Get the 3 tools plus 9 tricks I use to run a faster SAP BW by 30% (all-without extra hardware).
Along with many tips for tuning complex reports, data models, & transformations.
A how-to for extracting activity data from Fitbit and analyzing it with an enterprise-grade visualization tool
For one who dislike wearing watches or accessories, I have surprisingly worn the new Fitbit Charge HR (heart rate + activity wristband) every day since it was released for a solid two months.
The idea of effortlessly collecting data to gauge my activity is persuasive and the new clasp is solid, holding up after an hour of kickboxing.
I also love the companion app for the iPhone. The UI is gorgeous and you can quickly view the various metrics for today and previous days. Here are some screens.
[envira-gallery slug=”fitbit-mobile-ui-analytics”]
After using it for a few weeks, however, I found a limitation in the default UI.
For example, metrics such as calories burned or total steps can be viewed one day at a time. You need to toggle to another day to see a different set of metrics. There is no easy way to cross reference metrics and draw a correlation between an activity and calories burned.
Since I needed simple data exploration, the decision to use SAP Lumira was easy. But how do I export the Fitbit data? Luckily, there was a published recipe on IFTTT to automatically import your Fitbit data into Google Sheets.
That’s it! Just follow the prompts at step 3 and you’re set. Each morning, the IFTTT app will alert you to a new entry, where new record will be appended to your Google Sheet.
One manual step is a description of the metrics. You will need to manually insert a header line into your Google Sheet to describe the metrics. This can be easily found in the IFTTT recipe. Here’s a copy of my sheet for your convenience.
After a few days of collecting the Fitbit data, you should have a solid dataset to create your own visualizations. Here’s mine (PDF link).
With a limited set of data for one week, I can already draw correlations between the increase in one activity such as number of steps taken to the increase of calories burned for a given day. Similarly, fewer calories are burned when I am sedentary. Of course, you don’t need a high-tech gadget and enterprise level analytics to draw that conclusion.
Where this information becomes interesting is in the application. I have a goal of burning 2,900 calories per day but this is a result and not an action that I take directly. Based on the above charts, however, I can see a correlation between calories burned and the number of steps taken, which is an action that I can directly influence.
As a result, I can set this metric (10,000 steps) as a daily goal, which triggers an alert vibration when accomplished. When I feel the a vibration from the Fitbit Charge HR, I know that my personal daily goal of burning approximately 2,900 calories has been accomplished.
As of the writing of this article, the heart rate metrics are not available for export but the folks at Fitbit will make that data available soon.
For intraday information (minute-by-minute data), you will need to request partner access to their API. Here’s a great article on setting that up.
A client asked for a custom business intelligence report to track the aging of her products in quarterly buckets (1-3 months, 4-6 months, etc.). She could not afford to assume that her quantity of stock on hand is actively moving due to one recent goods receipt, as suggested by SAP Standard Content. She needed additional insight into her data.
“Can we build a more accurate inventory aging report? The one provided by SAP ages the entire stock quantity by the latest receipt date. This does not give us a valid aging of the stock that we have on hand.”
While the standard content for SAP Business Intelligence is immensely useful for quickly implementing common solutions and getting critical reports into the hands of business users, the out-of-the-box material do not address specific issues due to the different nature of each industry.
Imagine a grocery store manager who needs to move his inventory of milk and we can begin to see the urgency.
Assuming the manager receives the bulk of his delivery on the first of the month, he will need to to quickly start moving his product by the 15th of the month before his product spoils. This can be accomplished with a sale or promotion. A delivery of additional milk products at the end of the month should not imply that his remaining stock is fresh.
Luckily, most of my clients do not stock perishable goods. Still, having slow or non moving stock hinders a company’s ability to operate since the capital is locked-up as inventory.
Figure 1. The out-of-the-box inventory aging report, which applies the latest goods receipt to the entire stock
First-In First-Out (FIFO) is easily understood on a conceptual level. You ship the material in the order in which you received it.
However, this approach is difficult to implement at the programming level because of the book-keeping overhead. There isn’t a direct relationship between a goods receipt and a goods issue in the logistics module. You will need to keep an account of the movements manually.
Tracking the stock balance while applying the latest goods issue to the earliest goods receipt required an large amount of coding and testing, which we could not afford in our development timeline.
To work around this constraint, I developed a simpler solution. The approach hinged on the assumption that the earliest goods receipts will be consumed by the earliest goods issue. As such, they do not need to be accounted for.
Because I had already helped this client to implement the standard non-cumulative inventory solution to report current stock balances, we already knew the ending balance quantities and values for a given set of materials on a given date.
With the ending balance quantities identified, we simply worked backwards and counted only the goods receipts that contributed to the current stock.
Figure 2. A custom inventory aging report with various buckets for segmentation.
The client loved the simpler approach and I was able to deliver the solution in a few days, well within the constraints of the project timeline. If there were an opportunity to revisit this solution, I would like to further increase the accuracy of the valuation to account for variations in the monthly material valuations (used at other clients). More to come in a future post.
What do you think of this approach? Would you like more detail on this solution? Does it address an issue that you’re currently facing? Send me an email or let me know in the comments below.
