Centralizando e Compartilhando os recursos de BI

Centralizing and Sharing Business Intelligence

A Review of a Personalized, Company-Wide Business Intelligence Portal

Technical White PaperPublished: May 2007

CONTENTS

Executive Summary............................................................................3

Introduction.......................................................................................4

Business Benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and myBI..............6

Centralizing Access to Business-Critical Information 7

Reducing the Number of Business Intelligence Applications 8

Reducing Development, Maintenance, and Support Costs 9

Streamlining Everyday Business Activities 9

Connecting People with Information 10

Sharing Business Data While Maintaining the Security of Information 11

Enhancing Partner Relationships 12

Architecture of the myBI Portal

.........................................................................................................

13

User Interface Portal Design 13

Report Publishing Architecture 14

Core Infrastructure Design 14

Global Infrastructure Design 15

Prototype, Sandbox, and Staging Environments 17

Information Work Scenarios

.........................................................................................................

18

Power Users 18

End Users 19

Ad Hoc Reporting 21

Sharing of Reports 21

Onboarding to the myBI Portal

.........................................................................................................

23

Onboarding Roles and Responsibilities 23

Onboarding Process 23

Best Practices

.........................................................................................................

26

Conclusion

.........................................................................................................

28

For More Information.............................................................................................30

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In early 2007, Chief Information Officer (CIO) Stuart Scott charged the IT leadership team at

Microsoft to adopt an internal portal solution based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint®

Server 2007 for centralizing and sharing business intelligence tools and information across

the entire organization. This is the myBI portal, developed and maintained by the Business

Intelligence Center of Excellence (BI COE) within the Microsoft Information Technology

(Microsoft IT) group. This centrally hosted, customizable portal integrates with a large

number of Microsoft business intelligence tools and products, including an internal tool called

the myBI report catalog, Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, ProClarity

Analytics, Microsoft Office Excel® 2007, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services,

and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.

The myBI portal gives Microsoft employees and decision makers a single, personalized

location to access standard and ad hoc reports, scorecards, and other business intelligence

components. These components were previously scattered across various locations, were

difficult to manage, and introduced security challenges. The myBI portal enables business

units within Microsoft to streamline reporting and decision-making processes and share

business intelligence across the company in a more secure and efficient way. It also enables

close collaboration with business partners and vendors that work with Microsoft on strategic

and business-critical projects worldwide.

Note: The myBI solution is not an externally available product for customers. It is an example

of how Microsoft IT uses various Microsoft business intelligence products to deliver an

enterprise business intelligence capability.

This technical white paper features the myBI portal as the context to discuss how Microsoft IT

uses Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft business intelligence products to help

business units within Microsoft to make better and faster decisions. Although myBI is an

internal Microsoft solution, the underlying technologies and products are publicly available to

customers who want to achieve similar results. These results include improving business

insight, accelerating shared business processes, and connecting people with business-critical

information in one central location through a standardized user interface that users can

customize according to personal preferences.

This paper contains information for technical decision makers who are considering or

planning to implement business intelligence portals based Office SharePoint Server 2007.

This paper assumes that the audience is already familiar with the concepts of Microsoft

Windows® Server® 2003, the Active Directory® directory service, and the Microsoft suite of

business intelligence products. A high-level understanding of the features and technologies

included in Office SharePoint Server 2007 is also helpful. Detailed product information is

available on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server home page at

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX100492001033.aspx.

Note: For security reasons, the sample names of organizations and other internal resources

mentioned in this paper do not represent real resource names used within Microsoft and are

for illustration purposes only.

Centralizing and Sharing Business Intelligence by Using a Portal

Situation

Microsoft IT maintains a complex reporting environment with a substantial number of server-based business intelligence systems. The multiple analysis systems, data repositories, intelligence gathering methods, and reporting methods that Microsoft business units employ introduce business and technical challenges. These challenges include multiple business intelligence silos, non-uniform reports, and complicated permission schemes for data sharing.

Solution

To help Microsoft business units make better and faster decisions, Microsoft IT developed a custom solution, the myBI portal, based on Microsoft products and technologies. The myBI portal enables Microsoft business units to exploit the potential of the Microsoft business intelligence solutions more fully, more securely, and in closer collaboration with partners and vendors.

