Data Warehousing Books

This book is not about designing forms, primary keys, or the use of built-in wizards to make easy queries or reports. This book is about applying Access to real-world business problems. The book addresses how to query data, how to move data to and from Access in various ways, the calculation of different financial and investment terms, and other such problems. The reader of this book should already have some Access experience and thus know how to get around the Access user interface, know basic table structures and relations among them, and how to construct simple queries. As long as you know this much or more, the book should be quite useful to anyone interested in business solutions using Access to analyze the data that is involved. The book consists of a series of recipes that provide example queries, programming tips, and also some requisite math. The following is a summary of each chapter's contents. Each section of each chapter is actually a recipe consisting of a problem - the section title - and its solution(s).

1. Query Construction - A variety of query issues are addressed, including the use of the AND, OR, IN, and NOT operators; creating union queries; and understanding join types.
1.1. Finding Unmatched Records
1.2. Making AND and OR Do What You Expect
1.3. Working with Criteria Using the IN Operator
1.4. Excluding Records with the NOT Operator
1.5. Parameterizing a Query
1.6. Returning a Top or Bottom Number of Records
1.7. Returning Distinct Records
1.8. Returning Random Records
1.9. Fine-Tuning Data Filtering with Subqueries
1.10. Combining Data with Union Queries
1.11. Inserting On-the-Fly Fields in Select Queries
1.12. Using Aliases to Simplify Your SQL Statements
1.13. Creating a Left Join
1.14. Creating a Right Join
1.15. Creating an Outer Join

2. Calculating with Queries - More on using queries to find solutions to business problems. It demonstrates how to apply aggregate functions, custom functions, regular expressions, and crosstabs.
2.1. Finding the Sum or Average in a Set of Data
2.2. Finding the Number of Items per Group
2.3. Using Expressions in Queries
2.4. Using Custom Functions in Queries
2.5. Using Regular Expressions in Queries
2.6. Using a Cartesian Product to Return All Combinations of Data
2.7. Creating a Crosstab Query to View Complex Information

3. Action Queries - How to apply queries to perform activities such as inserting, updating, and deleting data.
3.1. Running an Update Query
3.2. Appending Data
3.3. Deleting Data
3.4. Creating Tables with Make-Table Queries

4. Managing Tables, Fields, Indexes, and Queries - Introduces how to programmatically create and manipulate tables and queries.
4.1. Creating Tables Programmatically
4.2. Altering the Structure of a Table
4.3. Creating and Using an Index
4.4. Programmatically Removing a Table
4.5. Programmatically Creating a Query

5. Working with String Data - Recipes on managing text-based data. Shows how to isolate parts of a string, how to remove spaces at any place in a string, and how to manipulate numbers stored as text.
5.1. Returning Characters from the Left or Right Side of a String
5.2. Returning Characters from the Middle of a String When the Start Position and Length Are Known
5.3. Returning the Start Position of a Substring When the Characters Are Known
5.4. Stripping Spaces from the Ends of a String
5.5. Stripping Spaces from the Middle of a String
5.6. Replacing One String with Another String
5.7. Concatenating Data
5.8. Sorting Numbers That Are Stored as Text
5.9. Categorizing Characters with ASCII Codes

6. Using Programming to Manipulate Data - How to use arrays, access the Windows Registry, encrypt data, and use transaction processing. Also covered are search methods, charts, and manipulating data relationships.
6.1. Using Excel Functions from Access
6.2. Working with In-Memory Data
6.3. Working with Multidimensional Arrays
6.4. Sorting an Array
6.5. Flattening Data
6.6. Expanding Data
6.7. Encrypting Data
6.8. Applying Proximate Matching
6.9. Using Transaction Processing
6.10. Reading from and Writing to the Windows Registry
6.11. Creating Charts
6.12. Scraping Web HTML
6.13. Creating Custom Report Formatting
6.14. Rounding Values
6.15. Running Word Mail Merges
6.16. Building a Multifaceted Query Selection Screen

