Information Systems

Lecture 10

Office Automation Systems Examples

Word processing
Desktop publishing
Imaging & Web publishing
Electronic calendars
Email
Audio & video conferencing

An integrated man-machine system for providing

information to support the operations, management
and decision making functions in an organization.
Prof. Gordon Davis
University of Minnesota.

Characteristics of DSS

Criteria for designing models and systems to

support management decisions:

Robustness
Ease of control
Simplicity
Completeness of relevant detail

Definition of DSS
Decision Support System is defined as a system
used to support managerial decisions. Usually DSS
involves the analysis of many units of data in a
heuristic fashion. As a rule, DSS processing does
not involve the update of data.

Heuristic
Heuristic is a particular technique of directing
ones attention in learning, discovery or problem
solving.

Functionalities of MIS & DSS

MIS

DSS

Provides information on
monitoring and controlling the
business.

Helps in non routine decision making.

Fixed and regular reports are

generated from data kept in
TPS.

Users are not linked with the structured

information flows.

Report formats are predefined.

Greater emphasis on models, display

graphics & ad hoc queries.

User is part of the system.

DSS is a small part of users actions.

Controlled by IT Department.

Directly used by middle level managers

Model Driven DSS

Model driven DSS uses following techniques
What-If analysis
Attempts to check the impact of a change in
the assumptions (input data) on the proposed
solution
Goal Seek Analysis
Attempts to find the value of the inputs
necessary to achieve a desired level of
output. Uses backward solution approach.
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Data Driven DSS

Data driven DSS uses Techniques like
Online analytical processing, and
Data mining

Components of DSS
There are two major components
DSS data base is a collection of current
and historical data from internal external
sources. It can be a massive data
warehouse.
Decision Support Software system is the
set of software tools used for data analysis.

Online analytical processing (OLAP) tools

Data mining tools
Models
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Data Warehouse
A data warehouse is a logical collection of
information.
It is a record of an enterprise's past transactional
and operational information, stored in a
database designed to favour efficient data
analysis and reporting.

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Data Mart
Data warehouses can become enormous with
hundreds of gigabytes of transactions. As a
result, subsets, known as "data marts," are often
created for just one department or product line.

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Information Systems
CS-507
Lecture 10

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