Benefits

Centralized access to business-critical information

Reduced number of business intelligence silos

Reduced development, maintenance, and support costs

Streamlined business processes

Ability to provide the right people with the right information

Ability to share business data while helping to protect sensitive information

Enhanced partner relationships

Products & Technologies

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005

ProClarity Analytics

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

Microsoft Office Excel 2007

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX100492001033.aspx

INTRODUCTION

A Gartner survey of 1,400 CIOs conducted in 2006 revealed that IT organizations are

increasingly focusing on business intelligence to deliver value-driven services and solutions

to their companies. Business intelligence revolves around the practice of capturing and

analyzing business data to monitor business drivers, gain greater insight into performance

and budgeting, and accelerate better-informed strategic and tactical decisions at all

organizational levels. Connecting employees and decision makers with the right information

that is relevant to their specific needs is a key prerogative for IT organizations that want to

contribute to business performance. However, delivering effective solutions that provide

convenient, security-enhanced access to metrics, key performance indicators, scorecards,

and other business data has proven difficult.

Like other IT organizations, Microsoft IT maintains a complex reporting environment with a

substantial number of server-based business intelligence systems. These systems assemble

and process information from a variety of data sources, such as the enterprise resource

planning (ERP) system, the customer relationship management (CRM) solution, and a variety

of departmental data warehouses. To display the information, Microsoft employees and

decision makers use Office Excel 2007, SQL Server Reporting Services, ProClarity, Office

Business Scorecard Manager 2005, and other Microsoft Office system applications. Excel

has long been a favorite tool of Microsoft managers for analyzing multidimensional data and

gaining business insight.

Important business intelligence systems that Microsoft IT maintains in the corporate

production environment include:

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enables business units to deploy interactive business

intelligence portals. The myBI portal is based on Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Individual business units also use Office SharePoint Server to deploy departmental

report centers.

myBI report catalog An internal Microsoft solution to give business units an

enterprise-wide directory of business reports that exist in the corporate production

environment. The myBI report catalog includes more than 3,000 reports and relies on

Web service components to give Microsoft employees access to report-generating

applications.

ProClarity Analytics A data analysis solution that expands the capabilities of SQL

Server 2005–based business intelligence tools through query and analysis features,

dashboards, scorecards, and data visualization tools.

SQL Server Analysis Services Provides a unified and integrated view of business

data for traditional reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), key performance

indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining.

SQL Server Reporting Services Enables business units to create, manage, and

deliver both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports.

Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 Provides a server-based business

intelligence platform to create and use scorecards and KPIs that help business units

measure achievements based on established objectives and business plans.

Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 (beta) Provides scorecards, dashboards,

and management reports to monitor, understand, and act on challenges and issues that

affect the performance of business units.


Figure 1 illustrates the distributed and diverse nature of the business intelligence landscape

at Microsoft.

Data Tier

Reporting ServicesProClarity Analytics

SharePoint Server

Business Intelligence

Systems

ERP, CRM, Data Warehouses, Content Databases, Analysis Services

Front-End Applications

Internet Explorer

Office BSM

Office System

myBI Report Catalog

...

Figure 1. Business Intelligence Landscape at Microsoft

To help the business units throughout the company gain maximum benefit from the collection

of business intelligence systems and reporting tools within the corporate production

environment, Microsoft started BI COE in the beginning of 2006. One of the first steps that BI

COE performed was to analyze the existing business intelligence landscape at Microsoft in

order to identify existing solutions that could help the BI COE team. Two important solutions

that BI COE decided to use were the myBI report catalog and the myBI portal.

The Admin IT team within Microsoft IT developed the report catalog to give Microsoft

employees a central repository to locate global reports quickly and conveniently. The myBI

portal, on the other hand, was a solution that the Services IT team within Microsoft IT

developed based on the report catalog. The myBI portal extended the reach of the myBI

report catalog across the Microsoft IT organization by providing a central integration point for

global reports, scorecards, key performance indicators, multidimensional analytics, and other

metrics.

Services IT deployed the first version of myBI in April 2006. Shortly thereafter, reorganization

took place to integrate the Admin IT and Services IT Platform teams into the BI COE team to

combine resources and coordinate development efforts. The original customer of myBI was

Services IT, yet due to the success of myBI, BI COE now provides support to all business

units within Microsoft that want to use these business intelligence solutions.


