SharePoint 2007 Expands Business Intelligence

New features in SharePoint Server 2007 allow nontechnical workers to define key performance indicators (KPIs), manage reports, and create dashboards—Web pages that display KPIs and related information. Furthermore, a new component called Excel Services supports server-side spreadsheet management and could help organizations that distribute Excel spreadsheets for reporting or analysis. The new features could strengthen Microsoft’s hand in the business intelligence (BI) market by helping organizations track and report performance with limited ongoing involvement of developers and IT. However, developers and IT workers must set up SharePoint Server 2007 carefully for its BI features to be very useful.

Web-Based Performance Tracking, Reports

SharePoint Server 2007 adds new reporting capabilities to Microsoft’s growing list of BI tools and applications for business users and other nontechnical workers. Business intelligence (BI) is a catchall term for the collection, processing, and analysis of data from a range of business applications (such as transaction, customer relationship management, and inventory systems) to aid business-related decisions.