An introduction to the Microsoft BI Stack Dr. John Tunnicliffe Business Intelligence Consultant

Why are you here? I am here because... I am a geek too I live next door & just popped in My wife wanted me out of the house today I heard the sheep in Wales were good looking I am looking for a new job I want to get paid more I want to add value to my organisation I want to deliver the right information at the right time to the right people so they can act

Agenda Introduction Analysis Services and Excel 2007 Demo – building and browsing a cube SSRS & Report Builder 2.0 Demo – building a report with RB2 SharePoint 2007 BI Features PerformancePoint Services Essential BI Books

What is BI? “An interactive process for exploring and analysing structured, domain- specific information... to discern business trends or patterns, thereby deriving insight and drawing conclusions.” Gartner

SQL Server BI Components

SharePoint BI Components

Analysis Services OLAP How it work? Cube has to be ‘processed’ before any data appears Processing reads data from relational data source Takes a copy of the data and stored in proprietary format Creates aggregations Cube only gets new data when re-processed Processing can be done at several levels / ways Full OLAP database Individual Dimension or Partition

Typical Analysis Services Implementations Data Warehouse Architecture

Typical Analysis Services Implementations Operational System Architecture Cube built on operational system e.g. Finance / HR / CRM Two processing models Passive Proactive caching Hints and tips Build a data-mart Don’t build a historical cube Heavy load?

Analysis Services OLAP Key Concepts Dimensions Criteria by which user’s wish to sliced and dice the data Measures / Facts Numerical data User-hierarchies Provide drill-down paths Member properties Provide metadata about data Drill-through See underlying data Let’s just see it in action...

Analysis Services Hints and Tips Get your facts right! Don’t simply make your OLTP data into a fact Focus facts on specific business problems Get your data clean! Start simple and build from there Build cube on views Create one schema per cube Follow best practice hints VS2008 shows hints while building cube For SQL 2005 use Microsoft Best Practice Analyser 2.0

Creating a Headcount Fact Source Table

Creating a Headcount Fact Model 1

Creating a Headcount Fact Model 2 Let’s BUILD it...

Reporting Services Supports T-SQL & MDX data sources Reports developed with Visual Studio (BIDS) VS2005 for SQL Server 2005 VS2008 for SQL Server 2008 Ensure you have the latest service pack ! Visual Studio & SQL Server (even on client) Develop MDX in SSMS first!

Report Builder 2.0 Plug-in for SSRS 2008 Did not ship with RTM Requires separate download & installation on server Change URL in Report Manager Site Settings For user ClickOnce deployment from Report Manager Office 2007 Interface Provides Ad-Hoc Reporting Easy to use, especially with cubes Let’s SEE it...

What is a dashboard? “Visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives which fits entirely within a single computer screen so it can be monitored at a glance” Stephen Few, Information Dashboard Design

Dashboard Design Example dashboard

SharePoint BI Components

SharePoint BI Components SSRS in Integrated Mode Reports published to document library User clicks ‘document’ and it runs report Developer publishes to document library Provides version control !! Integrated security Report Manager becomes redundant “My Reports” feature not available Report Viewer web part allows reports to be placed on any web page Manage subscriptions Subscriptions can be published to a SharePoint document library

SharePoint BI Components Excel Services Excel 2007 only Office Open XML (OOXML) file format Publish menu option Excel Calculation Servers (ECS) Loads workbooks Refreshes external data Recalculates with ‘full fidelity’ Excel Web Access (EWA) DHTML web part for viewing Excel spreadsheets Display named areas / objects Excel Web Services (EWS) Develop custom applications based on Excel workbooks

SharePoint BI Components Data Connections Library Publish ‘trusted’ connections Central store for database connections OLAP or relational connections Fundamental to Excel Services Must utilise ‘trusted’ connections in order for the ECS to refresh data

SharePoint BI Components KPI Web Part Data sources Manually entered data SharePoint lists Excel workbooks KPIs published in OLAP Cube

SharePoint BI Components Report Center

SharePoint BI Components Useful non-BI features Business Data Catalog (BDC) Publish relational data Document Library Version control Web Page web part Links web part Wiki

PerformancePoint Services

PerformancePoint Server 2007 A short history PerformancePoint Server 2007 PPS Monitoring = Business Scorecard Manager 2005 PPS Analytics = ProClarity PPS Planning = new product Product withdrawal announced Jan 2009 Support for PPS Planning withdrawn April 2009 Functionality of PPS Monitoring and Analytics to be rolled into SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Planning Nov 2007 – April 2009

PerformancePoint Services PerformancePoint Services = PPS Monitoring Rebranded after product withdrawal in Jan 2009 Get it now... Free with SharePoint Enterprise Edition Install PerformancePoint Monitoring SP2 supports SQL Server 2008 / WS2008 However, tricky installation Get it in Monitoring & Analytics functionality rolled into SharePoint 2010

PerformancePoint Services Dashboard Designer Data Sources Indicators KPIs Reports Scorecards Kaplan et.al. Dashboards

PerformancePoint Services Examples

SharePoint BI Components

Essential BI Books General BI Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few Building a Data Warehouse, Vincent Rainardi PerformancePoint PerformancePoint Monitoring, Nick Barclay Analysis Services Applied Microsoft Analysis Servers 2005, Teo Lachev SQL Server 2008 MDX Step by Step, Smith/Clay Expert Cube Development, Chris Webb et. al. Reporting Services Applied Microsoft Reporting Services 2008, Teo Lachev Integration Services Microsoft Integration Services, Ken Hasleden

Thank you SQLBits