BUSINESS BENEFITS OF OFFICE SHAREPOINT SERVER 2007 AND MYBIThe most important factors that drive the success of myBI at Microsoft are business benefits,

support of upper management, and proper business-specific prototypes, demonstrations, and

presentations. Examples of achieved business benefits are reduced costs associated with

maintaining and supporting business intelligence solutions across the company; increased

consistency, reliability, and scalability; and convenient sharing of business reports through a

central intranet location. Support of upper management, on the other hand, helps to

emphasize the strategic significance of the myBI initiative to all business units.

Technical factors might prevent business units from moving to the myBI portal, such as

inconsistent data sources, inconsistent capabilities, and missing data warehouses.

Substantial cleanup of data and infrastructure optimizations might be necessary before a

business unit can successfully complete the onboarding process. In these cases,

management support helps to ensure that the business units recognize the importance of the

myBI initiative and implement the required organizational changes. To further help business

units recognize the benefits and advantages of the myBI portal, BI COE invested time and

effort into prototyping and product presentations, from the beginning. Showing the right

demonstrations to the right people is crucial to get proper funding at each step, one business

unit at a time.

Based on Office SharePoint Server 2007, the myBI portal provides business units with the

following benefits and advantages:

Centralized access to business-critical information Individual business intelligence

solutions make finding the right information at the right time difficult. With myBI, all

reporting solutions, including the latest spreadsheets, reports, and KPIs, are readily

available in a central place. Microsoft executives, managers, employees, partners, and

vendors with intranet or extranet access can go to one URL to assemble and display

business information from disparate sources for all metrics, reports, and other business

analysis tasks.

Reduced number of business intelligence applications Centralization of reporting

solutions based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 and myBI is the basis for Microsoft to

coordinate development processes, share business intelligence effectively across

organizational boundaries, eliminate duplicated efforts, and achieve a high level of

consistency across all reporting solutions.

Reduced development, maintenance, and support costs The myBI portal uses

components from the stack of Microsoft business intelligence products, reducing the

need for business units to develop shadow applications. With a single code base, myBI

significantly reduces implementation cycles and the need to maintain and support

isolated business intelligence environments.

Streamlined everyday business activities Improving reporting processes is a key to

streamlining everyday business activities. Business units that still rely on manual

processes to communicate business information within the department, across the

company, and to upper management can use the myBI portal to replace these

processes with more-efficient, automated reporting solutions that are available 24 hours

a day, seven days a week. Centralized reporting solutions not only reduce overhead and

costs, but also increase the consistency, reliability, and scalability of the reporting


environment and deliver business intelligence more efficiently. Business units then can

make better-informed decisions and more proactively respond to important events.

Ability to connect people with information The user interface of myBI is intuitive, is

easy to navigate, and supports personalization. For example, users can organize favorite

reports, perform ad hoc analysis, and customize and reuse report views. Office

SharePoint Server 2007 also includes an Enterprise Search Center to find business

documents and data quickly in order to accelerate decision-making processes based on

the latest information and facts.

Broad sharing of business data while maintaining information security The myBI

portal provides online access to data and analytics while helping to secure information

through access-based security and authentication. There is no need to log on to multiple

applications. The myBI portal identifies each user based on the Windows account and

shows only those reports that the user can access.

Enhanced partner relationships The myBI portal enables Microsoft business units to

strengthen their relationships with business partners and vendors by sharing business

intelligence solutions and information to drive better joint decisions. Partners and

vendors with an extranet account can access the myBI portal over encrypted Hypertext

Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connections.

Centralizing Access to Business-Critical InformationCentralizing access to business-critical information is an ongoing effort at Microsoft. In

general, business units are accustomed to developing their own isolated reporting tools,

which are rarely designed to integrate with solutions of other groups. Incompatible databases

and custom data warehouses exist across the entire corporate production environment, often

insufficiently maintained and outdated. Inevitably, the lack of consistent data and common

report definitions results in multiple versions of the same information, impedes strategic

decision-making processes, and increases business risks.

Microsoft IT developed the original reporting solution to give the finance, sales, marketing,

and human resources departments a central location to publish, share, and access business

reports, views, and metrics based on predefined business rules. The original solution

exploited Microsoft Office Excel 2003 functionality and required the installation of custom

add-ins on each client workstation. A basic Web interface was also available to provide

access to reports based on SQL Server Reporting Services.

