Developing BI Portals

BI portals provide not only a single end-user window to BI applications and reports, but also a robut BI application development foundation.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server has traditionally been viewed as a collaboration application but has now evolved into a full development platform that streamlines business processes.

Organizations are using SharePoint to develop mission-critical applications for both intranets and extranets.

The Office 2007 environment has had a big impact on the SharePoint environment, with unified communications being used to support both process management and BI.
SharePoint acts as a repository for project information, provides visibility into current activity and a window for management to oversee performance.

Tools that automate business processes for day-to-day tasks like purchase, policy and document approval are using SharePoint as the underlying platform. With its policy management capability, SharePoint can function for all the different parties involved in the process: One group creates the policy, another group reviews it and adds their comments, another party will revise it and then it's passed on for final approval and published out to the organization.

Using SharePoint for business intelligence is only just emerging, however it is proving an ideal presentation tier for business intelligence data. Sharepoints ‘Web parts’ provide components that collect information and customize the look and feel of Web pages. These can be used to build functions such as alert management and calendaring into SharePoint.

Web parts can also aggregate the information and build them out in hierarchies.
Backup and disaster recovery ensure data entering SharePoint is protected. There are also opportunities for centralized administration and content replication. Organisations are only just starting to realise the full potential of Sharepoint as a rapid development environment, moving away from lengthy, expensive conventional enterprise applications development.

5 Emerging Uses For SharePoint

• Business intelligence
• Project/process management
• Content migration
• Social networking and Web parts
• Automated business process management

Sharepoint is proving a valued asset towards operational BI.

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