7. Importing and Exporting Data - Different ways of moving data into and out of Access. Covers import/ export specifications, using the FileSystemObject, XML with XSLT, and communicating with SQL Server. Exchanging data with other applications in the Office suite is also covered. Also covers how to create an RSS feed.
7.1. Creating an Import/Export Specification
7.2. Automating Imports and Exports
7.3. Exporting Data with the FileSystemObject
7.4. Importing Data with the FileSystemObject
7.5. Importing and Exporting Using XML
7.6. Generating XML Schemas
7.7. Using XSLT on Import or Export
7.8. Working with XML via the MSXML Parser
7.9. Reading and Writing XML Attributes
7.10. Creating an RSS Feed
7.11. Passing Parameters to SQL Server
7.12. Handling Returned Values from SQL Server Stored Procedures
7.13. Working with SQL Server Data Types
7.14. Handling Embedded Quotation Marks
7.15. Importing Appointments from the Outlook Calendar
7.16. Importing Emails from Outlook
7.17. Working with Outlook Contacts
7.18. Importing Data from Excel
7.19. Exporting Data to Excel
7.20. Talking to PowerPoint
7.21. Selecting Random Data

8. Date and Time Calculations - How to add time, count elapsed time, work with leap years, and manage time zones in your calculations.
8.1. Counting Elapsed Time
8.2. Counting Elapsed Time with Exceptions
8.3. Working with Time Zones
8.4. Working Around Leap Years
8.5. Isolating the Day, Month, or Year
8.6. Isolating the Hour, Minute, or Second
8.7. Adding Time

9. Business and Finance Problems - Ways of calculating depreciation, loan paybacks, and return on investment are introduced, and investment concerns such as moving averages, Head and Shoulders patterns, Bollinger Bands, and trend calculations are discussed. One recipe explains how latitude and longitude are used to determine distances between geographical areas.
9.1. Calculating Weighted Averages
9.2. Calculating a Moving Average
9.3. Calculating Payback Period
9.4. Calculating Return on Investment
9.5. Calculating Straight-Line Depreciation
9.6. Creating a Loan Payment Schedule
9.7. Using PivotTables and PivotCharts
9.8. Creating PivotTables
9.9. Charting Data
9.10. Finding Trends
9.11. Finding Head and Shoulders Patterns
9.12. Working with Bollinger Bands
9.13. Calculating Distance Between Zip Codes

Chapter 10. Statistics - The most math intensive of the chapters, it discusses statistical techniques such as frequency, variance, kurtosis, linear regression, combinations, and permutations. All the recipes here have great value in data analysis.
10.1. Creating a Histogram
10.2. Finding and Comparing the Mean, Mode, and Median
10.3. Calculating the Variance in a Set of Data
10.4. Finding the Covariance of Two Data Sets
10.5. Finding the Correlation of Two Sets of Data
10.6. Returning All Permutations in a Set of Data
10.7. Returning All Combinations in a Set of Data
10.8. Calculating the Frequency of a Value in a Set of Data
10.9. Generating Growth Rates
10.10. Determining the Probability Mass Function for a Set of Data
10.11. Computing the Kurtosis to Understand the Peakedness or Flatness of a Probability Mass Distribution
10.12. Determining the Skew of a Set of Data
10.13. Returning a Range of Data by Percentile
10.14. Determining the Rank of a Data Item
10.15. Determining the Slope and the Intercept of a Linear Regression
10.16. Measuring Volatility

One final word of advise is to purchase "Head First SQL" or some other good book on SQL if you don't already feel proficient. Although the book briefly explains each query it shows, I don't think the explanation is sufficient unless you see the stuff every day. A good thing about the book is that it shows screenshots of the application in just about every recipe and usually gives directions in clear numbered steps.

This book is compatible for Access 2007 and 2003(title of book doesn't let you know that), what it does is answer questions that the author poses. Many of these scenarios are relevant. I have never bought an o'reilly cookbook previously, but this book is very refreshing especially when you look at the current books out there. This book isn't for new people, this book is for people who want real solutions to the problems that they might face. If your looking for a first book to get a real grasp of access, get Access 2007 Inside and Out, if your someone who has read a book or two, or has some experience but still runs into hurdles in data manipulation, get this book.