What started as a basic Web interface for myBI, BI COE expanded to include the entire suite

of Microsoft business intelligence solutions. The foundational technology is Office SharePoint

Server 2007, which enabled BI COE to establish a hosted, integrated, security-enhanced,

and configurable business intelligence portal. The portal provides a continuum of reporting

and business intelligence capabilities where business units can expose the right information

to the right users in the right format.

Figure 2 shows the business intelligence solutions that BI COE consolidated onto myBI.


Data Tier

myBI Business Logic

Metadata

myBI Report Catalog Client and Web Services

Business Scorecard ManagerPerformancePoint Server

ProClarity Analytics Server

...

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

Office SharePoint Server 2007

Application Server Farm

Catalog DataBusiness Data

Figure 2. Centralizing business intelligence and reporting tools

It is important to note that BI COE does not host the data of the various business units. BI

COE maintains centrally the server software, reporting solutions, and associated metadata

and catalog databases for all business units that use the myBI portal. The myBI portal

consolidates the user interface and business logic to provide a single point of access to all

business intelligence and reporting tools without forcing BI COE into a data-provider role.

Maintaining the data for all Microsoft business units across the entire company would overtax

current BI COE capacities.

Reducing the Number of Business Intelligence ApplicationsIn the absence of a consolidated business intelligence infrastructure, business units must

establish and maintain their own reporting environments. A typical approach is to install the

required server software on workstation-level computers. Another, more formal approach is

to send the Infrastructure Management team within Microsoft IT a request to purchase a

utility server by using the designated budget of the business unit and have it installed in a

data center. In this case, the Data Center Operations team maintains the hardware and

operating system, yet the reporting environment is still the responsibility of the business unit.

As more business units begin to rely on business intelligence tools, application silos

accumulate, the footprint of underutilized servers in the data centers increases, the

complexity of the environment grows, and the overhead associated with maintaining and

supporting redundant reporting environments multiplies.

Consolidating the business intelligence infrastructure helps Microsoft IT to avoid unnecessary

investments in information technology. The business units still maintain their data


warehouses and develop reports, yet it is no longer necessary to host and maintain the

business logic on departmental utility servers inside or outside data centers. Business units

do not need to wait up to 60 days until their utility servers are purchased and installed.

Furthermore, in addition to standard and ad hoc departmental solutions, business units can

use enterprise-wide management reports that consolidate data from multiple departments.

This facilitates executive-level reporting and strategic reviews. It is also straightforward for

business units to share intelligence with partners and vendors in a security-enhanced

manner. The myBI solution places all reports and analysis tools in an integrated portal that is

readily available and personalized for each user.

Reducing Development, Maintenance, and Support CostsThe myBI portal is a strategic solution for Microsoft IT to control the complexity of the global

reporting environment and maximize the return on investment in server systems. Moreover,

BI COE actively helps business units to lower development, maintenance, and support costs.

For example, reusing existing business intelligence solutions by sharing reports on the myBI

portal is an effective way to reduce individual development costs.

It is important to emphasize that myBI is not just a technical solution to a business problem.

The myBI subject matter experts (SMEs) give business units training and support to help

users exploit the capabilities and features of Microsoft business intelligence products more

fully, target the right users with the right reports, and shorten development cycles. For

example, a power user familiar with Office Excel reporting capabilities might find assistance

and support very helpful when working with decomposition trees, performance maps, or

perspective views in ProClarity Analytics. With assistance and support from BI COE, power

users who create reports within their business units can unlock the full spectrum of distinct

capabilities that the stack of Microsoft business intelligence solutions entails.

Streamlining Everyday Business ActivitiesPrior to the BI COE initiative, business units had to find answers to their reporting needs

individually. Reporting solutions varied widely in sophistication and complexity. These

solutions often relied on manual processes, which are time-consuming, unreliable, and do not

scale.

The America Operations Centre (AOC) Commercial Business Intelligence team is a good

example. The AOC Commercial Business Intelligence team supports the North America and

South America operations centers, specifically the commercial licensing business, which

represents US $12 billion in yearly revenues. The mission of the AOC Commercial Business

Intelligence team is to empower clients, through business intelligence and data mining

activities, to make informed decisions and drive strategic initiatives.

Before onboarding to myBI, the AOC Commercial Business Intelligence team used Office

Excel files posted on internal SharePoint sites, and in some cases Office Web Components

on custom Microsoft ASP.NET solutions, to share business information. Exporting the data

from the AOC Commercial Business Intelligence data warehouse was a manual and labor-

intensive process, which proved unstable and unreliable. Additionally, these reports provided

the data in raw format. Making the information valuable and useful for reviews took a

substantial amount of time.


