ERP Reporting, Analytics & Business Intelligence Flashcards

What is the primary difference between operational ERP reports and analytical BI dashboards?

Answer: Operational reports use real-time transactional data; BI dashboards aggregate historical data for trend analysis

Operational reports reflect current transaction states for day-to-day decisions, while BI dashboards aggregate historical data to reveal trends and support strategic decisions.

In ERP systems, what is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?

Answer: A quantifiable metric used to evaluate business performance against defined objectives

A KPI is a measurable value that shows how effectively a company is achieving its key business objectives, often displayed on ERP dashboards.

What does ETL stand for in the context of ERP data warehousing?

Answer: Extract, Transform, Load

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) is the process of pulling data from ERP source systems, cleaning and transforming it, then loading it into a data warehouse for reporting.

Which type of ERP report shows cumulative financial results from inception to the current date?

Answer: Year-to-date (YTD) summary report

A Year-to-Date (YTD) report aggregates financial data from the beginning of the fiscal year through the current reporting date.

In ERP analytics, what is a drill-down report?

Answer: A report that allows users to click on summary data to see the underlying detailed transactions

A drill-down report lets users navigate from a high-level summary (e.g., total sales by region) into the detailed records that make up that total.

What is the role of a data warehouse in an ERP reporting architecture?

Answer: To store consolidated, historical data optimized for reporting and analysis without impacting the ERP transaction system

A data warehouse stores integrated historical data from multiple source systems and is optimized for analytical queries, keeping heavy reporting workloads off the operational ERP database.