Any involved in database management in general and Access in particular will want the ACCESS DATA ANALYSIS COOKBOOK, a survey which shows how to solve common problems of extracting data and performing calculations from large databases. From developing better queries and applying them to inserting, updating and deleting data to managing text-based data and using arrays, this offers a wealth of high-level technical Access information perfect for managers who already have the basics down.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I am not sure if this was the intention of the authors, but I find this book to be amazingly helpful given my set of circumstances: I am pretty skilled in Excel and very new to Access, and I want to use Access in the same way I use Excel, but with much larger quantities of data. Of all the Access books I have been referencing, this one is by far the most useful. It provides lots of information on SQL if you are interested, but I'm ignoring that for now and still the book is great at providing the answers I need. I suspect there are lots of people in my shoes (heavy Excel background, but little experience with Access) and so I want to let you know about this excellent reference. I hope it helps you as much as it is helping me!

To be more specific, if you are skilled at constructing formulas in Excel to convert and reformat and analyze data, and you have at least a rudimentary understanding of Access (I have attended a few 2-hour workshops and that's all), and you find yourself stumped in terms of how to do something in Access that would be easy for you to do in Excel, but you can't do it in Excel because you have millions of rows of data, then I'm guessing you will love this book.

Love this book. Written mostly in plain English (for those of us who are not techies).. it also provides sections were it deciphers technical acronyms and concepts.

This book is really very good. If you have big experience with DW/BI projects, or even you are a beginner, it shows you all steps to create a sucessuful project.

The first edition, while very valuable and still relevant was getting long in the tooth - it was published 10 years ago. This book remains pragmatic and useful for just about every role assoiciated with the data warehouse and business intelligence. My favorite chapter is on Collecting the Requirements but you will find sections that will make a difference in your DW/BI project implementation and sustainance.

Another awesome book by the Kimball Group. This 2nd edition is a great improvement over the original with lots of new material and new spins on old material.

This is a must read for anybody claiming to be a DW/BI Professional.

I came to the project on an executive level having little to no expertise in Warehouse Software Management (WMS). From the onset of my reading "Selecting Warehouse Software from WMS & ERP Providers" it proved to be everything and far more than I could have ever begin to appreciate. But, when I became armed with the companion work Supply Chain Terminology, I was empowered to understand the language of the industry. Hence, intuition fueled by grasping the concepts with added clarity allowed for our project to advance in a far more professional and efficient manner; discussions amongst team members was enhanced and leadership could be more effectively provided. We are now positioned to accomplish what many other reputed multi-million dollar enterprise have not been able to achieve in its supply chain software solutions, because we have an executive staff who has invested the time and have had the good fortune of sound advice and business practices from the Philip Obal series of reading materials.

The glossary is very comprehensive, and helpful both to people new to the industry as well as those who have been in it for several years. Hard to think of any other place where one could find a compilation so comprehensive. Great reference manual.

I have found Mr. Obal's Glossary of Supply Chain Terminology invaluable in keeping current and specific with the constantly changing Supply Chain lingo.

It is as concise and current as any reference book on this subject that I have seen. I find the EDI Code definitions particularly helpful.

Very highly recommended especially for logistics professionals who must communicate across companies, industries, stages, and modes in the supply chain.

The terminology in this industry seems endless. So it's great to have something for reference when unfamiliar terms or phrases are brought into conversation. I would recommend this for anyone who wants to gain familiarity with the buzzwords of the industry. It seems like a perfect tool for college graduates who don't want to be caught off guard in a job interview. And it also is great for someone like me, who's been in the business for a while. Easy read.

Sincerely,
Rick Howard

Information Technology Director
Whiting Distribution Systems, Inc.

This publication continues to be the best available source of information about warehouse software. The second edition is an improvement over the first with a 55 page addition, and new material including diagrams and pictures in every chapter. A chapter about implementation has been added. Warehouse operators who are considering the purchase of new software need to study this book.

This is a very relevant and concise overview of warehouse management system evaluation and implementation processes. Obal does a great job of giving comprehensive evaluation criteria and pointing out potential "gotchas" you might face in an evaluation process. The book is geared towards more complex operating environments so smaller warehouse operations may find the RPF approach a bit overwhelming. However, it is a great educational tool that highlights the numerous possibilities with available technology. The book lacks a serious discussion on the critical nature of the relationship between the warehouse operation and the software company. Access to key resources (both electronically and geographically), investment of time on the part of the provider (billed and unbilled), vendor expertise/advisory capabilities and value added options (such as remote hosting) are not highlighted and could play a critical part in your implementation.

