BI-Directional

Go on, take a look...

http://blogs.technet.com/chrisp/

I fully intend to keep this one up and running, together with content that is specifically Business Intelligence focused, it's just that the other one is much more me :)

Curious?

There's even a link to the worlds best joke on there, fact!

I promised to post a video so here it is.

If you are curious about how you get from here...

...to here...

...in Microsoft Office Excel 2007, take a look here:

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 BI Demo

There's no audio, it's all rather self explanatory but it may take a moment to load, so please be patient whilst looking at the PTS-TV logo.

In its entirety, the video is just over three minutes long - Please let me know what you think of it!

Credit to Camtasia for the coolest software that enabled me to create this clip.

According to the FAQ they are - see the “System Requirements, Integration, and Compatibility” section, here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/programs/excel/faq.mspx

However, when I was challenged recently by a customer as to exactly how backwards compatible they were regarding the new and improved Business Intelligence capabilities, I thought I’d better do some further investigation and this is what I found ...

Take a look at the following spreadsheet in Office Excel 2007, nice eh?  A lot of meaningful numbers but impossible to tell at a glance as to where the big number is, where the small number is...

With the tiniest bit of effort, Office Excel 2007 allows you to mark up the spreadsheet rather nicely in a visual format - check out the Conditional Formatting option on the Ribbon...

After we've nicely marked it up (I will post a link to a video on how to do this soon :), we're left with a couple of options when it comes to saving the file...

We could save it in its original format (The file opened was .xls, Office Excel 2003 format). This option lets us know that we're going to have a 'significant loss of functionality'...

Or, we could convert it to Office Excel 2007 format...

Office Excel 2007 is kind enough to let us know that if we do this, we can use all of the new features and reduce the size of the file...

So, I did both :) which left me with a full fidelity .xlsx file and an original .xls file...

Opening the .xls file in Excel gave me the exact same result (so nice and consistent) as doing the following steps.  First of all, Office Excel 2003 told me that the file had been created by a newer version and asked me if I wanted to download a converter...

Then, it took me to the Office Preview website where the file converters live...

It guided me through installing the first update required, a file format awareness update...

Then, it guided me through installation of the Office Compatibility Pack...

Following installation, when I double clicked the .xlsx file, I got a brief conversion in progress dialog followed by the following message, letting me know that the file had been opened read only to ensure that nothing in the original file would be lost due to compatibility issues...

Finally, the file looked like this when it was opened (not that this is the same for the .xlsx with the file converters installed and the version saved as .xls)...

So, to conclude, it appears that new features that exist only in Office Excel 2007 only work in Office Excel 2007. However, the files, to the best of their capabilities are backwards compatible. Where’s the justification for this though? Well, if I brought a brand new car with air conditioning and a CD player fitted as standard, I can imagine the response that would be given if my mate, who, for arguments sake, had purchased an older model, would get if he took it back to the dealer and asked why he hadn’t got it!!! So, I guess this is to be expected...

Be sure to check out the Office Preview website for all the latest information on the 2007 Microsoft Office System:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx

For a comprehensive FAQ on the Office file formats take a look here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/itpro/filefaq.mspx

Well, long time no post but this really means I've had little to say over the past few weeks via print.  However, here's me, via PTS-TV talking about Business Intelligence and in particular scorecarding using Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/blog/pts-tv_chrisparkes.wvx

Never in my life did I think I'd be downloadable but if you really feel the need, right click and save target as...

http://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/partner/blog/pts-tv/pts-tv_chrisparkes.wmv

I think I'm the first member of the PTS team to get the fine interviewer (Katie Ledger) to start talking in acronyms before the interviewee :)

If you've a spare 12 minutes 15 seconds, feel free take a look - as an added bonus, you even get to see what kind of award you get for putting in five years service at Microsoft..!

If you like what you see, you can find plenty more PTS-TV on many varied topics here.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/blog/pts-tv

The latest Bill Gates Executive email has been posted to the web.  Essential reading if you care to understand Microsoft's vision and strategy looking forward to the next ten years around information overload/underload, productivity, collaboration, business intelligence and workflow optimisation.

Beyond Business Intelligence: Delivering a Comprehensive Approach to Enterprise Information Management

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/

In essence, there are two parts to this scorecarding solution, Microsoft Business Scorecard Server and Microsoft Business Scorecard Builder.

The server product allows you to manage scorecards through a central deployment mechanism and the builder provides a way for business analysts to quickly prototype, create and publish scorecards to be deployed via the server to SQL Server Reporting Services or Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.

Multiple data sources can be catered for through ODBC (e.g. Access/Excel) and ADOMD.Net connectivity for SQL Server Analysis Services cubes.  Each scorecard can have many different associated views and perhaps most importantly, each view of the scorecard can be broken down into separate objectives with multiple key performance indicators (KPI’s) and each of the KPI’s can have additional contextual information associated with them through report views.

