Q1



Explain the following topics MIS Manager, Data Warehousing, MIS Tools, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, Business Intelligence, Electronic CommerceQ1. MIS Manager's DutiesMIS managers make important decisions about a company's technology system. MIS manager's oversee the management information systems (MIS) used within small, medium and large companies. Management information systems are the computer networks and technology--both software and hardware--used to house company data. MIS manager's supervise personnel, manage the creation, implementation and use of technology and create strategies that support the goals of the company. Supervises Personnel: - Duties for MIS managers include the supervision of information technology (IT) employees. They also interview and hire candidates for open IT positions, write or revise job descriptions and review performance data for existing employees. MIS managers oversee the work of data security personnel, programmers, project managers, database administrators and network administrators and analysts.Establishes Security Structures: - MIS managers are responsible for the coordination and establishment of security structures that protect a company's data and information networks. Security needs are identified by a data security administrator and the MIS manager before final implementation occurs in the form of a set of security policies. Policies control how data is handled by personnel, how user id's and passwords are assigned and managed, how permission is structured for file use and network access and what software and utilities are used by the business. MIS managers approve all hardware and software products used to monitor networks and desktops for unusual attempts at access or illegal use.Creates Strategies: - An MIS manager designs strategies that implement computer network systems. Strategies must take into consideration the way the business gathers and processes data, the ability to upgrade systems as technology changes, the levels of risk from inside and outside sources and the training of IT personnel. When creating IT strategies, the MIS manager reviews the company's allotted IT budget, assesses requirements for equipment, software and hardware and incorporates the needs of all departments that interact with the IT division.Implements Technology: - MIS managers implement the strategies and structures approved for the IT department. They work to guarantee the continuity, availability and security of the information systems so that each department within the company stays up and running without fail. This can include the implementation of hardware and software system upgrades and the replacement or repair of broken systems. Managers also implement and oversee the technology portion of the company's "Help Desk", including the process used to assist all employees and the management of technology personnel that work within the help system.Q2. In computing, a data warehouse (DW) is a database used for reporting and analysis. The data stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems. The data may pass through an operational data store for additional operations before it is used in the DW for reporting.The typical data warehouse uses staging, integration, and access layers to house its key functions. The staging layer stores raw data, the integration layer integrates the data and moves it into hierarchal groups, and the access layer helps users retrieve data.[1] Data warehouses can be subdivided into data marts. Data marts store subsets of data from a warehouse.This definition of the data warehouse focuses on data storage. The main source of the data is cleaned, transformed, catalogued and made available for use by managers and other business professionals for data mining, online analytical processing, market research and decision support (Marakas & O'Brien 2009). However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract, transform and load data, and to manage the data dictionary are also considered essential components of a data warehousing system. Many references to data warehousing use this broader context. Thus, an expanded definition for data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to extract, transform and load data into the repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata.Benefits of a data warehouseA data warehouse maintains a copy of information from the source transaction systems. This architectural complexity provides the opportunity to:Maintain data history, even if the source transaction systems do not.Integrate data from multiple source systems, enabling a central view across the enterprise. This benefit is always valuable, but particularly so when the organization has grown by merger.Improve data quality, by providing consistent codes and descriptions, flagging or even fixing bad data.Present the organization's information consistently.Provide a single common data model for all data of interest regardless of the data's source.Restructure the data so that it makes sense to the business users.Restructure the data so that it delivers excellent query performance, even for complex analytic queries, without impacting the operational systems.Add value to operational business applications, notably customer relationship management (CRM) systemsQ 4. Answer: MS Project is an application which the general MS Office users think to be another common Office application. However, it is very much different from the common Office applications and in some ways, it seems to do things on its own. MS Project is the most narrowly focus of all the Office applications. While the other Microsoft office programs tend to broad and general in their application, MS Project is designed exclusively to manage resource usage and project scheduling. MS Projects help to keep track of the progress of the tasks. It also helps to figure out how much each of the resources is doing on a project.MS Project is a tool to help you to plan projects, manage and update project information, and communicate the status once the project is under way.The details of the project tasks and associated resources are entered into the system as a new project. The system will then display the data in such a way that the relationships of the tasks and their time scales can clearly be seen and potential problem areas identified.Project data can be entered and/or viewed in a number of ways; the three principal formats are charts, forms, and sheets.Charts can be either Gantt Charts or Network Diagram Charts both of which are a diagrammatic representation of the project data.You can combine any two single-pane views on the screen to create a combination view. In a combination view, the information in the bottom relates only to the task or resources in the top view. The reason for having combination views is to make the job of entering and analysing information easier.At the heart of every project management system is a scheduling algorithm. An algorithm is a mathematical or logical equation that solves a complex problem by breaking down the problem into simple steps. When scheduling resources and parameters are entered into it, the scheduling algorithm produces a project schedule that would be impossible for you to produce manually.Some important terminologies in MS ProjectsActual Usage A measure of the resource expended in completing or partially completing a task.ALAP Refers to a task that should be started ?As Late As Possible?, using all the free-float time available.ASAP Used to indicate a task that should be started ?As Soon As Possible?, taking into account the start date of the project and its predecessor tasks.Baseline The original project plan, including the time schedule and resource and cost allocations. The baseline is used for comparing projected values to actuals, and facilitates the tracking and analysing of a project?s progress.Cost Variance A project tracking function recording the difference between the budgeted cost of the work performed and the actual cost. Values below the baseline show an overspend and positive values denote cost savings.Critical Path The sequence of tasks or activities whose schedules and durations directly affect the date of overall project completion.Earned Value This is a measure of a project?s performance, and is calculated by multiplying a task?s planned cost by the percentage of work completed.Float (slack) The amount of time by which a non-critical task can be delayed before it affects another task?s schedule.Gantt chart A graphical representation of a project schedule showing each task as a bar, the length of which is proportional to its duration. Many project management packages use a spreadsheet section to the left of the Gantt chart to display additional information.Hammock Task A task whose duration is calculated based on the time span between its predecessor and successor activities.Q 6. Business intelligence :- Business intelligence (BI) mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting,[clarification needed] and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes.[1]BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining and predictive analytics.Business intelligence aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS).[2]Though the term business intelligence is sometimes used as a synonym for competitive intelligence, because they both support decision making, BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes and disseminates information with a topical focus on company competitors. Business intelligence understood broadly can include the subset of competitive intelligence.Applications in an enterprise :- Business intelligence can be applied to the following business purposes, in order to drive business value.Measurement – program that creates a hierarchy of performance metrics (see also Metrics Reference Model) and benchmarking that informs business leaders about progress towards business goals (business process management).Analytics – program that builds quantitative processes for a business to arrive at optimal decisions and to perform business knowledge discovery. Frequently involves: data mining, process mining, statistical analysis, predictive analytics, predictive modeling, business process modeling, complex event processing.Reporting/enterprise reporting – program that builds infrastructure for strategic reporting to serve the strategic management of a business, not operational reporting. Frequently involves data visualization, executive information system and OLAP.Collaboration/collaboration platform – program that gets different areas (both inside and outside the business) to work together through data sharing and electronic data interchange.Knowledge management – program to make the company data driven through strategies and practices to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences that are true business knowledge. Knowledge management leads to learning management and regulatory compliance/compliance. In addition to above, business intelligence also can provide a pro-active approach, such as ALARM function to alert immediately to end-user. There are many types of alerts, for example if some business value exceeds the threshold value the color of that amount in the report will turn RED and the business analyst is alerted. Sometimes an alert mail will be sent to the user as well. This end to end process requires data governance, which should be handled by the expert.Q7. Electronic commerce :- Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on such technologies as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices and telephones as well.Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions.E-commerce can be divided into:E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall"The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contactsElectronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of dataE-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters)Business-to-business buying and sellingThe security of business transactionsBusiness applicationsSome common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:- Document automation in supply chain and logistics, Domestic and international payment systems, Enterprise content management, Group buying, Automated online assistants, Instant messaging, Newsgroups, Online shopping and order tracking, Online banking, Online office suites, Shopping cart software, Teleconferencing, Electronic tickets etc.Q 3. MIS: A TOOL FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF MANAGEMENT PROCESSESThe process of management requires a lot of data and information for execution of the plan. This requirement arises on account of the fact that in each step of management, a variety of decisions are taken to correct the course of development. The decisions or actions are promoted due to the feedback given by the control system incorporated in the management system. The control of overall performance is made possible by way of budget summaries or reports. The exception report identifies the weakness in the system of management.If effective management system is to be assured, it has to rest on business information. The management performance improves if the business risks and uncertainties are handled effectively. The information support improves the lack of knowledge, enriches experience and improves analytical abilities leading to better business judgmental good MIS must furnish information to the managers to expand their knowledge base. The MIS should provide the support to act and to act decisively. It should support management in terms of basic business information at the corporate level and meet the specific needs of information.Q 2. Ms- EXCELWhat is a spreadsheet program?Microsoft Excel is an example of a spreadsheet program that will maintain records for you relating to finances, products, activities, events and services. It allows you to enter, organize, compare and print data including graphs. Spreadsheets are saved in documents called workbooks and each workbook is comprised of individual worksheets or sheets. Excel will also allow you to print detailed reports, charts and graphs. What are the parts of an Excel document?Title Bar - This displays the name of the program and the spreadsheet file name. Help - The Excel help icon provides quick access to various topics. The Office button provides a list of buttons that allow you to perform common tasks (create a new spread-sheet, open an existing spreadsheet, save, save as, print, etc.). It also provides you with a list of your most recent documents, Excel options and an Exit button. The Quick Access toolbar also contains buttons to activate common tasks or functions such as save, undo and redo. There are other tasks that can be added to this toolbar such as open an existing presentation, spell & grammar check, print preview, etc. Click on the down arrow next to the toolbar to add or remove tasks. Please note this may not be an option in our library computer labs. The Ribbon in Excel 2007 replaces the menus and toolbars that were originally found in Excel 2003. Tasks are grouped together in a logical way to assist you with your formatting needs. You will notice tabs across the top that define each section. Once you click on a different tab, new commands appear and the tasks are further arranged into more detailed groups. The name for each group is located at the bottom of that section. The ribbon may be minimized and maximized. A cell is the most basic part of an Excel document. A cell is created at the intersection of a row and a column. The cell that is currently open and ready for editing is called the active cell. You will find a darker border around the active cell. The cell reference identifies the exact location of the current active cell. In the Figure below, the active cell is A1. The column is always the first letter in a cell reference followed by the row number. Cell A1 is the cell located in column A and row 1. Each cell has a unique cell reference. ................
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