Overall, this book is a great educational tool. It is well worth the money for any organization looking to embark on a WMS project or wanting to improve an existing implementation.

I came to the project on an executive level having little to no expertise in Warehouse Management Software(WMS). From the onset of my reading "Selecting Warehouse Software from WMS & ERP Providers" it proved to be everything and far more than I could have ever begin to appreciate. I now had the necessary information to mentally order an understanding of the difference between the WMS and ERP products, and a quiet ensued from what had felt like a swirling flood, leaving me with the sensation of being carried away in the wash of which software vendors, what product differential and what were the essentials.

From here I was able to move, and more competently frame the requirements for our own organizational needs. The author approached this written work with a sensitivity of the immense challenge the average person would face when taking on the warehouse universe and its technical requirements, by him demonstrating a simplistic and readable way of presenting the invaluable information contained within the work. The section identifying WMS software vendors and ERP supply chain software providers is simply priceless, and worth the cost of the book all by itself. I have since purchased more of the series and can now intelligently approach "applying the right software solution" with added confidence.

This book should be the first step in your WMS project. With the variety of functionality now offered by WMS providers it can be a daunting task to try to understand what a WMS does and (more importantly) what a WMS can do for your operation. Not only does the author cover standard functionality of WMS, he takes it a step further by pointing out "Differentiators" and "Common Deficiencies". These insights can prove to be incredibly valuable during the selection and implementation processes. The book is essentially a detailed report on WMS functionality with an additional section on the selection process (including step-by-step instructions and sample documents). The format makes it easy to simply open the book to a section on a specific type functionality and quickly get up to speed on key issues related to that topic.
Yes, it may seem a little pricey, but in the context of the overall costs associated with a WMS project, it's a minuscule price to pay to increase your chance of getting it right.

The book provides a solid framework for data preparation activities that is rarely found in other data mining books. Each chapter starts with an intro to the theoretical foundation required to complete a specific data preparation task. Then it moves to its practical application providing relevant examples, and the SAS macros required to do the work.

Having read quite a few books on the subject of data preparation, this book is quite unique in its focus on practical applications. Not only it provides the SAS code required to complete the key data preparation activities, but it also gives practical tips and information that is hard to come across unless you are a seasoned data miner.

The treatment of topics such as missing values, sampling, data transformations, and variable reduction is simply excellent. The book also pays attention to the scoring phase and the requirements for the scoring dataset. This is key for any production data mining application and will help in process automation planning in any SAS environment.

The accompanying CD includes all the SAS macros and makes it easy to start automating data preparation activities in a snap. If you are using SAS for data preparation, this book will save you significant time in the costly data preparation phase. Even for non-SAS users the process and concepts presented in this book may be worth looking at.

It is well known that the majority of time spent doing data mining is in the data preparation. With this book, Dr. Refaat has given analysts the tools they need to perform the often laborious task of data preparation. If you are familiar with the Numerical Recipes series of books (and if you aren't, you should be), you will recognize a similar theme. The author has:
* itemized all the elements the data miner should be aware of when they are doing data preparation,
* presented enough technical description for the reader to understand why they would be performing that particular task,
* provided all the SAS code that can be used to actually perform the data preparation step

This book is what the practicing data miner needs.

Here's a brief on the table of contents:

1. Introduction
* setting the context of data mining

2. Tasks and Data Flow
* describes what data mining can do and where data preparation fits in

3. Review of Data Mining Modeling Techniques
* an overview of data mining techniques

4. SAS Macros: A Quick Start
* just in case you haven't worked with SAS macros

5. Data Acquisition and Integration
* where you get your data from and how it's pulled together

6. Integrity Checks
* how to make sure the data is correct and even what "correct" means

7. Exploratory Data Analysis
* get to know your data

8. Sampling and Partition
* dealing with large data sets as well as getting ready to validate the models you build

9. Data Transformations
* rarely is your source data in the form most effective for modeling - this chapter describes what can be done to produce the most effective models

10. Binning and Reduction of Cardinality
* make your variables less complex and often times, more presentable and understandable

11. Treatment of Missing Values
* you will have missing values in your data - here are several approaches for dealing with them

12. Predictive Power and Variable Reduction I
* introduces the concept of identifying usefulness of input variables and reducing the required number of variables

