WHAT IS OLAP ?

WHAT IS OLAP?

OLAP stands for On Line Analytical Processing. Originally, OLAP was only used for high end enterprise level analysis solutions. Now, OLAP is commonly used to refer to any multidimensional database used for data analysis. A multidimensional database creates cubes or tables which are separated by dimensions, or categories. A table can have as many dimensions as you need.
For example, typical dimensions in a cube for sales would include time, geography, channel, organization, scenario (budget or actual), product, etc. Typical sales information would include dollar sales, unit sales, inventory, headcount, income, and expense.
To better understand OLAP the example cube below represents the three dimensional data that would be held within a file. From here you can pull sales information such as the North America Profit Margin % for March.
TABULUS^® is an OLAP product, but traditional spreadsheets are not.

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WHY USE OLAP?

OLAP allows several key benefits over spreadsheets which help organize bigger models, and reduce errors. Data is kept in a database, not in cells, this allows data to be viewed and edited from a variety of locations. Because data is structured, analysis becomes easier and more reliable. Spreadsheets can only organize data in 2 dimensions, rows and columns. Successful business decisions are based off of complex data analysis along a number of dimensions. OLAP allows you to slice and dice data or drill down. Since TABULUS^® utilizes OLAP capabilities successful business decisions can be made.

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WHO USES OLAP?

OLAP is used throughout the business world by many different industries for a variety of applications. An organizational example would be executives for planning, marketing and accounting for analysis, and sales divisions for reporting. The more data you have, the more OLAP makes sense. Business performance management, business intelligence, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and sales tracking are just a few uses. Visit the follow TABULUS^® website page for a snapshot list of Industries, Departments, End Users and Applications. Who uses TABULUS^® and for what?

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