BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

OPTIONS IN SHAREPOINT 2010

Presented by Colin Spence

Convergent Computing

Agenda

BI Overview Excel and Excel Services PerformancePoint Business Connectivity Services PowerPivot Summary

Note: Most examples shown in the slides are included in full detail in the SharePoint Server 2010 Unleashed book soon to be available from Sams Publishing: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-SharePoint-2010-Unleashed-Michael/dp/0672333252/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284408032&sr=1-2

Colin Spence Partner and Senior Consultant at Convergent

Computing (CCO) Practice Lead – CCO SharePoint Solutions Co-author of SharePoint 2010 Unleashed,

SharePoint 2007 and 2003 Unleashed and Teach Yourself SharePoint 2003 in 10-Minutes

Contributing author to numerous other Technology and Project Management books

Specialist in SharePoint strategy planning, architecture design, environment implementation, and end user training

Presenter at TechEd, Microsoft webcasts, SF SharePoint User Groups, Penton Media Seminars

Fair weather Network World blogger and DevX article contributor

Convergent: Company Overview Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and in business for over 24

years, Convergent Computing has 65+ Consultants on staff and is recognized as an industry leader in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 solutions

As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, CCO has extensive experience and expertise in numerous Microsoft technologies

CCO consultants have written best-selling books on many Microsoft technologies including "SharePoint Server 2007 Unleashed", and “SharePoint Server 2003 Unleashed.”

CCO has been recognized by Microsoft for our excellence in delivery:

NorCal District General Manager’s Award (2008) Partner of the Year Finalist (2007) Global Winning Customer (2006) Security Solutions Specialization (2006) Most Valuable Partner - Microsoft West Region (2006) Top Regional Partner - Customer Satisfaction (2006)

CCO is a Public Utility Commission "Clearinghouse" Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) registered vendor.

Defining BI in the Organization

Key pieces of information used to support business decisions Can be analytical, measurable data, anecdotal

information, or factual details Can be used by people at many different levels of an

organization Approaches to BI

Top-down approach Bottom-up approach “Middle-up” approach Pros and cons of each….

What tools will be used? Excel, Excel Services, PerformancePoint, BCS,

PowerPivot… other?

What Gartner is Saying about BI Growing bifurcation of stack vs.

departmental buying CIOs view BI among their top priorities

for improving decision making and the operational efficiencies that drive revenue and profitability

Shift from measurement to analysis, forecasting and optimization

Economic conditions driving interest in low-cost alternatives

BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets

BI SaaS adoption is low today but will grow as more options are available (Microsoft Azure)

Microsoft Office integration is important including support for document types, formulas, data “refresh” and pivot tables

Search-based BI is increasingly important to work with unstructured data

What Gartner is Saying about Microsoft BI

Smart moves in BI, and “moving up the food chain” to larger clients and larger deployments

Excel is placed at the center of BI offering Strategy also leverages SQL Server and SharePoint

Server Generally lower pricing and focus on “information

worker” productivity Microsoft BI solutions perceived as less complex and

less expensive Higher use of OLAP functionality due to SQL Analysis

Server integration Note: integration of some recent acquisitions isn’t as

seamless as it could be: Fast, Stratature and ProClarity

Dashboard Samples

Dashboards Example: Designer SharePoint 2007 Tools with

Designer 2007 Data Imported from spreadsheets Conditional Formatting

Convert web part to dataview Filter/Group/Sort Capabilities Approval Workflows

Dashboard Example: Third Party Bamboo Solutions Web Parts

Data Viewer and Chart Plus $X Per front-end server

SharePoint out of the box KPIs

Video of Data Viewer in Action

Dashboards Example: PerformancePoint

MOSS and Performance Point (ProClarity)

