SharePoint for BI Suggestion Topics

One of my favorite things to do each month is write SQL Server Magazine's Essential BI column. I write two posts for the column each month. About a month I started to focus on SharePoint for Business Intelligence (BI) usage. For those of you who don't know, SharePoint is Microsoft's BI portal platform.

If you have ever seen a Microsoft BI slide deck then you probably know of the ‘hamburger slide’. The ‘hamburger slide’ is a common slide which shows that SharePoint is the outer-most layer in the Microsoft BI stack. Below is the slide, notice how SharePoint Server is at the top with its various BI capabilities in the tabs:

Microsoft Hamburger Slide

My last two posts for the Essential BI column has been on SharePoint for BI topics. First, I wrote about SharePoint's overall key BI features including integration points with the other pieces of Microsoft BI software. Next, I created a piece on how you can use Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 for BI. A lot of companies have access to WSS 3.0 via Windows Server licenses but do not have the larger Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server (MOSS) edition.

From here I have some additional topics, the first of which I have just begun to write:

·         MOSS BI: Data Connection Libraries

·         MOSS BI: Native KPIs/Dashboards/Filter WebParts

·         MOSS BI: Enterprise Search for BI/Business Data Catalog (BDC)

*Excel Services was recently written about quite well by Paul Vaughn in this month’s edition of SQL Server Magazine (August 2008).

Where would like to see additional content on SharePoint BI? What SharePoint BI topics are important to you that I have not yet covered? Send me an email at [email protected] or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Thanks

Derek