname Namemedicine Number

PatientDimension Patientkey(pk) Teacherkey(fk) Patientname

LaboratoryDimension Laboratorykey(pk) Testtype Testtypekey(fk) Testtypekey(pk) Laboratoryname Typetest Nametest

Figure2.3: data warehouse snowflake schema conceptual data model.

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2.3.4 Tools used to develop the data warehouse:

Sql server 2008 provides the following tools to create data warehouse Analysis services (SSAS): Used as a tool that provides storage for the data used in cubes for our data warehouse. Integration services(SSIS): Used as a tool to extract, transform, and load data form outsources (different databases, excel sheets, flat file, etc..) to our data warehouse. Reporting services (SSRS): Used as tool to view data on the data warehouse.

2.4 The website development:

After interview with IT manager Dr.Iyad Zaarour and asked him about the main information that will be displayed or will be used by the solidarity fund members, decision making committee in the fund , and doctors of hospitals . The website was developed as in the following interfaces figures.

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Figure2.4: the website Login page. This page used as an authentication page to prevent any access to the website information, for anyone not has an authorized access to website.

Figure2.5: the website main page This page displayed the main information about members and the main information about their family members who has registered in the solidarity fund system. From this page, the members or who had a privileged access to the website can be navigated to the patient's transaction pages that contains on the details about each patient's transaction.

Figure2.6: the member " "transaction on the hospital data mart This page displays all transactions of member " " on the hospital data mart that can be extracted from hospital data mart and transformed them to the data warehouse and then displayed them on the website.

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Figure2.7: the transaction details and the bill value for the transaction. This page displays the bill value when the member needs to know, how much the money he has for his transaction. For example the bill value for the transaction number 571-08 for patient he has done in the laboratory will be 205000 L.L.

2.4.1Tools used to develop the website:

2.4.1.1 Visual studio.net: 39
Visual Studio.NET provides a high-level development environment for building applications on the .NET Framework. It provides key enabling technologies to simplify the creation, deployment, and ongoing evolution of secure, scalable, highly available Web applications and Web Services. Visual Studio.NET provides an integrated development environment that allows you to create solutions for the .NET Framework. Visual Studio.NET integrates the best of programming languages in a single interface that you can use to develop enterprise-scale Web applications and high-performance desktop applications. Visual Studio.NET allows you to create a myriad of applications. Some of the applications commonly developed using Visual Studio.NET is: Console applications

Microsoft .Net framework professional, Angshuman Chakraborti, Uday Kranti, Roopendra Jeet Sandhu,Published by Premier PressInc. Copyright 2002 pages 60, 61, 62,63,64,65
39

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 Windows applications Web applications (ASP.NET). Web services You can create Web services and applications by using the ASP.Net offered by Visual Studio.NET. Visual Studio.NET provides the following programming languages: Language C# Description C# was designed for the .NET platform and is the first modern componentoriented language in the C and C++ family. It can be embedded in ASP.NET pages. Some of the key features of this language include classes, interfaces, delegates, namespaces, properties, indexers, events, operator overloading, versioning, attributes, unsafe code, and XML documentation generation. No header or Interface Definition Language (IDL) files are needed. Visual C++.NET The managed C++ is a minimal extension to the C++ language. This extension provides access to the .NET Framework that includes garbage collection, single-implementation inheritance, and multipleinterface inheritance. This upgrade also eliminates the need to write plumbing code for components. It offers low-level access where useful. Visual Basic.NET Visual Basic.NET provides substantial language innovations over previous versions of Visual Basic. Visual Basic.NET supports inheritance, constructors, polymorphism, constructor overloading, structured exceptions, stricter type checking, free threading, and many other features. There is only one form of assignment? No Let or Set methods. There are new Rapid Application Development (RAD) features such as XML Designer, Server Explorer, and Web Forms designer available

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from Visual Studio.NET to Visual Basic. With this release, Visual Basic Scripting Edition provides full Visual Basic functionality Microsoft J#.NET J#.NET is rewritten to be fully .NET aware. It includes support for classes, inheritance, types, and compilation. It provides improved performance and productivity features. JScript.NET is also integrated with Visual Studio.NET. You can take advantage of any .NET Framework class in JScript.NET. Third-party languages Several third-party languages are supporting the .NET platform. These languages include APL, COBOL, Pascal, Eiffel, Haskell, ML, Oberon, Perl, Python, Scheme, and Smalltalk.

With so many languages to choose from, you might be wondering which language to use for developing applications in Visual Studio.NET. You can use any language from the suite of languages made available by Visual Studio.NET. It is likely that familiarity with a previous version of the language will guide the selection of the language. Apart from the incorporated feature of the programming languages, Visual Studio .NET includes certain enhanced features of its own. Some of these features are: Implementation of Web Forms Implementation of Web services Implementation of Windows Forms Implementation of project-independent object model Enhanced debugging Support for ASP.NET programming Enhanced integrated development environment (IDE)

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 Implementation of Web Forms Visual Studio.NET provides Web Forms to enable you to create Web applications. The applications created using Web Forms can be implemented on any browser or mobile device. To ensure compliance across devices, Web Forms implement controls that render HTML compliant to the specific browser. Web Forms are implemented as classes that are compiled into the Dynamic Link Library (DLL), thereby ensuring server-side code security.