OLAP Cube connectivity

Enhanced Analytics and reporting capabilities

Excel Services

Leveraging Excel Data in SharePoint Generally considered “Step 1” for leveraging SharePoint for BI

applications Quick win to move from Spreadsheets to SharePoint lists

Use the Import Spreadsheet template Note: in this case there is no connectivity between the SharePoint list and the

source spreadsheet Use Excel Services to publish to SharePoint libraries

Now a service application, and as such is more manageable and customizable Excel Services now leverages PowerShell for management instead of the

stsadm tool Now provides REST API

○ Client/server software architecture/protocol that uses hyperlinks and lets the user access entities (such as ranges and charts) in workbooks using Excel Services through HTTP

JSOM or ECMAScript (JScript or JavaScript object model): ECMAScript enables syndication, mash-ups, automation of Excel Services, and the extension of Excel Services by third parties

Parameter input is possible from SharePoint Excel Web Access web part Requires defined named cells

Managing Excel Services Many more tools in Central Admin Stsadm commands (such as Add-

ecsfiletrustedlocation, Add-ecssafedataprovider) are no longer supported against Excel Services in SharePoint 2010 so PowerShell will be needed

Publishing to Excel Services Example of a spreadsheet with a pivot table

Publish to SharePoint document library Add Excel Web Access web part to a page Users can access different tabs, search, save a copy locally for

editing, refresh If Office Web Apps are in use, users CAN edit content!

Interactivity in Excel Services Limited if Office Web Apps not in use with the exception of

parameter input. Requires the naming of a cell in Excel, publish to SharePoint

then users can input values Doesn’t change Excel data, so more for “what if” scenarios

PerformancePoint

PerformancePoint The product was born from a merger of Microsoft's

Business Scorecard Manager and products acquired from ProClarity

In 2009, owners of the SharePoint Enterprise CAL became licensed for PerformancePoint; however, it remained a separate installation.

In SharePoint 2010, PerformancePoint Services is now rolled into the SharePoint installation as a service application

Place rich report creation capabilities into the hands of power users

Some reports provide interaction for report consumers

Creating a PerformancePoint Service Application

Create the Service Application

Create a web application NTLM can be used Generally rec’d to

create new app pool Dedicated db is

created Connect to Service

App

Create a new site collection Map to the web app Set site collection admins Choose Business Intelligence Center site template

Creating a PerformancePoint Site Collection

Dashboard Designer Integrated tool for PerformancePoint dashboard creation Dashboard Designer is the client interface for building

PerformancePoint reports and scorecards. It provides a drag-and-drop interface for creating the

dashboards, scorecards, reports, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

It enables business users to build reports without having to do any programming

Creating Dashboards in Dashboard Designer

Data Connections: SQL Server Analysis Services Excel components from either Excel

Services or Excel Workbooks SharePoint Lists SQL Server tables

Select KPI Indicators Showing status

○ Green, Yellow, Red Targets vs. Actuals Showing Progress

Creating a Scorecard in Dashboard Designer

A set of KPIs are grouped together to form a scorecard. Examples include: Sales volumes, with specific KPIs for each region Capacity utilization, with factories making up the individual KPIs Number of safety incidents, with per-plant line items Customer service complaints, based on product line

Types of Scorecards in DD: Microsoft: Based on Analysis Services, which requires that you have a corresponding data source

based on SQL Server Analysis Services. Standard: Enables you to create either a blank or fixed value scorecard. These two options enable

you to add KPIs created and manually added to your workspace. Tabular: Contains several options for creating KPIs based on various table-centric data sources. Like

the Analysis Services scorecard, selection of any of the scorecards in this category requires you to have a data source based on the corresponding KPI type.

