XBRL+SBRM = Improved BI

The combination of XBRL International's global standard technical syntax XBRL plus the clear logical conceptualization of a business report defined by OMG's forthcoming Standard Business Report Model (SBRM) is looking more and more like an improved version of BI (Business Intelligence) software. Here is a prototype you can use to think about my statement:


And so why is XBRL+SBRM based business intelligence better than current OLAP based BI offerings?  Here is a list of the reasons that I see (improved version of my old list):

  1. OLAP is “read” only; XBRL+SBRM is "read-write". Basically, XBRL + SBRM = Semantic Spreadsheet.
  2. OLAP “cubes” don’t interact with each other; Hypercubes in XBRL+SBRM DO, they know about each other and interact with each other.
  3. OLAP is proprietary and different implementations tend to not be interoperable;  XBRL+SBRM is based on global standards and XBRL is interoperable.
  4. OLAP has only limited computations supports, “roll ups” only; XBRL+SBRM supports roll ups, roll forwards, variance (difference between reporting schemes), adjustments (correction of an error), and other information patterns.
  5. OLAP cannot share  rules between implementations; XBRL+SBRM can share rules and in fact let you decouple a report from rules and therefore share rules and use rules for multiple hypercubes.
  6. OLAP cannot import “taxonomy”;  XBRL+SBRM can.
  7. OLAP is restricted to "OLAP" only; whereas XBRL+SBRM does support OLAP, but it does not require OLAP to be used, you can use a plain multidimensional model and ignore OLAP if you want. (Someone coined the term NOLAP, not-only OLAP).
  8. OLAP tends to be for numbers only and has a hard time with text; XBRL+SBRM supports both numbers and text.
  9. OLAP cubes cannot be extended; XBRL+SBRM hypercubes can be extended.
  10. OLAP does not really let you organize cubes much; XBRL+SBRM allows you to organize hypercube line items into the order that you want.  Also, using Inline XBRL you can get "pixel perfect" representations.
  11. OLAP is older and was originally constructed to be used within one enterprise; XBRL+SBRM are built to be used on the internet allowing you to easily combined internal and external information.
  12. OLAP does not have a very powerful rules engine to process information; XBRL+SBRM already has a PROLOG logic engine and two other logic/rules engines.

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