The template is comprised of two tables. The first table answers the essential who and when questions so that the project can be added to the BI team's backlog. The BI team can use this information to plan their engagements across multiple ongoing and requested Power BI projects and to respond to project stakeholders, such as Vickie Jacobs, VP of Group Sales, in this example:
|
Date of Submission
|
10/15/2017 |
|
Project Sponsor |
Vickie Jacobs, VP of Group Sales |
|
Primary Stakeholders |
Adventure Works Sales |
|
Power BI Author(s) |
Mark Langford, Sales Analytics Manager |
The following table is a list of questions that describe the project's requirements and scope. For example, the number of users that will be read-only consumers of Power BI reports and dashboards, and the number of self-service users that will need Power BI Pro licenses to create Power BI content will largely impact the total cost of the project.
Likewise, the amount of historical data to include in the dataset (2 years, 5 years?) can significantly impact performance scalability:
|
Topic |
# |
Question |
Business Input |
|
Data sources |
1 |
Can you describe the required data? (For example, sales, inventory, shipping). |
Internet Sales, Reseller Sales, and the Sales and Margin Plan. We need to analyze total corporate sales, online, and reseller sales, and compare these results to our plan. |
|
Data sources |
2 |
Is all of the data required for your project available in the data warehouse (SQL Server)? |
No |
|
Data Sources |
3 |
What other data sources (if any) contain all or part of the required data (for example, Web, Oracle, Excel)? |
The Sales and Margin Plan is maintained in Excel. |
|
Security |
4 |
Should certain users be prevented from viewing some or all of the data? |
Yes, sales managers and associates should only see data for their sales territory group. VPs of sales, however, should have global access. |
|
Security |
5 |
Does the data contain any PCII or sensitive data? |
No, not that I’m aware of |
|
Scale |
6 |
Approximately, how many years of historical data are needed? |
3-4 |
|
Data refresh |
7 |
How often does the data need to be refreshed? |
Daily |
|
Data refresh |
8 |
Is there a need to view data in real time (as it changes)? |
No |
|
Distribution |
9 |
Approximately, how many users will need to view reports and dashboards? |
200 |
|
Distribution |
10 |
Approximately, how many users will need to create reports and dashboards? |
3-4 |
|
Version control |
11 |
Are there existing reports on the same data? If so, please describe. |
Yes, there are daily and weekly sales snapshot reports available on the portal. Additionally, our team builds reports in Excel that compare actuals to plan. |
|
Version Control |
12 |
Is the Power BI solution expected to replace these existing reports? |
Yes, we would like to exclusively use Power BI going forward. |
A business analyst inside the IT organization can partner with the business on completing the project ingestion template and review the current state to give greater context to the template. Prior to the project kickoff meeting, the business analyst can meet with the BI team members to review the template and any additional findings or considerations.