Business Intelligence with Office SharePoint Server 2007 makes it easy for decision-makers to access and analyze information anytime, anywhere. You can get up-to-date information wherever people work, collaborate, and make decisions, whether it's on the desktop or over the Web. Now, aligning employee's objectives with your corporate goals is as easy as creating a spreadsheet or report

Microsoft Office Excel-based Business Intelligence

The document management capabilities in the Microsoft integrated ECM solution can help organizations consolidate diverse content from multiple file shares and personal drives into a centrallyExcel Services, part of Office SharePoint Server 2007, extend the capabilities of Microsoft Office Excel 2007 by allowing broad sharing of spreadsheets, improved manageability and security and the ability to re-use spreadsheet models using a scalable server-based calculation service and interactive Web-based user interface. With Excel Services, you can:

Satisfy compliance and legal requirements

• Broaden the access and availability of spreadsheets by incorporating interactive spreadsheets into business intelligence portals, dashboards, and scorecards.
• Secure and protect confidential information and maintain one version of the truth by locking down access at the server.
• Reduce development costs, and improve time to market by using Web services to access models and data contained in spreadsheets.
• Use Data Connection Libraries to provide an easy way for your users to share, manage, and discover connections to external data repositories without requiring any knowledge of the technical details.

Dashboards and Report Center

Create rich, interactive business intelligence (BI) dashboards that assemble and display business information from disparate sources by using built in Web Parts. These Web Parts include dynamic key performance indicators (KPI), Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services reports and a collection of business data connectivity Web Parts that can visualize information residing in back-end line-of-business applications.

              

With the dashboard and reporting capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can:

• Manage reports, spreadsheets, and data connections consistently using the new Report Center—an out-of-the-box site template and document library optimized for report access and management including a report library, data connection library, and a business intelligence dashboard template.
• Communicate goals and status to drive results using the new Web Part without writing code. The KPI Web Part can display KPI from Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets, SharePoint Lists, or manually entered data.
• Easily access the business information you need by creating dynamic, personalized dashboards using integrated Filter Web Parts. Filters allow dashboards to be personalized by communicating shared parameters amongst Web Parts on a dashboard. The Filter Web Parts presents more relevant information to the user.

Business data integration and discovery

Seamlessly integrate external data into your applications using the Business Data Catalog (BDC), part of Office SharePoint Server 2007. The BDC simplifies the process of discovering and accessing data residing within backend line of business applications. Discover back-end, line- of- business applications. Discover back-end data quickly using SharePoint search and interact with data through a set of Business Data Web Parts.

With the BDC, you can:

• Search your business data as easily as you search your other content repositories. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides an integrated, Enterprise Search experience across your enterprise data ranging from file shares, Web sites, Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Notes and line-of-business applications.
• Share business data using the Business data Web Parts that allow for viewing lists, entities, and related information retrieved through the BDC.
• Use convenient links that appear beside business objects returned from the BDC to easily create actions without custom coding that open Web pages, display the user interfaces of line-of-business applications, launch Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 forms, and perform other common actions.