This document discusses self-service business intelligence (BI) using SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2012. It provides an introduction to BI and its history, common BI scenarios and problems, and what capabilities are now available. The presentation demonstrates the Microsoft BI stack including SQL Server 2012's Power View for self-service reporting on mobile devices. Key lessons learned are that SharePoint BI and SQL 2012 installation order is important and SQL collation issues need to be avoided.

1. Self-service BI for the
Masses with
SharePoint 2010 &
SQL 2012
Aonghus Fraser
@gusfraser
www.c5alliance.com
SharePoint Saturday UK 8th December 2012

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 Decision Making: A Brief History of Business
Intelligence
 Common Scenarios & Problems
 What can we do now?
 Demonstrations
 Q&A

3. Gus (Aonghus) Fraser
 SharePoint Evangelist & Lead Consultant @ C5
 Developing Enterprise Solutions since SharePoint 2003
 Twitter: @gusfraser
 Email: af@c5.je
 Bunch of MSFT certs (mostly dev) e.g. MCPD, MCSD etc.
 NOT a BI consultant
 C5 Alliance; ~75 IT consultants (18 SharePoint/CRM)
 Based in Jersey & Guernsey
 Probably the highest concentration of SharePoint consultants on the planet*
*unconfirmed

4. C5 Alliance
 75+ highly skilled, qualified and experienced consultants
 ~12 SharePoint Consultants
 ~8 BI Consultants
 Jersey, Guernsey, London.

5. Jersey
www.c5alliance.com

6. Guernsey
www.c5alliance.com

7. A Brief History of BI

8. 1958: Journal of Research and Development
 An automatic system is being developed to
disseminate information to the various
sections of any […] organization.
 […] flexibility of such a system in identifying
known information, in finding who needs to
know it and in disseminating it efficiently
either in abstract form or as a complete
document.

9. FFWD 2012 – Data!
 Information is doubling every 2 years.
 In 2011 the world will create 1.8
zettabytes*.
 In 2020 the world will generate 50 times
the amount of data, 75 times the number
of "information containers“, while IT staff
will grow less than 1.5 times.
*I had to look it up too – 1M Petabytes!
Source: EMC/IDC Digital Universe Study 2011

10. FFWD 2012 - Gartner CEO/CIO Priorities
Top 10 Business Priorities Rank Top 10 Technology Priorities Rank
Increasing enterprise growth 1 Analytics and business 1
intelligence
Attracting and retaining new customers 2 Mobile technologies 2
Reducing enterprise costs 3 Cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) 3
Creating new products and services 4 Collaboration technologies (workflow) 4
(innovation)
Delivering operational results 5 Virtualization 5
Improving efficiency 6 Legacy Modernization 6
Improving profitability (margins) 7 IT Management 7
Attracting and retaining the workforce 8 Customer Relationship Management 8
Improving marketing and sales 9 ERP Applications 9
effectiveness
Expanding into new markets and 10 Security 10
geographies
Source: Gartner Executive Programs (January 2012)

11. What does “Business Intelligence” mean today?
 Management Information, Business Insight, Data
Warehousing, Data Processing…
 Examples:
 Remove duplication and reduce manual input
 Improve quality of information and decisions
 Collect and contextualise data from different sources
 Gain insights from existing data
 Self service end user reporting
 Analyse past data
 Predict future behaviour

12. Purpose of Business Intelligence
 Make Better Business Decisions:
 Visualise meaning and knowledge hidden in your data
 The right information
 At the right time
 In the right format

13. Common Scenarios – BI Report Creation
 Complex Excel Workbooks & Macros
 Cut & Paste / Data Integrity Risk
 Dependency on highly skilled workforce
 Developers customising reports
 Dreaded month end operation

14. What can we do now?

15. Microsoft BI Stack
 Get data > Integration Services
 Relational data > SQL Server
 Cube data > Analysis Services
 Present data > Reporting Services
 Analyse data > Excel 2007/2010/2013
 Present data > SharePoint 2010/2013
 ...anything else > T-SQL / C#.NET

16. Microsoft BI Platform Gartner rating
In the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms
• Gartner is the
undisputed authority
on IT industry
ratings
• Microsoft is in the
“Magic quadrant”
• Market leader in the
“ability to execute”

17. SQL Server 2012 & 2012 SP1
• Power View- Self Service Reporting

18. Mobile Device Support in SQL 2012 SP1
 iOS 6, Windows Phone (Allegedly! I had problems with some SSRS..
Expect a CU or Hotfix for this in Q1 2013)

19. The Science…
BI from a SharePoint
Consultant’s perspective

20. BISM…
 BI Semantic Model, a 3-layer model:
 Data Model
 Multi-dimensional interface; OLAP-aware client
applications (Excel) can consume (MDX)
 Tabular interface; e.g. Power View can consume (DAX)
 Business Logic
 Created using DAX (simpler) or MDX (more complex)
 Data Access
 Integration of various sources
 xVelocity (VertiPaq) - memory optimised columnstore
index (100x performance improvement)

22. Demonstrations

34. Lessons Learned
 SharePoint BI elements & SQL 2012 SSRS &
PowerView installation must be followed
precisely; order very important!
 Beware of SQL Collations!

35. The End - Thank You!
Any Questions?
@gusfraser
af@c5.je