Hello,
I need some help determining if using a data warehouse with OLAP
cubes to analyze data is a good solution for tracking performance for
investments. I currently calculate the performance of a investment(s)
directly out of a relational sql db, but my problem lies in that even
if I went to a dimensional data warehouse using cubes, how can that be
used effectively to view investment performance information as well as
perform a "what if" analysis against it? It seems to me that OLAP is
great at doing summations of data over specified time frames, for
example, I need to know how much I made $$ for the first quarter of
2005 from selling widget A, but in my case I do complex calculations
to get the end performance of an investment. Would a data warehouse
with OLAP benefit me? And if so, then how would it benefit?
I am currently in a situation where if the investors need
performance, then I have to create a customized report directly out of
our sql relational db. This is time consuming and not the most
beneficial use of time for my department. To do these performance
calculations, I actually extract a starting and ending value of an
investment, and then I include its cashflows (ins and outs) over a
specified timeframe. Can this some how be automated in a data
warehouse to the let investor do their own analysis?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

As investments can have many transactions that need summarising to be
able to produce reports, you may have a need for OLAP.

As you mention complex calculations have a look at Applix TM1.
It also handles writeback; so you can do 'what-if'.

Perhaps get one of their consultants to visit you.

Let me know how you get on.

Jimmy,
Sounds like an operational BI need. Visit http://www.entellicache.com
.. This product definately solves your multiple report/BI model problem
and should perform very well.