13. Analysis of Nominal and Ordinal Variables
* how to evaluate relationships with discrete variables

14. Analysis of Continuous Variables
* how to evaluate relationships with continuous variables

15. Principal Component Analysis
* how to use PCA for variable reduction during data preparation

16. Factor Analysis
* how to use Factor Analysis for variable reduction during data preparation

17. Predictive Power and Variable Reduction II
* defines methods of simplifying and reducing input variables with respect to the target variable

18. Putting It All Together
* a case study showing the application of all these techniques for data preparation in a realistic example

Appendix. Listing of SAS Macros
* complete listing of all the SAS code referenced in the book - also included on the CD

I have been working in data mining and with SAS for the last 10 years. This is the best book without doubt. It is consice, to the point, not a lot of fluf and useless theory. It teaches you how to actually do it! The book took me step by step through the process of data preparation using SAS and let me write fantastic macros. All the macros are included in the CD and are ready to run. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is using SAS to work the data either for reporting or for modeling. I attended many training courses on data mining, and even data preparation, but nothing is like this book. It reveals all the secrets. For example, how to bin variables using Gini, how to select the best modeling variables using Entropy, Ginin, Chi2, how to reduce the variables using principal component analysis, treatment of missing values occupies and huge chapter that in my opinion has no competitors, mapping categorical variables into dummy variables, reduction of cardinality using Gini (best grouping). All these things until now were the secrets of the 'gurus', not any more thanks to Dr. Refaat and his book! For example, I used to use a decision tree software to select the best variables, then use logistic regression to build the models. Not any more. With the SAS programs in the book, I can now select the best variables and build the model within one SAs script.... I only wish if the author would also write a similar book on modeling... This book is a life saver ...

This book is simply great.... One can not believe that a highly complex and challenging arena of datawarehousing can be explained and understood in such a simple manner. It is amazing to see Amitesh unleashing the power of his thoughts and experiences to unveil this subject which has been alluding even big businesses for quite some time. This book empowers managers to ignite their imagination. The book helps the business to utilise tremendous potential which lay hidden in its own data base. I congratulate Amitesh Sinha for his excellent work.

The book is very useful book and is suited for all catagories of users - novices to experts. It not only covers the fundamentals & basic concepts of data warehousing but also deals with the subject in adequate depth. It helps one understand manipulation of data which provides your company with the information it needs in a timely manner and in an appropriate desired form. The author has done full justice to the profound subject that Data Warehousing is. It is a must read for project managers & developers who wish to start a new Data Warehouse application or re-inforce an existing one.

Have read this book and found it to be very interesting. It covers everything that is required to know Data Warehousing and its principles.
Any project manager or developer in the Data Warehousing field would find this book very useful to start a new data warehouse or reinforce an existing data warehouse.

What an asset to the Internet enabled Data Warehouse! As a consultant in the field, someone offering a practical solution to the Data Warehousing environment provided valuable insight that I can offer my clients. With Internet applications becoming more abundant and the volume of clickstream data reaching terabyte sizes, it is wonderful that the author offered a solution of distributing pieces of the data warehouse across different nodes. The authors' step-by-step process, that includes a valuable discussion on security, will assist in multiple environments but especially in the e-commerce arena.

R. A. Moellers approach in this book is extremely pactical. The author give usable examples on how to build a distributed data warehouse that could cross political boundardies. This is valuable to anyone building e-commerce applications that cross not only divisional boundardies but corporate boundaries. The chapter on security was especially interesting and helpful for an e-commerce situation as well.

My introduction to Data Warehousing was a water cooler discussion with a colleague just returned from a Data Warehousing workshop. The main topic of that discussion was the long development time required by data warehousing projects and how foolish it was start any project where the first "deliverable" to a business user was planned for three years hence.

With the approach that Ms. Moeller presents in this book, however, data warehouse projects are made eminently manageable by planning a series of major deliverables spaced 3-6 months (not YEARS) apart - at a fraction of the cost of a full-blown "Data Warehouse." Data Warehousing projects no longer have to automatically connote the development of a "black hole."

Potential readers should be aware that this book is not a "how-to-do-it." Rather, it focuses on what has to be done and how to approach a Data Warehousing project in general.

