DEV14 – Building Business Dashboards: Excel Services, KPIs and Report Centers Darwin Schweitzer Enterprise Technology Strategist Grant Paisley MVP SQL Server Angry Koala

Agenda Business Intelligence Overview - Self-directed People Ready BI Demo - Excel Services, KPIs, Filter Web Parts, Report Center Deployment Considerations - Solutions for different WorkStyles - Using SharePoint to Drive Adoption Q&A

Who uses Business Intelligence? “Analysts” MiddleManagers OperationsExecs

END USER TOOLS & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT APPS Excel PerformancePoint Server BI PLATFORM SQL Server Reporting Services SQL Server Analysis Services SQL Server DBMS SQL Server Integration Services SharePoint Server DELIVERY ReportsDashboardsExcelWorkbooksAnalyticViewsScorecardsPlans

Server investments SharePoint is “BI Portal and Report Center” Excel Services Dashboards & Web Parts Report Center Reporting Services ProClarity Business Scorecard Manager

Demo – Excel Services, KPIs, Filter Web Parts, Report Center Darwin Schweitzer Enterprise Technology Strategist Grant Paisley MVP SQL Server Angry Koala

Solutions for Different WorkStyles Customized delivery of information - PM dashboards & scorecards - Embedded BI in applications BI self-service - Enterprise-wide self-service reporting - Parameterized & Operational Reporting Ad hoc Reporting and Analysis - End-user analytics and reporting Business User Innovation Incubation - Flexible Empowerment with Responsibility

Driving Adoption Software that is Familiar Ease of Use Competency Centers - Business Intelligence, Integration Relevance of Tools to performing job function - Information Worker - Employee self-service (role based portals) More than a BI Portal - Collaboration & Communication - Enterprise Content & Project Management Communities of Interest Communities of Practice Centers of Excellence

Content Management Project Management Presence Collaboration Training User Adoption More than a BI Portal

Links & Resources Microsoft Business Intelligence Demos and White Papers os.aspx CRM Analytics Foundation & the Technical White Paper ARC04 – BI with Excel Services and Reporting Services May 15 th 2.25pm: Session Three /Pages/newdefault.aspx Grant Paisley MVP SQL Server Angry Koala Darwin Schweitzer Enterprise Tech. Strategist

Q&A Darwin Schweitzer Enterprise Technology Strategist Grant Paisley MVP SQL Server Angry Koala

Appendix Darwin Schweitzer Enterprise Technology Strategist Grant Paisley MVP SQL Server Angry Koala

Dashboards Aggregate various artifacts (workbooks, reports, scorecards) Make BI information relevant Annotate core BI data with relevant information - Unified filtering (“Slicing”) across web parts - KPIs, Excel workbooks and SQL Reporting Services reports - Simple to create, simple to customize

Excel Services Features Publish Excel sheets, workbooks, pivot tables and charts Rendering in pure DHTML Server side Excel calculation engine - Named ranges as parameters (single cell) - Access using browser or web services Complete web services API Extensible using.NET UDFs Access to external data from SQL Server, Analysis Services & OLEDB provider - Pivot tables incl. filtering, drilldown

Limitations of Excel Services Excel Services is NOT Excel on the Server - No authoring No data entry outside of parameters, no layout changes - No VBA, no non-database data sources, many other features not supported Does not Solve the problem of multi-user spreadsheet authoring

Web front end Excel web access Excel web services ECS Proxy Excel Services Architecture Web frontend - SharePoint UI - HTML Rendering + Web Services Application server - Spreadsheet loading, data refresh, calculations - Holds state for interactivity - File and query cache for performance Single server or multi tier Independent scale out Excel calculation service ECS interface Application Server External data sources Flexible Topology Independent Scale-Out Application Server Web front end

Web Parts Components - Excel Services workbooks - Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Describe important business measures Value, target, status, trend Sources: SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), SharePoint lists, Excel worksheets or manual entry - Filter From SSAS, lists, text, query string, current user…

Key Performance Indicators in SharePoint Server 2007 Fairly simple to create Many scenarios where code is not required at all Types ranging from very simple to enterprise-level - Manually entered, SharePoint list, Excel workbook, SQL Server Analysis Services Important! SharePoint is not intended to be a scorecarding solution - We have specialized solutions like BSM 2005 and in future PerformancePoint Server 2007

Personalizing the BI Experience – Filter Web Parts Make dashboards relevant to individual users They come in two forms: - Hidden (current user, query string) - Visible (business data catalog, choice, date, page field, SharePoint list, Analysis Services, Text) Provide a great way to customize user experience

Filter information consumers In SharePoint Server Excel Web Access - KPI List - Business Data Catalog List - WSS List View SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Custom consumers

Data connection libraries Central repository of important data connections Simple discovery of new data sources Central update of connections in many spreadsheets and solutions Management of one version of the truth

Bringing all the Features Together with the Report Center Out of the box site template, optimized for report access and management Helps you to get started Consistent management of reports, spreadsheets and data connections Provides a specialized library for reports – the Report Library - Very powerful when combined with the view history feature in SharePoint Supports full integration with SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SP2) Important! All BI features are available through the entire portal