There are many different types of indicators from traffic light style details to trend arrows, rev counters, data bars and even the expected smiley face icons!

You can find step by step instructions on installing both products with SQL Server 2005 here http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA101056881033.aspx

In addition, there is free online technical training available here http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA100621081033.aspx

Finally, you can download a trial version of the software from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=96F12385-AD47-494B-9DA4-60BBCD0D1B57&displaylang=en. Both products are less than 2Mb so it won’t take too long!

When we look at the integrated Business Intelligence offering from the Microsoft stack, it’s important to understand how each component can be used to address the needs of individual organisations.  For example, each component of the BI stack can be used to address many different challenges faced by organisations.

Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager sits squarely at the top of the stack and along with SQL Server Reporting Services is the most end user focussed product in the entire solution.

Typically, there are two types of situations an organisation can find themselves in with regards to their data and information systems strategy.  Some organisations still languish in data poverty whereby many disconnected line of business applications such as finance, sales and human resources reside and operate independently of each other.

Whilst components of the Microsoft solution stack can help address data analysis needs, drive access to information and provide reporting capabilities, lack of integration can still be a barrier to true BI.

On the flipside of this, many organisations with an integrated systems strategy can be seen to suffer from data overload where conflicting conclusions can be drawn leading to confusion about the relevance of information.

The ability to provide one version of the (ever changing) truth can be achieved through the use of a scorecard to help organisations understand key performance indicator metrics against targets from a variety of different data sources.

So what exactly is the Microsoft BI Story? And why, when you look into it do you hear so much about a solution “stack”?  I think the simplest way to think about this is by using a kind of jigsaw analogy to solve a puzzle…  Think of each component part of a piece of software as a piece in the overall puzzle solution.  An organisation can select each piece of the puzzle needed to complete their own solution, from the required infrastructure to the database and on to the end user applications.  Each piece of their solution is joined together to build a “stack” of technology on which their business applications can sit, safe in the knowledge that the technology will work together as seamlessly as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle fit.

In the Microsoft Business Intelligence technology “stack”, we have:

• Business Scorecard Manager (BSM)
• Microsoft SharePoint Products & Technologies
• Microsoft Excel
• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• SQL Server Relational Database Management System (SSRDBMS)

So, no sooner do I start a new blog that I head off to a much wamer climate than the UK at present :)  Back in ten days...

In essence, business intelligence is the use of technologies to help organisations make better decisions.  Whether these decisions be strategic, tactical or purely operational, having access to the right information at the right time in the right format is essential for sound judgement to be exercised on any business problem.

As a sole-trader or small business, this type of knowledge tends to get built inside information silos that are employees, individuals, people.  Professional subject matter experts with the ability to analyse, understand and decide on the best and most appropriate course of action to help solve a particular problem.

As the size of an organisation begins to increase, different forms of information silos begin to exist, the majority being data that resides in business information systems.  The barriers to organisational productivity and informational insight that data based systems are intended to address are often only exacerbated by technology in the short term.  People still make a phone call, send an email or ask directly for information that organisational stakeholders tend to hold the keys to.  For example, there are millions (probably billions) of spreadsheets worldwide that are ‘owned’ by an individual who is the knowledge holder and sometimes worse, for a database, where an organisations already over burdened I.T. department get left with the challenge of providing access to data (and you thought those guys spent all day getting paid to surf the web?). 

The market for business intelligence is currently massive and growing – the business opportunity is certainly there to help improve organisations by providing business insights to all employees leading to better, faster, more relevant decisions.

The world of business intelligence is one of interest to the majority of organisations.  But one thing has never ceased to amaze me.  Ask a multitude of different people the same question “What is business intelligence?” and you are guaranteed to get a whole host of different answers. Try typing the question into your favourite search engine and from a business standpoint, it’s apparent that various different industry definitions seem to exist…

Here are a few glossary examples I’ve found:

• http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/cgs/itm/itm_glossary.html#B
• http://it.csumb.edu/departments/data/glossary.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence

I find the shorter definitions are often the better ones as the scope of business intelligence never stops expanding, just like the boundaries of technology.

My personal take on it is being able to find out the information I need to know when I need it in the exact way that I want it presented.  Let’s say you’re part of a quiz team and you have a certain specialist subject.  When someone asks you a question on that subject, you would be considered an expert if you knew the answer.  This form of intelligence maps to large and small organisations through the use of business information systems.  Often, those systems (or quiz team members) contain all of the answers to questions posed by individuals within an organisation but the difference in computing terms is that there is no guarantee that the data is organised or integrated in a manner that could provide the quiz master with an answer.  

So, how is it possible to provide access to real time information, in either a visual or textual manner that is relevant to the individual with the query and how can an organisation ensure that any intelligence derived from business systems is produced in a manner contextual with the business need?  I’m certainly not going to answer that question in a single sentence or paragraph so welcome to my blog!