BUSINESS REPORTING
The modern business environment can prove challenging to gain a meaningful and accurate insight into data that is stored within the many disparate systems.
Bringing data into one place with known, well defined business logic has a key advantage of providing an accurate source of data for regular business reports. It also allows for user driven self service reports to be created quickly and effectively.
The Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence suite is the perfect tool to collate your data from a multitude of sources, relate it all together, build business logic, and produce effective end user reports. If you have already purchased version of SQL Server then you already own all of the tools.
Many business know and love the database engine but don't even know that Integration Services, Analysis Services and Reporting Services even exist.
Integration services is used to manage data from many disparate sources and collate it into a central database (data warehouse).
Analysis services holds much of the business reporting power by adding logic, relating data together, producing parameter lists (dimensions), segmenting data, and summarizing data. This produces a consistent reporting reference.
Reporting services produces is a powerful reporting tool to produce the business reports.
SQL Business Intelligence
PowerBI is the new kid on the block from Microsoft. It comes in two forms, a desktop client and a cloud version that resides in Office 365.
PowerBI brings an intuitive and interactive report building environment into the hands of business users allowing them to build powerful dashboards with a minimum of effort.
The range of connections available "out of the box" is impressive and the list is growing monthly. With connectivity many know products (not just Microsoft products) and online services Power BI is being utilised by business at a growing rate.
PowerBI
PowerBI is the new kid on the block from Microsoft. It comes in two forms, a desktop client and a cloud version that resides in Office 365.
PowerBI brings an intuitive and interactive report building environment into the hands of business users allowing them to build powerful dashboards with a minimum of effort.
The range of connections available "out of the box" is impressive and the list is growing monthly. With connectivity many know products (not just Microsoft products) and online services Power BI is being utilised by business at a growing rate.
PowerBI
Many businesses are utilising a range of products for reporting and data analysis purposes. Some tools such as Excel and Microsoft Access have been around for many years and are still a very effective way to perform business reporting.
The power built into Excel as and end user reporting platform is still hard to match. The smarts of Excel can be enhanced especiall when connected to a database Analysis services back end.
Historically, MS Access has been used to store and manage business data as well as produce reports, especially in SME. Getting the most out of the business data is still very important.
SharePoint is being used more and more in business today. For business reporting it can act as a data source or can host services such as Performance Point or Reporting Services for end user reporting.