SharePoint 2010 BI Tools Round Up
Recently I have given a presentation on the Business Intelligence tools available for SharePoint 2010 and its related infrastructure (e.g. SSRS).
I delivered this session at the inaugural SharePoint Saturday UK event which I also co-organised earlier this year. Also more recently, I delivered this at the SharePoint User Group in Cambridge.
The key points I try to get across to the audience are as follows:
- All Business Intelligence tools built into SharePoint are only available with Enterprise CALs BUT its still a far cheaper alternative to the other big players.
- For non Enterprise and even Foundation users, SQL Reporting Services (SSRS) is your friend. If you have a Standard SQL 2008 R2 licence, make the most of SSRS to deliver dashboards, reporting and geo-spatial mapping. You even have a top quality report authoring tool in Report Builder, and all your content can be managed like any other document (workflow, versioning etc).
- Again for the non-enterprise, take a look at the Google/Bing APIs for charting and mapping.
- Lots of tools to solve quick (tactical) problems for BI in SharePoint such as the Chart Web Part, Status Lists
- Use PerformancePoint when you have OLAP Cubes as your data source. It is the best tool for ‘exploratory’ reporting.
My presentation slides can be found on slideshare here: Business-Intelligence-Armoury-Whats-the-Best-Tool-for-the-Job
Enjoy!
