BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server provides an integrated set of tools to enhance business intelligence capability, fully integrating with Excel and SQL Server data sources and providing the capability to easily include data from other sources.

Excel-based Business Intelligence

Where data is stored in multiple spreadsheets, these can be incorporated into business intelligence portals within the SharePoint environment, using web services.

SharePoint also provides Data Connection Libraries to give users an easy way to share, manage, and discover connections to external data repositories without requiring any knowledge of the technical details.

Confidential information can be kept secure by locking down access at the server.

Dashboards and Report Center

SharePoint can be used to create interactive business intelligence 'dashboards' that assemble and display business information from disparate sources, using pre-built Web Parts. With the dashboard and reporting capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007, users can:

• Manage reports, spreadsheets, and data connections consistently via the Report Center — an out-of-the-box site template and document library optimized for report access and management, including a report library, data connection library, and a business intelligence dashboard template. 
• Communicate status using the KPI Web Part without writing code. The KPI Web Part can display KPI information from Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets, SharePoint Lists or manually entered data.
• Easily access the business information you need by creating dynamic, personalized dashboards using integrated Filter Web Parts. Filters allow dashboards to be personalized by communicating shared parameters amongst Web Parts on a dashboard.