Develop your BA environment

Last updated
Save as PDF

The Develop Your BA Environment workflow outlines the processes that you use to set up and configure your Pentaho Server for BA development, and to build, change, and test Pentaho solutions until they meet your unique business requirements. This process is similar to the Trial Download Evaluation experience, except that you will be completely configuring the Pentaho Server and working with your own report designers and data scientists, as well as Pentaho professional services. The end result of this section is to learn BA implementation best practices and deploy your BA solution to a production server.

Before you begin developing your BA environment, we recommend that you attend Pentaho training classes to learn how to install and configure the Pentaho Server, as well as how to develop data models and applications.

Set up your Pentaho Server

This table helps you verify that the hardware and software requirements are met, install the software, and configure the Pentaho Server and BA Design tools.

Table 1. Pentaho Server Set-Up Checklist
Checklist	Steps	Notes
Verify System Requirements	Consult the Components Reference Consult the JDBC drivers reference	In preparation for this task, make sure that you: Acquire one or more servers that meet the requirements. Obtain the correct drivers for your system.
Obtain Software and Install the Pentaho Server	Get the software Install all Pentaho components Access the User Console	After you have the hardware, you will need to: Get the software from your Sales Support representative. Install the software - we recommend using the installation wizard. Access the User Console, toured the Administration page, and changed the default administrator password.
Change the Pentaho Server Fully Qualified URL	Change the Pentaho Server fully qualified URL	If you are going to have many machines pointing to one server, make sure you change the fully qualified URL: Change the URL and verify that you can connect to it.
Configure the Pentaho Server	Manage the licenses Specify data connections for the Pentaho Server Set Up Emails for Scheduled Reports Manage Schedules	After installing the software and logging on to the User Console for the first time, you will need to: Add all relevant Pentaho licenses. Set up your data connections. Configure an email server through the Administration page. Learn how to manage schedules through the Schedules page. These will be set up during the production phase.
Configure BA Design Tools	Configure the design tools and utilities Specify data connections for BA design tools	If you plan to use BA design Tools, make sure you do these tasks. Otherwise, skip this step: Configure your BA design tools. Specify the data connections required for each tool. We recommend that you NOT configure these tools on your production server. Rather, configure them on your development server, test them, then migrate them over to production.

Import data sources and data models

Follow the steps in the Data Sources and Data Models Checklist to create data sources and models that are ideal for agile development of your BA solution.

Table 2. Data Sources and Data Models Checklist
Task	Steps	Notes
Choose Data Source Types	Choose a Data Source Type	Review the information about data sources. Examine the differences between the different data models - relational data models vs. multidimensional data models.
Create Data Sources and Models	Tour the Data Source Wizard	Learn how the Pentaho Server and Data Source Wizard work together to create usable data sources and data models.
Create Database Table Data Sources	Create a database table source	Create Data Sources and preliminary data models using the Data Source Wizard.
Learn about Mondrian Schemas	Create and Modify Mondrian Schemas	Create Mondrian schemas and add a Mondrian data source Adapt the schema to work with Analyzer Modify the schema in Schema Workbench

Create reports and further refine data models

We recommend that you work with data scientists and business analysts at this stage of the process to achieve the best results. As you get ready to move to production, use data sources created using either Pentaho Schema Workbench or Pentaho Metadata Editor.

Table 3. Create Reports and Refine Data Models Checklist
Task	Steps	Notes
Create Analysis Reports, Interactive Reports, and Dashboards	Getting Started with Analyzer, Interactive Reports, and Dashboard Designer	Create Interactive and Analysis reports, as well as a Dashboard. Verify that the reports show the data that you want. If they do not, work with data scientists to get the results you need.
Create a Report with Report Designer	Create a report with Report Designer	(Optional) Create a report in Report Designer.
Refine Your Data Source Model	Edit multidimensional data source models Use Schema Workbench to refine multidimensional data models Use Metadata Editor to refine relational data models	Refine data models to get the data that you want to see in your reports. Create the reports again to verify the results. Repeat this process as needed.

Test environment quality

If you have decided to perform quality assurance testing, upload your content to the Pentaho Repository, then download it to the QA server. Some organizations have an additional layer of User Acceptance Testing that is performed after QA testing is complete.

Next steps

Investigate Security: decide which security solution works best for your business environment.
Learn about Scheduling: decide which schedules to set up on your production server.
Think about what content you want to move to your production server.
Hitachi Vantara Lumada and Pentaho Support Portal: check with Support for service packs.
Prepare to Go live for production.