Building DashboardsSharePoint and Business Intelligence

Dashboards

Easy way to see data through reports, charts and graphical displays

SharePoint allows end users to build them without programming skills

Can use SharePoint Lists for filtering data

List view allows sorting, grouping, calculations

Considerations for planning Dashboards

Where is data

What types of information needs to be rendered

Who will use it

Content Types

Collection of columns, that represent an informational view (ie Leave Form)

Office document template

Identify re-useable columns for MetaData

Can be standardized and used across many sites, lists and libraries

Allows different types of content in in one List or Library

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Available from the New Items Tab on the ribbon

Excel Services

Service of SharePoint 2010/2013 Enterprise

Site Collection Feature of SharePoint 2010/2013 Enterprise

Must be activated by Site Collection Administrator

Allows use of parameters to provide view only of Excel data in browser

Requires SharePoint to work

Excel

Excel Web Access Web part

Embeds and Displays excel workbook in a SharePoint Page

Filtering of data configurable via Browser View Options

Does not allow editing of Spreadsheet

Excel Workbooks

Supports Named Regions to filter or select specific elements to show

Supports creation of PivotTables

Summarization tool to sort and/or manipulate data

Business Intelligence

A collection of tools and techniques to interpret data

Decisions can be made by studying the data

Implemented in SharePoint with BI Site Template

Design based on data in cubes or Data Warehouses

Performance Point

Flexible, easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, analytical reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs). 

Includes Dashboard Designer

Desktop application that creates and manages dashboards and their elements

Including scorecards, parameters, and strategy maps.

Help organizations measure, monitor, and manage business performance with live data from a variety of business data sources.

Can track key performance indicators (KPIs) that consolidate data from multiple data sources into a scorecard or strategy map that is visual, intuitive, and interactive.

SQL Server Reporting Service (SSRS)

Site Collection Feature of SharePoint 2010/2013 Enterprise Must be activated by Site Collection Administrator

Activating Feature adds

SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer Web part

Can change appearance of reports via Web part properties

Report Builder Model, Report Builder Report, and Report Data Sources

Report Builder

Click once Windows Application

Allows users to quickly generate reports from SQL databases

BI Terms

Reports

Displays data information in charts and tables

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

Business Metrics displayed in a scorecard

Indicators used to reflect status (Red, Yellow, Green)

Scorecard

Report designed to show performance targets

Contains one or more KPI’s

Dashboard

Containers that display Scorecards and Reports

BI Terms

Facts Tables

customer data, products, materials

Dimensions

Contains details of each instance of an object

Measures

Additive numerical data that represents business metric

Datacubes

a three-dimensional (3D) (or higher) range of values that are generally used to explain the time sequence of an image's data.

Allows user to create dynamic reports without assistance from IT

BI Terms

Database

Used for Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) but can be used for other purposes such as Data Warehousing. This records the data from the user for history.

The tables and joins are complex since they are normalized (for RDMS). This is done to reduce redundant data and to save storage space.

Entity – Relational modeling techniques are used for RDMS database design.

Optimized for write operation.

Performance is low for analysis queries.

BI Terms

Data Warehouse

Used for Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). This reads the historical data for the Users for business decisions.

The Tables and joins are simple since they are de-normalized. This is done to reduce the response time for analytical queries.

Data – Modeling techniques are used for the Data Warehouse design.

Optimized for read operations.

High performance for analytical queries.

Is usually a Database.

Dashboard Designer

Click once Windows Application

Used to create Dashboards, Scorecards and Reports

Cannot create Web parts!

Can be used by ANY user with permissions

Content created is stored in BI Center site

Dashboard Designer

Can connect to data from:

Relational Databases

SQL Server Analysis Services

SharePoint lists and Excel

Common cause of Unexpected Error 11861 is not saving connection

Requires PerformancePoint Services activated to operate