Insource Health BI is developed using the international award winning data warehousing toolset Data Academy®. Developed in conjunction with Microsoft BI Specialists, Data Academy provides a tried and tested platform for the delivery of robust and successful SQL Server based data warehouses.

The technologies behind Data Academy® enable Insource Health BI to deliver on its promises of being the most “technically advanced” data warehouse BI solution available today.

In an ideal world, a BI solution would provide off-the-shelf functionality that:

• is upgradable without requiring the whole implementation to be offline during the upgrade time,
• allows the customer to customise and further develop without necessary recourse to the supplier
• allows the expansion of the BI solution to include, combine and report on additional data sources
• when upgrades are applied, customisation and expansion is not lost
• enables development to take place independently of the live environment
• provides smooth upgrade to newer versions of SQL Server as they come along
• allows the client to use their own choice of reporting tool
• enables the sharing of customised elements with other NHS trusts

Welcome to the ideal world… Data Academy® provides the technology such that Insource Health BI delivers on all of these ideals. Developing in Data Academy® delivers the following to its customers.

Expandability, Customisation & Ongoing Development

Data Academy® is a data warehouse building toolset that builds robust, reliable and expandable data warehouses and data marts in a fraction of the time it takes when using conventional native SQL.

This development capability can be provided to Insource Health BI customers to those that want to expand, customise or develop further their own solutions. This includes but is by no means limited to:

• Adding other data sources to the data warehouse e.g. ESR, Finance, Theatres, Radiology etc.
• Creating new data analysis cubes and datasets to the off-the-shelf set
• Customising the existing analysis off-the-shelf cubes and datasets
• Creating new data quality exception datasets

Insource Health BI has been architected in conjunction with Data Academy such that additions, changes etc can be applied to the off-the-shelf product. The world leading technology utilised to achieve this flexibility allows the standard product to be upgraded without affecting any of the custom components that the customer has developed.

Non Invasive Upgrades

Data Academy developed solutions are broken down into module elements. Each of these elements are brought together to form the basis of the data warehouse daily processing.

Through its innovative and revolutionary “TRANS-it” technology, these individual elements can be exported and delivered to Insource Health BI customers as upgrades to their existing data warehouse. These individual elements can be incorporated in the customer's live environment without interrupting the availability of the application to its users.

Independent Runtime

The standard Insource Health BI is provided with a runtime version of Data Academy which is sufficient to allow the BI solution to operate. In the event that the customer wishes to incorporate additional data sources, or develop the reporting solution beyond the off-the-shelf modules, a full development licence of Data Academy can be purchased.

However, this development licence is implemented independently of the runtime licence, thus client development can be undertaken independently of the live environment. This reduces the risk to zero of interruptions to the day to day activities of the live system by developers making high risk changes.

Full Resource Utilisation

Data Academy produces SQL Server based data warehouses which can either be customised and maintained using the Data Academy tool, or where necessary custom elements can be added using the native SQL Server Tools such as Management Studio and The Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Therefore, any existing investment in SQL Server skills can be fully maintained and utilised. In addition there is a wealth of Data Academy and SQL Server skills that can be used as required to smooth out the peaks and troughs of resource demands that are associated with Business Intelligence solutions.

Supplier, Developer and Resource Independence

A Data Academy data warehouse development and hence Insource Health BI consists of a complete end to end warehouse processing procedure that is broken down into smaller manageable steps.

The overall processing procedure, known as an "ORCHESTRATION" is fully transparent, and it is therefore clear as to what steps Data Academy is using to perform its warehouse build process.

Each step is represented by a module within the Data Academy toolset. Each module's content is completely transparent as to the task it is performing and how it is achieving it.

Therefore, any modifications and additions made to Insource Health BI are completely transparent to the customer. What this means is that, any development professional whether from within the Trust or from an external source, who is familiar with SQL Server and is trained on the use of Data Academy is capable of developing and maintaining an Insource Health BI implementation.

Multiplied Development Team

Until now it has been impractical to attempt to share any work undertaken by other Trusts. The task of trying to re-implement what others have done is simply too difficult, technology has not helped.

The revolutionary “TRANS-it” technology that is used in Data Academy and hence Insource Health BI, enables developments to be shared between Trusts in a non-invasive manner. By simply exporting the work undertaken to a small external file, developments can be shared between Trusts using "email". Once received, they can also be customised to meet the recipients Trust's own exacting requirements.

Therefore, when you Implement Insource Health BI, you are effectively multiplying your development team by the number of existing users of the product (and for that matter other Data Academy users).

Reporting Tool Independent

Data Academy based data warehouses are developed on an MS SQL Server Platform. The output of a Data Academy data warehouse is a series of SQL Server based datasets and schemas, and a series of SQL Server Analysis Services OLAP Cubes. This means that any reporting tool that can report from SQL Server tables and/or Analysis Services Cubes can be used as the user presentation for Insource Health BI.

Although Insource Health BI can be purchased complete with the Analyzer 2007 reporting tool, this is not mandatory and therefore the customer is free to use the presentation reporting tool of their choice including but not limited to:

• SQL Server Reporting Services / Excel / SharePoint
• Business Objects
• IBM Cognos
• Crystal Reports
• Qlikview