Onboarding to myBI enabled the AOC Commercial Business Intelligence team to centralize

and automate its existing business reports and develop new reports based on ProClarity

Analytics, Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, and SQL Server 2005 Reporting

Services. Today, the AOC Commercial Business Intelligence team provides an entire

spectrum of reporting solutions to support the commercial licensing business, including

Operations Excellence Reporting (daily Flash reports, scorecards, month-end close

reporting), Readiness Reporting (ad hoc reporting for detailed analysis), and Revenue

Generation/BI Reporting.

Now that the AOC Commercial Business Intelligence team uses myBI, efficiency and

productivity have increased because finding the required information to drive strategic

initiatives and improve business processes takes less time. A preliminary survey showed that

the automated reporting solutions save 60–90 employee hours per month across all AOC

Commercial Business Intelligence clients. Furthermore, the team anticipates that new

reporting solutions will help save field sales teams an additional 50 hours per month. There

are also direct financial gains associated with the new reporting solutions. The new solutions

enable the field sales teams in the United States to capture an additional $60 million in

revenue opportunity.

Connecting People with InformationCentrally maintaining and sharing reports, metrics, scorecards, and KPIs is one aspect of

communicating business information across the company. Another is to share helpful

documentation and training guides, answers to frequently asked questions, announcements

about upcoming events, contact information, and useful links to other content that exists

elsewhere in the corporate production environment. To cover these additional communication

needs, BI COE provides business units with document libraries and custom application

pages on the myBI portal.

Power users within each business unit can then modify the application page according to

departmental needs by using standard Office SharePoint Server Web Parts, without the

involvement of BI COE. For example, a business unit can add announcements, provide help

and contact information, and include a short description of the reports and their purpose.

Figure 3 displays the main user interface of the myBI portal, which BI COE implemented

based on a custom Office SharePoint Server master page. An important design objective

was to keep the user interface straightforward for convenient navigation. Accordingly, there

are only two primary navigation controls, Communities and Reports, which provide access

to the application pages (Communities tab) and published business reports (Reports tab).


Figure 3. The myBI home page

When a user visits the myBI portal, the user interface shows the Communities tab, and it

lists on separate tabs all custom application pages that the current user has permissions to

read. This is particularly useful for managers and other users associated with multiple

business units because their Communities tab provides instant access to announcements

and information from all of these groups.

Note: One important reason for BI COE to choose Office SharePoint Server 2007 as the

underlying platform for myBI was that Office SharePoint Server standardizes the user

interface that business units can use to create document libraries and customize their

application pages. Office SharePoint Server provides the necessary level of security, and BI

COE did not need to develop additional customization tools.

Sharing Business Data While Maintaining the Security of Information One of the most effective strategies to increase security is to place all resources in a heavily

fortified location designed to limit the attack surface, concentrate defense mechanisms, and

enforce security best practices and auditing. Providing security for business information is

difficult if shadow applications and application silos are widely distributed across the

corporate production environment. The reason is simply that there are too many diverse

ways to share information, too many security vulnerabilities, and too few security experts to

protect each business intelligence island. Reducing the number of shadow applications and

application silos by concentrating business intelligence on a centralized, security-enhanced,

and reliably maintained platform is a key to sharing business data while helping to keep

information secure.

Enhancing Partner RelationshipsMicrosoft business units share information with more than 30,000 business partners and

vendors every day. In fact, currently, approximately 30 percent of myBI users are partners

and vendors. For example, the Microsoft customer service works closely with vendors that


operate the Microsoft contact centers around the world. Customer care agents within the

contact centers use Microsoft software to access customer account information and other

data as necessary to respond to customer requests or resolve business problems, regardless

of the sales channel that the customers use. These contact centers continuously need

access to business reports that show their current performance levels.

Microsoft IT maintains a global extranet environment, separate from the corporate network, to

give external entities access to resources and facilitate collaboration. Microsoft staff can

access the extranet from the corporate network, but partners and vendors with extranet

accounts cannot access internal resources in the corporate production environment. This

separation is necessary for security reasons, yet it also hinders business units from sharing

reports, metrics, key performance indicators, and scorecards.

