BusinessObjects Polestar

Business users depend on the ability to access and understand information in order to make everyday business decisions.

Unfortunately, recent surveys show that these users often rely on "gut-feel" decision-making—largely due to their inability and lack of time to learn the powerful business intelligence (BI) tools that could provide them with much-needed data. These same users, however, find it trivial to search for information online or browse for books on Amazon.com. What if you could combine the simplicity of internet search with the power of BI?

BusinessObjects™ Polestar is the first solution that brings together the simplicity and speed of search capabilities with the trust and analytical power of BI—to give you immediate answers to your business questions. Your business users employ familiar keyword searches to find information hidden in data sources, and then navigate and explore directly on data—no existing reports and metrics are necessary.

An integrated part of BusinessObjects XI, Polestar leverages the BI platform's universe metadata layer, security, trust, and administration services—thereby reducing IT backlog and making Polestar deployable in days.

BusinessObjects Polestar combines the simplicity and speed of search with the trust and analytical power of BI. zoom in

Simplicity and Speed of Search

BusinessObjects Polestar users simply enter a few search keywords to find the most relevant information instantly from across all of their applications and data sources. Data sources and metadata are pre-indexed, so your users can search and explore enterprise data sources such as operational systems and data warehouses directly, with near instantaneous speeds. No preexisting reports or metrics are required.

Analytic Power of BI

Presenting the most relevant keyword search results first, Polestar complements results with additional contextually relevant details. In addition, Polestar automatically generates the chart that best represents the information. For example, when displaying percentage breakdowns of a multiple entry data set, Polestar generates a pie chart; when comparing multiple measures like revenue and profit, it displays a bar chart. Your information workers benefit from Polestar’s self-service discovery without needing to understand the data, where it’s located, or how it’s structured. The experience is as easy as browsing an online store.

For example, a liquor distributor would like to better understand purchasing behavior of wines over various regions. The distributor simply types "wine sales region" into a search box. Polestar finds and presents a chart that shows revenues of wine across organizational regions.

Polestar presents the most relevant results and automatically generates the chart that best represents the information. zoom in

It automatically displays sales by year, since it recognizes that time is the most relevant attribute associated with regional wine sales. Dynamic categories are present, allowing the distributor to iteratively see new information—for example, to switch views from revenue to inventory, to browse by new characteristics like sweetness, and to drill to more granular details like types of wine and subregions. As the user spontaneously and iteratively navigates through new information, new information choices are presented—all at the speed of thought.

Insight derived from Polestar is easily sharable with others. You can copy and paste Polestar URLs, making insight easily sharable via email and instant messaging applications. And you can export search and exploration findings to Excel for further sharing options.

Secure, Trustworthy, and Deployable in Days

BusinessObjects Polestar is built on top of BusinessObjects XI infrastructure, services, and capabilities. BI platform security is applied across all Polestar searches and exploration, ensuring your users will only have access to permitted data.

User search results and exploration leverage BusinessObjects universes and common business terms that have been standardized across the business and with which people are comfortable and familiar. This single view of the truth—along with trusted data quality, integration, and reliable platform services—ensures user trust and confidence in decision-making.

By increasing self-service BI and maintaining IT control, Polestar empowers your business while reducing IT report creation backlog. Polestar’s leveraging of existing Business Objects investments - reusing existing security, metadata, and other BI platform services - means it's easy to administer and quick to deploy, often in a matter of days.