Business intelligence: glossary
The vocabulary of reporting and analysis: KPIs, dashboards, semantic layers and the newer AI-driven approaches.
- Business Intelligence (BI)Business intelligence is the practice of collecting, organising and analysing business data so that people can make better decisions.
- KPI (Key Performance Indicator)A KPI is a measurable value that shows how well you are achieving an important business goal.
- DashboardA dashboard is a single screen that displays the most important figures and charts for a topic, so you can see the state of things at a glance.
- Self-Service BISelf-service BI lets non-technical people explore data and build their own reports without waiting for an analyst or engineer.
- Semantic LayerA semantic layer is a shared set of business definitions, such as what counts as revenue or an active customer, applied consistently to every report.
- Ad Hoc AnalysisAd hoc analysis is a one-off investigation to answer a specific question that existing reports do not cover.
- Data VisualizationData visualization is presenting data as charts, maps and other graphics so that patterns and outliers are easy to see.
- Drill-DownDrill-down is moving from a summary figure to the more detailed data behind it, such as from yearly revenue to a month, then to individual orders.
- Embedded AnalyticsEmbedded analytics puts charts, dashboards or data exploration inside another application, so users see insights where they already work.
- Natural Language QueryA natural language query is a question about your data typed in everyday language, which the system turns into a database query and answers.
- Text-to-SQLText-to-SQL is the task of converting a question written in plain language into a SQL query that answers it.
- Agentic BIAgentic BI uses AI agents that can plan several steps, query data, check their own work and report back, instead of answering one question at a time.