incorporating Microsoft PerformancePoint for Business intelligence
- Collaboration - Co-ordinate teams and share knowledge
· Portal -Simplify access to applications
· Search - Find and use information
· Document and content management - Manage content with security compliance
· Electronic forms - Automate business processes
· Performance Management - Use data to drive better decisions
Microsoft SharePoint is a collection of products and software elements that includes, among a growing selection of components, web browser based collaboration functions, process management modules, search modules and a document-managementplatform. SharePoint can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host defined applications such as wikis and blogs. All users can manipulate proprietary controls called "web parts" or interact with pieces of content such as lists and document libraries.
Overview
The term "SharePoint" can collectively refer to a number of products ranging from the base platform to various services. The platform is Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), which is included with Windows Server. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) provides additional functionality and features and are licensed accordingly. Elements include:
And SharePoint 2010 will be making a significant impact on the market with a number of major enhancements.
SharePoint, as a collection of technologies, is not intended to simply replace a full file server or to be a single use solution. Instead, it is geared and positioned to play various roles in the business and enterprise environment facilitating collaboration, processes, and web 2.0 social networking.
The SharePoint user interface is a web interface accessed through a browser. While all browsers are supported, only Internet Explorer, which Microsoft designates as a "Level 1" browser, is fully integrated and able to utilise the full functionality of a SharePoint Solution.
SharePoint sites are functionally ASP.NET 2.0 web applications, which are served using IIS and use a SQL Server database as a data storage back end. All site content data, such as items in document libraries and lists, are stored within an SQL database.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint provides business intelligence (BI) functionality within SharePoint. It is the successor to the scorecard capabilities of Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager. PerformancePoint Server also provides a planning and budgeting component which is directly integrated with Microsoft Excel and SQL Server Analysis Services.
Microsoft incorporated PerformancePoint with its Dashboard, Scorecard and Analytic Reporting capabilities into SharePoint Server in April 2009. There are a range of monitoring and analytical features that include Dashboards, Scorecards, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), Reports, Filters, and Strategy Maps that helps managers to make better decisions with the data that is available to them but that all too often is obscured or lost within enormous databases.
Business intelligence (BI) refers to skills, technologies, applications and practices used to help an organisation gain a better understanding of its performance. Business intelligence may also refer to the collected information itself.
BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, OLAP, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.
Business intelligence is a decision support system, using data from automated processes, forms, tables and databases and presenting it in a pertinent and relevant way. KPIs and Digital dashboards incorporated into SharePoint homepages perhaps in the form of traffic lights and graphs can alert executives in a timely way to issues arising in their organisation and help them navigate around them.