DEV14 – Building Business Dashboards: Excel Services, KPIs and Report Centers Darwin Schweitzer...

DEV14 – Building Business Dashboards: Excel Services, KPIs and Report CentersDarwin

SchweitzerEnterprise Technology StrategistDarwin.Schweitzer@microsoft.com

Grant PaisleyMVP SQL ServerAngry Koala grant@angrykoala.com.auhttp://sqlserver.org.au

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

Our Integrated BI Offering

END USER TOOLS & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT APPS

ExcelPerformancePoint

ServerBI PLATFORM

SQL Server Reporting Services

SQL Server Analysis Services

SQL Server DBMS

SQL Server Integration Services

SharePoint Server

DELIVERY

Reports Dashboards Excel Workbooks

AnalyticViews Scorecards Plans

Server investmentsSharePoint 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

SchweitzerEnterprise Technology StrategistDarwin.Schweitzer@microsoft.com

Grant PaisleyMVP SQL ServerAngry Koala grant@angrykoala.com.au

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 ManagementProject ManagementPresenceCollaborationTrainingUser AdoptionMore than a BI Portal

Links & Resources

Microsoft Business Intelligence Demos and White Papers

http://www.microsoft.com/bi/resources/demos.aspx

CRM Analytics Foundation & the Technical White Paper

http://codeplex.com/crmanalytics

ARC04 – BI with Excel Services and Reporting ServicesMay 15th 2.25pm: Session Three

http://www.microsoftsharepoint.com/agenda/Pages/newdefault.aspx

Grant PaisleyMVP SQL Server

Angry Koala grant@angrykoala.com.au

Darwin SchweitzerEnterprise Tech. Strategist

Darwin.Schweitzer@microsoft.com

Q&A

Darwin SchweitzerEnterprise Technology StrategistDarwin.Schweitzer@microsoft.com

Grant PaisleyMVP SQL ServerAngry Koala grant@angrykoala.com.au

Appendix

Darwin SchweitzerEnterprise Technology StrategistDarwin.Schweitzer@microsoft.com

Grant PaisleyMVP SQL ServerAngry Koala grant@angrykoala.com.au

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 endExcel web

accessExcel 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 TopologyIndependent 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 inSharePoint 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 2007- 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