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“ConosCo” The Business Intelligence System of the Italian Court of Audit April, 22-23th 2013

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The Court of Audit, in line with the Italian Public Administration modernization and innovation strategy, carries out initiatives aimed at:

• Increasing the efficiency of the judicial and administrative action

• Improving the delivery of services to citizens• Reinforcement its institutional role

....through an innovative approach based on the use of ICT

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit

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Inside the italian Court of Audit, the enhancement of technology has followed 3 main areas:

• investment in information assets, development and evolution of operational information systems

• investment in business intelligence advanced tools for data analysis

• use of new methodologies for data analysis

… and what are the the aims of this?

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit

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o simplification, rationalization and transparency of information

o timeliness of data collection and monitoring

o “Digitalization” or “dematerialization” (using the digital document)

o strengthening instruments for quantitative and qualitative control of revenues and expenditures

Aims of Technological innovation in the Court of Audit

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The project of the business intelligence system “Conosco” was launched by the President of the Court of Audit in 2008 with the aim of identifying new tools for Public Finance control.

Later, the project’s objectives and technical/operational requirements were defined in collaboration with IT Department of Italian Court and Consip (a public company particularly skilled in IT)

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Business Intelligence System

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ConosCo as an instrument to monitor public finance

1. controlling and reporting activities on Ministries and other public bodies

2. controlling and reporting activities on local authorities

During the last years the Court of Audit has implemented its information technology infrastructure in order to better support its institutional activity, and has started many IT projects mainly concerning :

ConosCo – the aims

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The satisfaction of “knowledge” needs requires the availability of complete, timely and reliable

information and a specific IT solutionREQUEST:

The continuous change of the social, political and economic context poses

   increasingly new questions, often extemporaneous,

   and increasingly complex decisions

NEED:

The solution for addressing those needs and to support decision making, is called ...

SOLUTION:

Business Intelligence

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: Why a Business Intelligence System?

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Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information. This information is used to enable more effective, strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making, which are necessary for an organization to obtain and analyze data to support decision making and control.

What is it?

Data Sources

AcquisitionProcessing

Presentation

Processes

Methodologies

Software

Hardware

Statistics

How is it done?

Storaging

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Business Intelligence System

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“A subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile collection of data organised in support of management’s decision-making process.”*

* William (Bill) H. Inmon is considered the "father" of one of the main models of data warehouse

What is it?

… for the Court of Audit that means Public Finance assessment and control

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Data Warehouse

The “beating heart” of the system is the Data Warehouse

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A tool to assist the management to make decisions(knowing to decide):

− A binder of information on “thematic areas" of interest (subject oriented);

− A single coherent data collector (integrated)

− A system that tracks information changes over time (time variant);

− A set of homogeneous information that can not be modified by the user (non volatile);

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Data Warehouse

What is it?

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Data Warehouse

Management of Institutional and Organizational Processes

Strategic Control

Information analysis and monitoring

Operational Systems

Users

Operational

Analysts

Decision Making Dashboard

Busin

ess

Inte

llige

nce

Processes Data

Aggregate

Detailed

Synthetic

The Pyramid of this Information System: the relationship between business Intelligence, Data Warehouse and operational systems

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit:

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SIRTELSIQuEL

Local Gov. Finance Area

Personnel Area

SISP

Jurisdiction & Attorney Area

Data Sources DATA WAREHOUSE System Functionality

DM Central Gov. Finance

DM Local Gov. Finance

DM Personnel

DM SISP

EDW

SIAP*- CDC

Quality e metadata

SIRGS-CDC

Central Gov. Finance Area Dashboard -

Indicators

Query

Report

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: ConosCo

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Expenditures

AssetsSIRGS: Sicoge-Sipa-

Igepa…

Cdc

Balance

balance-sheet items Ministerial Decrees Administrative measures

Money Orders Payments Account of residual

assets and liabilities passed on to the following balance sheet

State assets

Revenues

Revenue Receipts from BKI

Public revenue

Central Gov. Finance Data Mart what are the controlling and reporting activities on Ministries and other public

bodies?

Integrated Information Systems (12) of the State General Accounting Department

Treasury flows

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Information System - SIRTELXML

Report to Parliament

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50.000 balanceitems from each local

authority

•cross checks carried out in automatic mode

•Error reporting in real time to local Administrations.Data storage

The Local Administration sends the final balance in

XML file format

Local Gov. Finance Data Mart

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The decision to build the Court of Audit data warehouse with a single data container (“Enterprise DW”) allows a subsequent rapid implementation of new thematic Data Marts.

Finanza Locale

Central Gov. Finance

Public Finance

Public agenciesLocal Gov. Finance

Regional Finance

Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: data integration

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Data integrator of different information systems in order to:

• perform complex financial analysis • share information and results of the analysis with some

other public bodies• obtain information in real time through financial indicators

concerning revenue, expenditure, ….• monitor expenditure’s trend of the Public Administration• produce graphical representations

ConosCo overview

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Finanza Locale

• Modular (new datamarts)• Incremental (data and analysis)• Customizable (analysis and indicators)• Historicized (current data and time series)

ConosCo characteristics

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Poor data quality spreadsPoor quality of data is expensiveData quality can be improved

Characteristics

Quality and Metadata

QUALITY

Data Quality is the measure of the conformity degree between the expected data in the system and the rules of Business

It determines the ability to transform the data into useful and reliable information

ConosCo: the Data Warehouse characteristics

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Characteristics

METADATA

Business Metadata (synthetic)

financial autonomy :Own Revenue/Current

Revenue

Indicator Tab- Indicator name - Description- Data source- unit measure- Algorithm calculation

- threshold

The information needed to contextualize the data

Quality and Metadata

ConosCo: the Data Warehouse characteristics

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Time

Economic classification

Geographicalclassification

Amount1.500

Economic classification View

Multidimensional View

Time View

Geographical View

ConosCo – multidimensional analysis

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It’ also possible the «drill down»

ConosCo – multidimensional analysis

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Data correlationRevenues Expenses

ConosCo – multidimensional analysis

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dashboard: synthetic and intuitive representation of the most important financial indicators on public expenditure

This dashboard represents the expenditure of a chosen Ministry through a set of indicators an indexes

ConosCo – dashboard

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Dashboards are available to analyze the economic and financial management of local authorities through synthetic indicators

ConosCo – dashboard

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In one click you can obtain a report on local authorities economic and financial management (250 pages)

ConosCo – complex report

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ConosCo – Integration with office tools

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ConosCo – MOBILE functionality

Tablet

SmartPhone

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About the Change Management – the changes and the benefits

CHANGES INTRODUCED BY ConosCo The BENEFITS

Significant time savings in the production of the report and analysis

Reduction of routine and repetetive works

Shared work mode and new ways of working in offices and between offices

Change in verification and monitoring processes

• Data Integration • Sharing information, results and

analysis methodologies

• Quality of work• Reduction of errors in tables

processing

• Real-time analysis• Easy access to information

• Dynamic and flexible reporting • Availability of synthetic indicators• Time Series, cluster Analysis

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• I think there is a world market for maybe 4-5 computers

(Thomas Watson IBM Chairman, 1943)

• Future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens

(R.M. Rilke)

Thanks