Implementation of Web Services Another important feature of Visual Studio.NET is the creation, deployment, and debugging of Web services. The support for Internet standards such as HTTP and XML allows use of Web services across platforms. Implementation of Windows Forms Visual Studio.NET supports Windows Forms that you can use to create Windows applications for the .NET Framework. Windows Forms are object-oriented and consist of an extensible set of classes. You can implement Windows Forms and Windows Forms controls to create the presentation tier. Implementation of Project-Independent Object Model Visual Studio.NET as a rapid application development (RAD) tool has various ways to represent IDE tools, the components of a solution, and the information exchange with the developer. Visual Studio.NET implements a projectindependent object model to access the components and events of the Visual Studio.NET IDE. This model includes components that represent solutions, projects, tools, code editors, debuggers, code objects, documents, and events. You can use this model through macros, add-ins, wizards, and the Visual Studio.NET Integration Program (VSIP). VSIP is a program that can be used to

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extend the Visual Studio.NET IDE. This program provides you with additional objects and interfaces to create customized tools, file types, and designers. Enhanced Debugging Visual Studio.NET provides an integrated debugger that can be used to debug solutions written in different languages. In addition, you can associate the debugger to a currently executing program. This allows you to debug multiple programs simultaneously. You can also debug multithreaded programs or a program executing on a remote computer. Support for ASP.NET Programming: An important feature of Visual Studio.NET is support for ASP.NET programming. This tool incorporates technologies, such as ASP.NET, that simplify the design, development, and deployment of business solutions. You can create Web applications by using Visual Studio.NET. You can also use the Visual Studio.NET tools such as Visual designer for Web pages and code-aware text editors for writing code. Enhanced IDE: The Visual Studio.NET IDE extends across the programming languages supported by Visual Studio.NET. You can even create customized tools to enhance the capabilities of Visual Studio by creating macros and using the customization features of the IDE. Visual Studio now also allows you to simultaneously debug and troubleshoot a Web application such as an ASP .NET page, along with its corresponding DLLs.

2.4.1.2

Active Server Pages (ASP) net:

Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side scripting environment that programmer can use to create and run dynamic, interactive Web server applications. With ASP, you can combine HTML pages, script commands, and Component Object

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Model (COM) components to create interactive Web pages or powerful Web-based applications, which are easy to develop and modify. ASP.NET makes application development much easier than it was with classic ASP, and hence it has dramatically improved developers' productivity. ASP.NET enables developer to provide richer functionality to his Web applications by writing the least amount of code. The best part is that ASP.NET enables developer to select any of the available .NET programming languages. In addition to the usual Web applications, ASP.NET allows developer to create other types, which enables him to extend his applications' reach to new customers and business partners. For example, XML Web services enable sharing of data across the Internet regardless of the operating system and the programming language this certainly widens the reach of developer applications. Also, ASP.NET provides developer with mobile controls that enable his applications to target a large number of mobile Web devices. Deploying server applications has always been a pain for developers. With ASP.NET, however, developers do not need to worry on this front at all, because ASP.NET has dramatically simplified the deployment process. Deploying a Web application simply requires developer to copy it to the Web server. In addition to providing a rich developer experience, ASP.NET provides a rich user experience. ASP.NET applications do not require an explicit compilation step and, in turn, execute faster. Additionally, ASP.NET has rich caching and state-management features that add to the improved performance of ASP.NET Web applications. In addition to providing high performance and scalability, ASP.NET applications are highly reliable and secure. The greater reliability and security features enable your application users to build more confidence in using them. 40

2.4.1.3

C sharp language (c#):

C# is an advanced version of C and C++ and is designed especially for the .NET environment.

40 Asp.net bible ,mridula Parihar and et al, Published by Hungry Minds, copy right 2002,pages 1,2,3,4,5. 60

C#, pronounced C sharp, is a new object-oriented language used by programmers worldwide to develop applications that run on the .NET platform. However, C# is not a part of the .NET environment. C# is a part of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The other languages included in the Visual Studio package are Visual C++ and Visual Basic. Developer can use all these languages to create applications that run in the .NET environment. C# is a significant step in the evolution of programming languages, and C# is an ideal solution for high-level business applications. Using C#, programmer can create a wide range of projects that can be used to build a complete client/server application. C# builds on the features of C, C++, Visual Basic (VB), and Java to provide a complete environment for developing applications. C# merges the power of C, the object-oriented features of C++, and the graphical interface of VB. In addition, the programs in both C# and Java compile to a byte code. 41

3. Part three:
3.1 Conclusions:
Theoretical part provides details on data warehouse. Data warehouse helps to integrate data from separate systems. Data warehouse differences from the operational systems, such as in the use of data users, database size, transaction type, data entry when compared with the OLTP systems. There are five different architectural models for the data warehouse such as centralized data warehouse architecture, independent data marts (IDM), federated architecture (FED), hub and spoke and data marts bus architecture. Also in the theoretical part we identified the different data model types for the data warehouse that are entity relationship model, star schema model and snowflake model.

