Microsoft Training Blog

IT at QuickStart: Self Service BI, Is it Here Yet?

The idea of “self-service” BI has picked up a lot of steam in the last few years.  The question is, is the technology there to really support it?

Self-service BI should allow users ranging across all technical skill levels to access and organize the data the way they feel is most useful.  This is a great idea, in that the users, who work with this data on a regular basis, are generally the ones with the best understanding of how to organize the data to give us the most meaningful insights.

We’ve talked about Report Builder 3.0 in the past, and the benefits it offers.  It’s a great product and it should definitely be a tool that we utilize, but let’s take a look at some other options that might be even friendlier, and offer some advantages that RB 3.0 doesn’t.

Performance Point Services offer a suite of new features that are accessible to the information worker, and integrated into SharePoint 2010.  I’m not sure that I can say this product is truly accessible to users across all technical skill levels, but it is pretty friendly.

The Dashboard Designer is the tool that exposes these new features in SP 2010.  It is built into the BI Site Center.  After you install it, you will be able to create dashboards, data connections, visual reports and filters, scorecards, and KPI’s.

Dashboards are the containers that we are going to use to display these other components.  The dashboard designer gives you the template, but it’s up to you to populate the dashboard with the reports, charts, graphs, scorecards, etc., which make it a true dashboard.  Each of these components will reside in a web part in the dashboard.  The idea is that a business user can access the dashboard focusing on a particular business unit (or the whole company for that matter), using the various components, and to get an instant overview of that area of the business.  Logically, you will have to maintain multiple dashboards for the different business units in your company. 

You will define your data connections, and at this point I should warn you, they really hope you are using SSAS.  You can obviously connect to relational data as well (including Excel and SP lists), but the maximum benefit is going to be generated from SSAS cubes.  Once these data connections are defined, they are available to be reused as often as you wish.

After you have defined your data connections, you can create your scorecards, which are really containers for your KPIs (key performance indicators).  The KPI functionality in PP is vastly superior to the KPI functionality in SSAS.  It is a lot easier to work with also. 

From there you can add your Reporting Services Reports, or create your own visual reports in the Dashboard designer.

We can link all of these web parts containing these various components together and create filters to give the users the ability to focus on particular data.  It’s a very powerful tool that allows us to display data in ways we haven’t been able to before.

Now, the question that I asked early on… Is the technology there to support true Self Service BI?  I don’t think so… not yet.  The technical barriers to access have definitely been lowered and it’s available to a larger segment of our workforce.  I just don’t think it’s reached all technical levels yet.

With that said, we have a new course offering, the 50465 class (MS-50465 - PerformancePoint 2010 Designing and Implementing Scorecards and Dashboards) that goes in depth into the Dashboard designer and is a great companion class to the 50429 (MS-50429 - SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence) class. 

One thing to keep in mind though, we are on the cusp of SQL Denali being released, and with it, Project Crescent.  Project Crescent is going to take another big step in lowering the barriers to access as regards Self-Service BI.

Stay tuned for my take on Project Crescent… coming soon!

I would love to know your opinion and what you think!

 

Larry Heppelmann, Systems Engineer, QuickStart Intelligence