Natural language reporting for ETL processes

ABSTRACT

The conceptual design of the Extract -- Transform -- Load (ETL) processes is a crucial, burdensome, and challenging procedure that takes places at the early phases of a Data Warehouse project. Several models have been proposed for the conceptual design and representation of ETL processes, but all share two inconveniences: they require intensive human effort from the designers to create them, as well as technical knowledge from the business people to understand them. In a previous work, we have relaxed the former difficulty by working on the automation of the conceptual design leveraging Semantic Web technology. In this paper, we built upon our previous results and we tackle the second issue by investigating the application of natural language generation techniques to the ETL environment. In particular, we provide a method for the representation of a conceptual ETL design as a narrative, which is the most natural means of communication and does not require knowledge of any specific model. We discuss how linguistic techniques can be used for the establishment of a common application vocabulary. Finally, we present a flexible and customizable template-based mechanism for generating natural language representations for the ETL process requirements and operations.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.1 Logical Design
          Subjects: Data models

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.1 Logical Design
          Subjects: Schema and subschema

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Documentation

Keywords:
ETL, conceptual model, data warehouses, metadata, natural language, ontologies, semantic web