The myBI infrastructure spans both the corporate network and the extranet, for efficient

sharing of business intelligence with partners and vendors. For example, myBI enabled the

customer service team to streamline business activities and lower organizational overhead by

reducing manual reporting processes. The customer service team created data cubes by

using SQL Server Analysis Services and ProClarity reports based on these cubes for OLAP,

and then deployed the resulting reporting solutions through myBI. Now that the customer

service team uses myBI, contact centers enjoy convenient and security-enhanced access to

business reports. At the same time, the customer service team lowered costs, increased the

reliability of the reporting process, and increased scalability.


ARCHITECTURE OF THE MYBI PORTAL

The BI COE team designed the myBI solution as a user interface portal. This means that the

myBI portal provides the front end for accessing business intelligence solutions maintained

outside Office SharePoint Server, such as in ProClarity Analytics, SQL Server 2005

Reporting Services, and Office Business Scorecard Manager/PerformancePoint Server.

User Interface Portal DesignFigure 4 illustrates the user interface design. Users who visit the portal site and switch to the

Reports tab reach an Office SharePoint Server Web page with two IFRAME-based Web

Parts that display the myBI report catalog to the left and the selected reports to the right.

Whenever the user changes the report selection in the catalog pane and clicks Load

Reports, client-side JavaScript updates the reports pane to display the desired information.

In this way, the myBI portal appears as one integrated solution, although the user is actually

working with a variety of Microsoft business intelligence systems hosted on the myBI server

farm.

MetadataCatalog

myBI

...

Business Data

ApplicationServerFarm

myBI User

Figure 4. The myBI user interface portal


Report Publishing ArchitectureOne of the advantages of the myBI portal design is that BI COE did not need to develop

separate tools to create and publish reports. Analysts and power users within each individual

business unit can continue to use ProClarity Desktop, Report Designer and Report Builder in

SQL Server Reporting Services, and Business Scorecard Builder in Office Business

Scorecard Manager to develop reporting solutions, as indicated in Figure 5. The only

additional requirement is to publish the reports in the myBI report catalog so that users can

select them on the Reports tab in the myBI user interface. For historical reasons, Microsoft

IT hosts the administrative components of the myBI report catalog on separate servers on the

corporate network. All other server components run on the same application server farm.

Office SharePoint Portal

myBI CatalogClient

myBI Catalog Admin

Report DesignerReport Builder

...Scorecard Builder

AnalystPower User

myBI Catalog AdminServices

SQL ReportingServer

...Office BSM Server

Catalog DatabaseMetadata Databases

ProClarity Desktop

ProClarity Server

Figure 5. The myBI report publishing architecture

Core Infrastructure DesignFigure 6 illustrates the design of the myBI infrastructure. The main servers that host the

portal and the Microsoft business intelligence solutions reside on the extranet to support

internal users within the corporate production environment in addition to partners and

vendors with extranet accounts. Internal users can access these front-end systems by

specifying in the myBI URL in Windows Internet Explorer®. External users must use an

externally facing myBI Web address.


Extranet

Metadata



Catalog

...

Business Data Business Data

Internal User

...

Corporate Network

External User

Figure 6. The myBI core infrastructure design

In addition to the main servers on the extranet, a second farm of application servers exists on

the corporate network. These servers are available for internal use only because extranet

users do not have access. Essentially, the internal application servers run the same Microsoft

business intelligence stack as do the main servers on the extranet. The only exception is the

myBI report catalog. Deploying the catalog client on the internal application servers was not

necessary because the catalog pane in the user interface always uses the main servers on

the extranet.

To provide fault tolerance and load balancing in the core myBI infrastructure, BI COE uses

Windows Network Load Balancing for the front-end application servers. The database

systems on the back end rely on SQL Server 2005 high-availability features, such as failover

clustering or database mirroring. BI COE uses failover clustering for the catalog and

metadata databases.

The technologies that business units use to ensure high availability for the actual business

data is not under control of BI COE and varies widely. It depends on the importance of the

data and the choice of the business unit. For example, one team uses failover clustering to

ensure high availability for customer systems deployed on the extranet.

Global Infrastructure DesignThe core infrastructure design reflects the architecture that BI COE uses in the Puget Sound

area to support Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA and the business units in North and

South America. Additional data centers with myBI application server farms are located in


Dublin, Singapore, and Tokyo. These regional deployments follow the core design, yet with

fewer servers and without the myBI report catalog.

