Combining data from existing company data sources: architecture and experiences

Combining and utilizing data from different sources is a control problem in many companies today. Useful data can be found in various applications, such as spreadsheets, project management software or version management systems, but it is often an arduous and manual task to combine the information and regularly utilize it in a larger control. In this paper we describe an open architecture for collecting and utilizing data from different sources and our implementation based on this architecture. Finally, we present experiences gained from industrial environments, where the system is used for improving the controllability of product development. The architecture consists of a Metrics Server (MESS), with external data transfer modules (EDAMs) and applications utilizing the collected data. In addition to the architecture, an EDAM for Microsoft Excel and a data visualization application are briefly presented.