SharePoint BI for the Common Person

By Colin Phillips :: SharePoint MVP ::

itgroove

Business Intelligence 101

Every business, big or small, can benefit from

business intelligence

- Key Performance Indicators

- Dashboards

- Charts

- Many (many) more possibilities

The Game of BI Buzzwords

Big Data

Sparklines

Metrics

… The list goes on, and on, and on

Did Someone

say BIG Data?

Analysis

Source of Truth

Aggregation

Cutting Through the Crap and Getting Down to Meaning

The keys to building a good (and useful)

business intelligence thingy [insert buzzword

here]

- Purpose: Why is this necessary?

- Relevance: Bring to the surface relevant

info

- Vision: A vision of what “it” may look like

(if it actually has a visualization)

- Accuracy: The details have to be right

- (And sometimes have a little fun)

Purpose: To Help Wendy

Find What She Needs

Vision: This could’ve been imagined on a napkin

Relevant Info

Fun

Accuracy: These have to be right, or people may miss out on earned vacation (or worse,

get too much)

Tools of the Trade (SharePoint Wise)

The MS Answer to BI in 2010:

• Performance Point

• (Ad hoc) KPI’s

• Visio Services

• SQL Server Reporting Services

• Excel / Excel Services

• PowerPivot (Later add-on)

• PowerView (quite limited and later add-on)

The MS Answer to BI in 2013:

• Excel / Excel Services

• PowerPivot

• PowerView

The rest still “exist” in 2013, but are no longer in the spotlight

Things differ quite a bit when comparing 2010 and 2013

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 2010 to 2013

What you spent all your time on in 2010 is now mostly deprecated (or lacking) in

2013

Good:

- PowerPivot is AMAAAAZING!!!

Bad:

- You have to learn something new (all over again)

Ugly:

- Conditional formatting was easy in 2010, now only really something a

programmer can handle in 2013 (though it’s power has certainly vastly improved)

Demo #1 – BI Using Only Your Mouse

Goal:

Creating business intelligence about a SharePoint list without ever using your keyboard

Ingredients:

• SharePoint List Data (in 2013)

• Excel (2013)

• PowerPivot

• A Pointing Device (Mouse)

• Halloween data collected about all costumes worn by my kids since first born (2005).

About Demo #1

Because that example is Ad-hoc

(using export to Excel), it works in

both on-premises installations,

and in the cloud (Office 365).

Demo #2 – This time, “To The Cloud!”

Part I

We’re going to do a similar analysis as in the first

Demo, but this time we’re going to get the

information from a cloud data source

Part II

Combine the data from Demo #1 and Demo #2

together

From Ad-hoc Reporting to Dashboards

Step 1: Ad-hoc Reporting

Step 2: Dashboards

Step 3: Profit?

There Are No Rules When Building A Dashboard

• Make a dashboard what you want it to be

• Dashboards should serve the end-user, not

the author

• If you don’t like what you’re given (and have

the ability/permissions) change your

dashboard to be more useful

Ok, There Are Rules When Building A Dashboard

• If this is a “state of the union” dashboard, your dashboard should be quiet unless something

needs addressing

Include KPI’s that target specifically what you care about

• Simplicity over quantity – if there’s too much going on, people will get lost, or worse, bored

• Know what keeps your executives up at night

• List views are your friend

Dashboards As a Central Focus

• To make dashboards the most successful,

direct users to them constantly

• Make them your users’ browser

homepage

• If they’re everywhere, people can’t miss

them

• If they have the information people need,

people will be inclined to use them

• Don’t be afraid to adjust things along the

way and make improvements Above: Example trend of a static dashboard that you have to go out of your way to find

The Careful Curve of Dashboard Complexity

No Information

Too Little Information

Just Right

Too Much Information

Information Overload

At the end of the day, Too much is better than too little – but way too much is just wrong.

Taken from “the head cheese” at itgroove

The following slides are taken from our 2013 dashboard strategy…

(Circa January 2013)

What do we need to manage?

Ourselves (Corporate)

Our Customers (Client Manager)

Myself (Individual)

What our dashboards need to tell us

What is past due?

What are our risks?

What is on today and tomorrow?

What is on this week?

What is on this month?

What changes are coming to customer

systems?

What is expiring this week?

What is overdue for me?

What is on for me today and tomorrow?

What is on for me this week?

What is on for me this month?

What Risks do I own?

What customers do I own Responsibility

for?

Think “Outlook Style”

Time Entries Today

Client Monthly Hours

Future KPI’s

Customer Service

Business & Billing

Our Dashboards are about surfacing relevant data, and mitigating risk.

Key Message:Have a strategy

Client Manager Dashboards

Client Manager

Customer Service

Business & Billing

Consultant Dashboard

[Me]GM View

New! Everywhere you go in our portal, you’re surrounded by dashboards.

Key Message:Make them a central focus, and people won’t even realize they’re gaining the benefit

Let’s Build a Dashboard!

Here’s what we’re going to make:

- Get data from a SharePoint list

- Build some list views

- We’ll use several (pre-built) Excel services solutions (for

brevity)

- Combined together in a web-part page in SharePoint

Voila! Dashboard

Dashboards – Gone Wild

Simple Dashboard Colouring Guidelines

- Proper use of Colour

- Use colour only on outliers (icons

are optional)

- Don’t cloud the design with colour

We all know green is good

- Think about what it will look like

when printed

No matter how much you try to avoid

it, someone will always want to do this

Dashboards I Love

So what did we cover?

- How to pull information from SharePoint lists

(both on premises and cloud) and do ad-hoc

reporting

- How to combine data from more than 1 source

(on premises and cloud) into an ad-hoc report

- Use dashboards!!!

- Have a plan for your dashboard strategy

- Making dashboards a central focus = Good!

- How to build a simple dashboard with

SharePoint list views and ExcelAnd kids in cute Halloween costumes are adorable

Questions?

Contact Info

Colin Phillips

cphillips@itgroove.net

blog: mmman.itgroove.net