Data Flow Analysis

1. Introduction

This document provides a guideline on the Business and Data analysis aspects involved with report creation. Below is a sample snapshot of the report which we are attempting to fabricate.

This report consists of multiple components. Tables, charts, Footnotes, Disclosures, Coupled Shells etc. As a first step you need to identify all the components in the page and create an inventory using Assette’s XL component inventory template. See below sample.

• Identify unique shells – tables, charts and text blocks and create a shell inventory.

  As an example, one Performance table may spell out periods such as Month to Date, Quarter to Date. Another may abbreviate as MTD, QTD. You could pick one as the unique shell.

• Specify the fields in each shell.

• Create a data map – use the component XL file to map source data fields mappings to each shell field. In summary the component XL file should provide a picture starting from your content-pages, then shells and through to your data.

• Group or cluster unique shells by Data Categories.

• Sketch out Data objects - For each cluster of shells plan out how many Data Objects you need. With proper parametrization, a single Data Object could provide data for multiple shells. For example, consider a sector attribution data set. Typically, a sector attribution report would include sector, industry level and some other categorization of attribution data. With proper data settings, you can use one Data Object to arrange data so marketers can specify if they want to show sector level only or sector and then industries. While including data settings in Data Objects results in fewer Data Object to develop, the complexity for marketers authoring templates may increase. Be sure to limit your data settings keeping marketers in mind. Also, use marketer friend terms for data settings and include descriptions.

• Sketch out Data Blocks - Review the planned Data Objects and decide on what data blocks are needed to feed these Data Objects. Generally, you will see clustering around data categories. See below and the “Select your data interfacing method” as what you decide impacts the data block functionality. For example, consider holding data set in your data source, which contains security names, market values, cost, sector names, risk country etc. This can be use directly in a report using a data block as a “pass through”. If that data set satisfies the requirements of the client report. But if the same data set needs t be used to construct a sector allocation Data Object, then grouping and Calculations will need to be carried out within Assette. This can be handled within the Data Block layer by grouping the holdings data by sector and aggregating the required fields to capture the total market values or the weight. This interfacing method is referred to as “Prepare and Show”.

• Branding and Color Setup - Your brand guidelines and how they should be reflected in content should be finalized as part of the planning phase.

In general, if you imagine Assette’s layered architecture as shown below, Layers “A” – Data Sources, “B” – Data Engine and “C”- Content, the Business Analysis and Data Analysis (BA/DA) activity would flow from “Right to Left”, whereas implementation would happen from “Left to Right”.

For illustration purposes, we will show how to create the Top/Bottom ‘N’ Holding Table.

2. Top/Bottom ‘N’ Holdings (Table)

Here, we are focusing on creating the object ‘Top/Bottom ‘N’ Holding’ from scratch.

2.1 Analyzing the data object

Sample - Top ‘N’ Holdings in the report

2.1.1 Table structure analysis

Table: How many Columns and Rows

Firstly, we need to analyze the object and here in this example (Top/Bottom N Goldings table), we need to have 2x3 table which will be used at the time of the fabrication which will be covered below in the authoring sections.

2.1.2 Settings Analysis

Before we start creating the blocks, we need to identify the parameters to pass to extract data and the columns that we are going to show in the object output. Once these are analyzed and finalized, it will be helpful to start creating the Data Blocks.

Below are the main categories of the settings we need to consider for this object.

• Mandatory parameters (Account ID, AS of Date)

• Data setting (object related settings: Data for (top/bottom), No of records to show (5,10,15 etc)

Below is a snapshot of the fabrication panel of the Assette Editor in PowerPoint. We will expand on this in depth in the Authoring section.