PerformancePoint Report Options

Reports can be of several different varieties, each of which requires you to have a corresponding data source of the same type: Analytic Chart: Interactive charts, based on OLAP cube data, such as

SQL Server Analysis Services, can be in bar, line and pie chart format. Analytic Grid: Also based on data from OLAP cubes, Analytic grids

display rows and columns of processed data. Excel Services: Allows for views of any components from Excel

Services. KPI Details: View detailed information about any KPI line item. ProClarity Analytics Server Page: Create a reference to an existing

ProClarity Analytics server page. Reporting Services: Reference an existing report from SQL Server

Reporting Services. Strategy Map: Create a strategy map report that is connected to a

scorecard by using Microsoft Office Visio 2007 or 2010. Web Page: Create a reference to an existing web page

Creating Reports in Dashboard Designer

Putting it all together in a Dashboard From Dashboard Designer

In the Details pane, expand Scorecards, and expand PerformancePoint Content. Drag the Product Sales scorecard into one of the dashboard zones.

In the Details pane, expand Reports, and expand PerformancePoint Content. Drag AdventureWorks Sales Chart onto the other zone.

In the Workspace Browser, right-click on Product Sales Dashboard, and select Deploy to SharePoint.

Select one of the master page options, and click OK. After the deployment is complete, the dashboard

page launches in Internet Explorer.

Business Connectivity Services

BCS

Newest iteration of the good ole Business Data Catalog (BDC) from SharePoint 2007

In SharePoint 2007 BDC definitions of entities required third-party toolsBDC Metaman from Lightning Tools and

MOSS BDC Design Studio from Simego In SharePoint 2010 Visual Studio 2010

and Designer 2010 provide built-in BCS dev tools

External Content Types

Definition: an entity whose underlying data exists external to SharePoint.

Is a SharePoint content type and has a set of attributes or columns.

Using BCS, external content types can be defined and made available for consumption within SharePoint.

Operations available with External Content Types: Create Operation: Add a new record to a table Update Operation: Modify an existing record Delete Operation: Remove a record from a table Association: Define a relationship between two related

tables

Creating and Using External Content Types

PowerPivot

PowerPivot Available for Excel 2010 or SharePoint 2010 Leverages Excel Services in SharePoint 2010 Requires SQL Server 2008 R2 release VertiPaq engine compresses and manages millions

of rows of data in memory with fast performance Online virtual lab for PowerPivot for Excel 2010

available: https://cmg.vlabcenter.com/default.aspx?moduleid=ad3b

d3e9-8d2b-498d-94fa-e41e1b09730d Beware of errors in the steps!

SharePoint 2010 supports creation of PowerPivot Gallery

PowerPivot For Excel Walkthrough

Video of PowerPivot in Action

PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010

Integration of PowerPivot and PerformancePoint PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint

Server 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2 PowerPivot. You can use a PowerPivot model in

PerformancePoint Requires PPS Dashboard DesignerSome issues should be expected in using the two

products in conjunction with one another. See:○ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/

confirmation.aspx?FamilyID=11762ECB-EF79-4556-88D9-B478B8F4AA12&amp%3Bdisplaylang=en

Other SharePoint “BI” to Consider

SharePoint Site Usage: “Who’s doing What”

Summary

Summary Goal to encourage SharePoint as BI Platform Dashboards can be simple or more complex

depending upon tools used and data connected to Move or connect to Excel data from lists Look at third party KPI, Graph, Data Viewer web parts

(Bamboo) Consider PerformancePont with Dashboard Designer Consider BCS leveraging External Content Types Test PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Remember the “BI” of SharePoint usage can be very

valuable

Convergent: SharePoint Services

SharePoint-specific Services Complete range of SharePoint based solutions for:

○ Small, Medium and Large clients○ For Profit, Non-profit, Educational, Government solutions

Existing SharePoint assessment ○ Server Configuration best practices review, health check○ Performance testing

Full project cycle services○ Discovery, Design, Proof of Concept, Implementation, Migration,

Support

Branding for internal, external and mixed usage Training on best practices, troubleshooting, design SharePoint application design

○ Including workflows, forms, security, dashboards, custom web parts, etc.

Integration with other Microsoft Products, IBM, Oracle products

Etc…