One final note: having read Ms. Moeller's past articles in the journal "InfoDB", she continues to present very technical information in a lucid, clear writing style. I'm still amazed that I read each chapter straight through in one sitting. This is the first "technical book" I have read in a very long time about which I can make that statement.

Probability dominates our dicision making. The weak point of Eintein's Relativity is in probability, which is very important in Quantum Mechanics. Through this book, I have learned Information Theory, Bayesian Network, and more. All these are vital for my advance study. In other words this book bring me into a new horizon.

As storage technologies continue to improve and lessen in cost, data mining is becoming an increasingly important activity for all types of enterprises and industries. I have read and reviewed many books in this field, but none have presented the key concepts as well as new research together with examples for their proper use as this book. I highly recommend this book for anyone and everyone interested in this field.

No matter one is a beginner or an expert in the field of data mining,"Information-Statistical Data Mining: Warehouse Integration with Examples of Oracle Basics" is really a great hand book. The book is written in plain English to explain the terminologies and the concept of patterns for data mining --- making it easier for readers to understand the basic and advanced data mining concepts. Also, it shows clearly how data mining theories are realized in software implementation, how the implementation is applied to a variety of data sets in different disciplines, and how one can gain knowledge from the valuable information obtained from the process of data mining. Furthermore, it also discussed the way to interpret and to
evaluate the quality of information resulting from the process of data mining. I particularly like the real world case study examples that help me to understand the data mining principles discussed in the book, and to draw me in further into the field. This book is well organized. I strongly recommend the book!

If you are involved in E-Business Intelligence, then this is a book worth reading. I enjoyed Kimball's "Building the Data Webhouse" and Mena's "Mining your web site", but this book takes a different perspective on the subject. Each of these books provide their own view on how the Internet had affected business intelligence.

There is a lot of detail in this book that would make it of interest to an implementer. It discusses many of the technologies used to build an Internet enabled application, such as XML, CWMI and Java. For example, in the section on Java, the author discusses the Java beans, the OLAP API and the data mining API. The book even provides some discussion on how you can use an application server in a business intelligence system.

I would definitely recommend this to any IT professional interested in the subject.

There are a lot of books on business intelligence and the web, some of them are better than others. Typically the focus of these books is on click stream analysis and focus on the CRM aspects of business intelligence over the web. While these topics are discussed, there is more to this book.

This book is a bit different and is interesting for both the novice and the experienced system implementer. The book gives a history of Internet, both from a technical and economic perspective. It even deals with how the Internet works. Answering such questions as why an IP address is an unreliable way of identifying customers over the net. The book looks at both collecting data for business intelligence applications as well as how to deploy these applications over the net using Internet technology. It discusses some of the aspects of the Java language that makes it well suited for develop BI applications. It also presents various Java API's developed for business intelligence.

I really enjoyed reading this book. At times reading a heavy technology book can be a bit dry. This book is not like that. At times he will introduce topics with discussions that seem off the topic, but in the`end lead back to main point. In fact, these diversions actually helped my understanding of the subject. While this is certainly a serious book, there were times I laughed out loud. This is a good book for understanding business intelligence over the Internet. If you are interested in this subject, by all means you should read this book.

This book provides an excellent foundation in understanding the how to build a business intelligence system in an Internet enabled world. The author makes the point that the Internet has changed a lot about the business world, part of the change is how we do business intelligence.

The beginning of the book was very interesting. It describes the history of the Internet from the early 1960's through the 90's. It also goes into the economic forces formed to create the popularity of the Internet. That is just the beginning though.

Don't mistake this for some soft, "touchy-feely" book on IEBI though. The book digs deep into details. It describes the implementation of three tiered architectures, Java, Java Beans. There is an entire chapter on CWMI and another on XML and XSL. It is a very good read. The final section of the book is dedicated to applying IEBI to CRM. It deals with how and why you would want to use cookies to track customer behavior.

The author makes the point that there is no one book that will cover all aspects of IEBI, but anyone interested in doing business intelligence in an Internet enabled world should read this book.

The book shows a strong vision of CRM projects under a management perspective.
Very helpful both for academics and practitioners.
Read it!

The book shows a strong vision of CRM projects under a management perspective.
Very helpful both for academics and practitioners.
Read it!