What B.I. Functionality does a large campaign need?

Hi all;

Big favor to ask. Anyone who has run numbers for a large campaign, say Governor, U.S. Congress, or an expensive state race – can you please tell me what functionality you need in a Business Intelligence tool?

We are seriously considering creating a general B.I. tool and I want to make sure it will work well for campaigns.

Issue 1: What form is the data in? I’m guessing a lot is in spreadsheets and you may want to look at combinations of polling data, media buys, and canvassing results. What exactly is the format of the data?

Issue 2: What do you want to look at and how is it divided up? Here’s my guess as to one use case:

1. Build graphs to show estimated vote from polling & voter info over time, seperated out by media market. Overlay media purchases in each market over time.

2. Have a means to select a media market and the graphs then show the data for that market.

3. Have a means to select a time period and the graphs for selected (more than 1) markets are stacked in a row.

Any use cases, examples, suggestions, etc. greatly appreciated. If you want to see something similiar to what we are looking to do, take a look at the videos here

And if anyone would prefer, I’m happy to buy you lunch and make notes as you walk me through what you want.