41 Microsoft C sharp professional project 2002, Geetanjali Arora, Balasubramaniam Aiyaswamy Nitin Pandey ,
Published by Premier Press, copyright 2002, pages 1,2,4,5.

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The decision support system (DSS) identified and the role of DSS in supporting decision making process. The project that the current decision-making process at the Solidarity Fund of Lebanese Universitys teachers (SFLT) with other systems of hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, and so on is a manual decision-making process. Also there are several issues in the current decision-making process such as the integrity of data between solidarity fund system and other system, time consuming in responding to the request of member deliver he asked a financial assistance from the solidarity fund. In the practical part from this project develop the data warehouse prototype and identified its data model which is snowflake model. Also develop the website which use as decision support system tool to support the decision maker with the main information about the members patients transaction.

3.2 Recommendations:
When we looking at the current decision-making process issues that a data warehouse might provide some solutions decision-making process. Therefore, development of data warehouse provides better accessibility and it integrates disparate data sources (Hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, and schools) and improves decision-making. Furthermore it is important to address barriers to warehouse implementation, also it is important to address and data access issues with warehouse implementation. With the previous mentioned recommendations the development data warehouse in the future will provide benefits for the solidarity fund.

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Appendix A :
We used the following forms to collect data that are used in designing data warehouse and its data marts.

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64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

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Appendix B An interview with IT manager Dr.Iyad Zaarour Reviewquestions: 1. Hi,howareyouDoctor? Fine,thanks. 2. Whatisyourfullname? MynameisIyadHassanZaarour. 3. Whatisyouroccupation? IhavePhDinInformationtechnologyfromFrance. 4. WhatisyourjobintheMutualfundofLebaneseUniversitysteachers? IamamanagerofITdepartment. 5. Whatisthecurrentproblemyourefacedonthemedicalfilestructure? Themainproblemofthisfilecanbeidentifiedinthefollowingsteps Member who has transaction on this file, need to go to the fund every time when he wants follow up his transaction or his patients transaction, so we need design websitetofacilitateforteacherfollowuphistransactionthroughInternet. Doctors in hospital sometimes need investigating in the patient's medical history, especially when the patients come from another hospital, so they need access to theinformationthatwasstoredinthefunddatabasethroughtheinternet. The committee who make a decision to accept or reject the transaction, in this case,thewebsitewillsupportthemtomakethecorrectdecisionthroughfollowing upthepatient'smedicalhistory.
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6. Whatisyourmainreasonforthissite? Tosolvepreviouslymentionedproblem. 7. Can be used the website to enters the patient's medical information to the databases? Yes, I hope the websiteused to enters the information directly from the hospitals, pharmacies,schoolstothefunddatabases. 8. What are tools which you want me to use in developing the website for this file, andintegratingwithotherfilesofthemainsite? In our main site we have used the visual studio.net with asp.net, and C# as programming language, so I prefer using those tools in order to design web pages forthisfileandlinkitwithmainsiteeasily. 9. Whataction(s)shouldauserperformwhenvisitingyoursite? Displayinformation. 10. Screensize: Nopreference 1024x768 800x600 Stretchentirewidthofscreen 11. If the site is not the entire width of the screen, do you have a preference for alignment? Doyouhavelayoutrequirementsorpreferences?

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Nopreference Left Center 12. Navigation(mainmenu): Nopreference Verticalleft Horizontal Verticalright 13. Doyouhavealogo? Yes No 14. IfYes,doyouhaveadigitalcopyofyourlogo? Yes No

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29. Jiawei Han, Micheline Kamber, Jian Pei, Data Mining Concepts and Techniques, third edition, copy right @ 2012 by Elsevier Inc, page 128- 130. 30. Building the Data Warehouse,Fourth Edition, W. H. Inmon, Wiley Publishing, Inc. Copyright @ 2005 31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_University, date 23/08/2012 32. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_University, date 23/08/2012 33. http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm , date 25/08/2012 34. http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm , date 25/08/2012. 35. http://www.teacherssyndicatelb.com/AR/collaboration_in.asp, date 25/08/2102. 36. http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm , date 25/08/2012. 37. http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod/SUB1.htm , date 25/08/2012 38. http://www.ul.edu.lb/taadod, date 13/12/2012 39. Dr.Iyad Zaarour, IT manager in the solidarity fund , date 13/12/2012 40. Microsoft .Net framework professional, Angshuman Chakraborti, Uday Kranti, Roopendra Jeet Sandhu, Published by Premier PressInc. Copyright 2002 pages 60, 61, 62,63,64,65 41. Asp.net bible ,mridula Parihar and et al, Published by Hungry Minds, copy right 2002, pages 1,2,3,4,5. 42. Microsoft C sharp professional project 2002, Geetanjali Arora, Balasubramaniam Aiyaswamy Nitin Pandey , Published by Premier Press, copyright 2002, pages 1,2,4,5.

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