P.S. Looking to implement your own custom solution? Get my pre-made guides where I map out the information that you need.
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A recent customer was overwhelmed the number of production issues and asked me to review 3 nightly transformations that consistently delayed the company reports each morning. The three transformations consumed system resources and required 20, 20, and 30 minutes each (70 minutes in total) to complete.
So I reviewed the logs in the production environment, analyzed the custom transformation logic (start, object, and end-routines), and optimized the existing solution to deliver the same information but at a fraction of the prior run-times, allowing a nice margin for the team’s service level agreement with their business divisions.
I had decreased the total run-time from 70.0 minutes to 3.5 minutes (60, 60, and 90 seconds each) and she was ecstatic. A 95% increase in performance was an easy win, especially for busy people.
In the past, I had offered this service as part of a long project engagement. This usually occurred during lulls between the completion of one solution and the start of a new project. Now, I would like to extend this service as a stand-alone solution for new and existing clients to quickly reduce a major, but common headache.
If you would like to eliminate on-going issues with your nightly data load process, contact me to learn how I can help speed up your systems.
For your upcoming project, do you need an indispensable asset with a proven track record or a useful but replaceable instruction taker with a particular skill on his resume?
Your decision, of course, hinges on the purpose of the hire. What is the scope of the project and the budget consideration? Are you looking to build an internal team to support your company’s needs? Or are you looking for someone to take ownership and delivery of a project? Do you have time for this person to grow into this role or do you need a rock-solid solution to this project as soon as possible?
I’ve seen both scenarios carried out successfully. The key is intent. I have also, however, seen my fair share of headaches when a client is unclear in his purpose and chooses incorrectly.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
I don’t much care where –
Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
In the article “When Cheaper Costs More“, I wrote of when a client was very proud on getting the lowest price for a project.
Assuming that all things were equal, I can see how he may have reached that conclusion. The list of skills on my resume were similar to that of the lower-priced resources. However, that resource also wasted 12 days of time and expense on an incomplete design while I leveraged prior experience to build and deliver a solution in 1 one day.
I understand that as a manager, you are busy and this may be one of many projects you are juggling. Perhaps you’re building a Center of Excellence (COE) and you need technical resources to fills out the roles. Or you may have a visible but smaller project where you need someone to come in, deliver to spec, and help make your day a little more manageable.
Before you pull that trigger, just recall the initial purpose. Am I looking for someone to augment my team or a professional to deliver a one-off project? How much time will I need to devote to training this person? Do I need a subject-matter expert (SME) that I can ramp up and down as needed? Is he a good, long term fit for the team or will I need someone short-term?
After reflecting on the original intent, go with your gut. It’s usually right.
Hau Ngo is a SAP Business Intelligence Architect. Over the years, he has helped numerous companies build robust and efficient reporting solutions. If you enjoyed this article, join his monthly newsletter.
A few years ago, I was asked to help deliver a new SAP Netweaver BW system for a lawn and snow maintenance & manufacturing company.
I had worked with the Project Lead for another customer so she picked me up when she learned about my upcoming availability. The Project Sponsor, on the other hand, jokingly made references to my “high bill-rate” enough times to give me pause.
This was my first interaction with the Project Sponsor so there was trust to be earned with him.
While I had prior experience from having delivered a similar reporting solution, the Project Sponsor’s comments had me question my value when compared to two other resources on the team. Did my parent company over-promise on my abilities? Can these other resources deliver a higher value to the customer at a lower cost?
The two other resources had joined the project about a month before I was available. They had a head start in understanding the business requirements and they seem to be knowledgeable about the technology. The Project Sponsor liked the two resources but he seemed to like ribbing me about my high price even more.
Over the course of several weeks, however, little red flags started to pop up.
Concepts and solutions presented by one of the two resources did not make sense to either the Project Lead or myself. The second resource seemed to have a better grasp of the requirements and technically more competent but he was relatively quiet in his communication. I had trouble gauging either of their expertise.
The concerns and red flags grew as we neared the project completion date. Testing for most of the components were in the final stages. However, the development assigned to one of the two resources had stalled. He had trouble understanding the concepts and would resist assistance.
He also had a tendency to raise his voice when his designs were questioned. That’s another red flag that I’ve learned to quickly pick up since it has been a consistent indicator of trouble down the line.
The Project Lead made the decision to let him go and assign the work to me. She said, “Hau, you’re almost done with your section of the project and you’ve done this part before. Can you take a look at the issues and get us back on track?”
So I devoted 8 hours on a Saturday and rebuilt his solution.
The following week, I mentioned to the Project Sponsor “Hey, I finished in 8 hours what your guy could not deliver in 120 hours! What do you think?”
I was beaming. He was not enthused. This was earlier in my consulting career so I had a few things to learn about professional communication. People do not like being told that they were wrong.
On paper, my resume was similar to the other two resources. However, the Project Lead and I had worked together for another manufacturing company and she vouched for my expertise. That’s how I got the job.
No one could vouch for the experience of the other two resources. From what I gathered, they were “cheaper”.
