Chapter 12: Tools Knowledge and Skills for Business Analysts
As a business analyst you will need to know how to use few simple tools which are required for your day to day activities. Here we will discuss on few simple tools used by business analyst for day to day activities. All these tools may not be used by in an organization. However most of these tools are commonly used and easy to learn.
Following are the common tools used by business analysts.
A. Microsoft Outlook for Email
Outlook is commonly used in most of the organization for email management. It is mainly used for sending and receiving emails, just like your personal emails such as gmail, yahoomail etc. It has some additional features as well.
Folder creation in Outlook Email
You can create a folder and move the emails from specific person or specific subject to that folder. So that it helps to easily search the emails for later reference. How to create a folder in your mail box?
Below are the steps to create folder in your mail box.
1.Right click on you name in left panel of the mailbox, then click on New Folder. As shown in the below picture.
2.Enter the name of the folder (here name is given as test), then click on ok. As shown in the below picture.
3.Now you can see the created Test folder in left panel of the mail box. As shown in the below picture.
PST creation
PST is a storage folder created in your personal computer hard disk to store your emails. Mailbox comes with limited amount of storage space, generally between 90MB to 1 GB or even more based on plan that is chosen. Once your email storage is full you will not be able send and receive the emails. So it is important to move the emails to PST (Personal Storage Table) as and when required, so that your mail box is not full and able to send and receive emails.
How to create a PST folder in outlook mailbox?
Below are the Steps to create PST
1.Click in File in top left of your mail box, select new then select Outlook Data File, as shown in the below picture.
2.Select Office Outlook Personal Folders File(.pst), as shown in the below picture.
3.Enter Name for outlook data file, as shown in the below picture.
4.Enter the name of the personal folder, as shown in the below picture.
5.Now personal folder can be viewed at left panel of your mailbox, as shown in the below picture.
Creating Rules in Outlook Mailbox
You can create rules in your outlook mail for easy management of your emails.
Example: You can create a rule to automatically move all emails from a particular user to one folder. You can create a rule to move all emails with subject “Business Analysis” another folder. Etc.
How to create rules in outlook mailbox?
Below are the steps to create rules in outlook mailbox.
1. Go to tools, select Rules and Alerts, as shown in the below picture.
2.Click on New Rule, as shown in the below picture.
3.In step 2 in below picture, select person and folder click next if you want to apply more rules, otherwise click on finish. As shown in the below picture.
Creating Signature for outlook email
By creating signature for your email, you do not need to enter your email signature details every time you compose new email, saved signature details will be automatically populated.
How to create signature in outlook email?
Below are the steps to create signature for your emails.
1.Go to File->New ->Mail Message and open new email as shown int he below picture.
2. Go to insert tab ->Signature -> Signatures, as shown in the below picture.
2. Click on New button as shown in the below picture.
4. Enter the name for signature, as shown in the below picture.
5. Enter the signature details such as your name, your designation, company name, address, phone etc., as shown in the below picture.
6. Now, when you open new email for composing your signature will be automatically populated as shown below.
Sending Meeting Invitation using outlook
You can send meeting invite using your outlook. How to send the meeting invite is explained below.
1. In you outlook go to File->New->Meeting Request, as shown in the below picture.
2. Enter the details such as participants email address, subject, location of meeting, start and end time etc, as shown in the below email.
B. MS word (Microsoft Word)
Microsoft Word is an important and popular software application for business analysts. Those organizations do not have Requirements management tools can use MS word for requirement specification. Microsoft Word allows you to set preferred fonts and styles, apply company’s logo, embed external objects such as Excel worksheets and Visio diagrams; create visuals and track changes.
C. MS Power Point (Microsoft Power Point)
It is a software tool for preparing and delivering formal presentations. As a business analyst, it be helpful to communicate and deliver updates to project stakeholders. Delivering a presentation can be made easier with presentation software like PowerPoint. Decision on which specific tools use would naturally depend on key factors like company requirements and budget.
D. MS Excel (Microsoft Excel)
When you require any kind of data analysis on the job, spreadsheet applications like Microsoft excel can be useful. If you want to create pivot tables; examine trends in data; sort and filter data; create charts or graphs, Microsoft Excel can fulfill that purpose. Excel provides many built-in mathematical and financial functions that can help in data analysis.
E. MS Visio (Microsoft Visio)
Microsoft Visio is a software application that is useful in communication and can be used for capturing and presenting ideas to stakeholders.
We can use Visio may tasks such as:
- Creating architecture diagrams
- Creating data models
- Creating UML diagrams (Ex: Activity, sequence diagrams etc)
- Creating flow charts or process flow diagram
Visio is easy to use and provides features for embedding models in documents, creating templates, applying themes etc.
F. Wire framing Tools
As a business analyst, many occasions, we may need to use drawing while working with stakeholders who need more than requirements specification documents or use cases. Business analyst need to learn how to use wireframing applications to create mockups of how your proposed system will look and work. Wireframes focus on content, user interaction and but not on internal processing details. There are many wireframing tools available online such as gliffy, google drawing etc.
G. Rational Requisite Pro
It is a requirement management tool. This tool is useful for handling requirements in large projects. It is one of the most popular requirement management tools. It helps to trace requirements along with their changes and prioritize them for implementation. Requirements management tools also have features for conducting impact analysis and managing an audit trail of changes.
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