Establishing 'Making it Happen' as a 'Formal & Predictable' Discipline

Data Warehouse Test Data

ENCYCLOPEDIA→ Enterprise Intelligence → - Data-Warehouse/Mart → - DW Testing and Implementation →

Data Warehouse Implementation Deployment

Data Warehouse implementation will need installation of checking in the final version, productionizing, installing client applications, establishing service and support mechanism, user communications and week-end conversion of database.

After the testing phase is complete, the systems are now ready for implementation

List of Tasks for Data Warehouse Implementation and Deployment

Version the DW implementation scripts and environments & Freeze

All scripts related to Extraction, Transformation and Loading
All configurations of staging and Loading, and access environments
All Data in the source systems.

Run the DW productionization processing

Run the historical snap-shots (Some times they are done before hand to save time on the implementation weekend).
Run the ETL scripts
Run the refresh scripts for downstream data marts, systems.

Data Quality and DW implementation Verification

Business analysis teams mainly do this before they hand it over to users for their verification:

Data quality assurance testing performed. Refer Data Warehouse Quality Assurance
Data Warehouse access through the end user tools performed.

Data Warehouse End User Applications

End user applications need not be implemented along with the Data Warehouse. Typically Data Warehouse is implemented along with an OLAP tool and some end-user tools.

Same rigor is followed for end user applications as that of Data Warehouse, in terms of versioning, production processing and verification. Clients of the end user applications are installed and tested.

End User Training

The end user training material is ready.
A group of power users has already been taken through it (they themselves might be involved in creation of the training material). These power users will act as the trainers for their respective functions.
The training material is divided into different category of users- Power users/Designers, Ad-hoc users (typically they place the ad-hoc queries and use the reports generated by the designers) and recipient users. (The users who only view the reports created by designers)

End User Support mechanisms and communication

'Support mechanism for users' is established and communicated (Help line numbers, with in department mentors/trainers, escalation matrix)
Support mechanism for technology staff (vendor help lines and escalation matrix.)
The reporting and communication framework on defects, and user feedback is established.