The entire infrastructure relies on a single instance of myBI metadata. BI COE deployed

myBI metadata centrally to avoid administrative overhead and latency issues associated with

SQL Server data replication in a decentralized environment. The corporate network operates

reliably and provides sufficient bandwidth to achieve acceptable response times in all

geographic locations of the company, making a centralized myBI metadata deployment

possible.

Figure 7 shows how BI COE deployed myBI at a global scale. Although all users work with

the same instance of the myBI report catalog, the reports can reside on an application server

in any location.

Leased lines,155 Mbps or faster.

Redmond

.

.

.

Dublin

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Singapore

.

.

.

.

.

.

Tokyo

Figure 7. The myBI global infrastructure design

Deploying the application servers regionally provided BI COE with the following advantages:

Better reporting performance Server-based reporting solutions can place significant

load on the application server. By deploying reporting solutions on regional application

servers, BI COE effectively distributes the load while providing faster access to the

reports to users in the same geographic region.

Ability of business units to maintain their reports locally Maintaining reports on

application servers that are close to the business units facilitates development processes

because it avoids latencies and other issues that can occur when reports are saved over

wide area network (WAN) connections.


Ability of application servers to access data warehouses locally A number of

factors influence the performance of a reporting solution, including WAN latency issues.

By deploying the application servers close to the data warehouses of the business units,

BI COE can ensure that the performance of the reporting solutions does not diminish

when the business units complete the onboarding to myBI.

Prototype, Sandbox, and Staging EnvironmentsA sound strategy for business intelligence consolidation must address the needs of end users

and power users alike. End users need convenient access to reports, whereas analysts and

power users, who create the reports, have additional requirements. To verify functionality,

performance, and reliability, analysts and power users must perform integration testing and

user acceptance testing prior to the final step of publishing new reports on the company-wide

myBI portal. To accommodate these testing needs, BI COE integrated the following types of

lab environments into the myBI infrastructure:

Prototype environment This environment enables business units to prototype reports

during the initial evaluation of myBI, which is part of the onboarding process. This

environment essentially consists of a single server that hosts all necessary software

components and databases. Business units can publish their own existing reports or

sample reports provided by BI COE to see how reporting solutions work on the myBI

portal.

Sandbox environment The purpose of the sandbox environment is to facilitate

integration testing. This environment consists of a single computer running SQL

Server 2005 Analysis Services and two application servers in a load-balanced cluster to

simulate the architecture of the production environment closely. Business units and test

teams can use the sandbox environment to test the initial integration of reporting

solutions with myBI, including functionality and reliability.

Staging environment This environment is for final user acceptance testing before

going live with new reports on the myBI portal. At this point, the reporting solution has

passed integration testing, yet the actual users of the reports still need to confirm that the

solution meets their acceptance criteria. The staging systems mirror the production

environment in both the corporate network and the extranet, to provide access to the

reporting solutions to corporate users and extranet users.


INFORMATION WORK SCENARIOS

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the myBI solution is its straightforwardness in

meeting the needs of power users, end users, and managers. Power users work with familiar

tools to create and publish reports that are then immediately available across the company to

all end users who have access permissions. End users can simply view reports or optionally

customize reports. Managers can share reports with employees, partners, and vendors

without having to depend on BI COE.

To illustrate the ease of use, note that the procedure to display reports, metrics, key

performance indicators, and scorecards in myBI requires only four steps:

1. Go to myBI.

2. Switch to the Reports tab.

3. Select the desired reports and scorecards in the catalog pane.

4. Click Load Reports button.

Note: In this procedure, the user can eliminate steps 3 and 4 by specifying default reports,

which appear automatically in the reports pane. It might seem insignificant, but having the

most important business information readily available with just one mouse click is a key

feature for busy managers at Microsoft.

Power UsersBI COE defined the Power Users role on the myBI portal to give business units more control

over their resources. Power users are corporate users who develop reports and perform

other tasks on the myBI portal, such as customizing Office SharePoint Server application

pages for business units.

The process of creating and publishing reporting solutions is similar for all business

intelligence tools:

1. Independent of myBI, the power user works with ProClarity Desktop, Business

Scorecard Builder, Report Builder, or Report Designer to create the report by using the

desired data source and saves the report definition on the local computer.

2. The power user publishes the report to an appropriate application server in the myBI

infrastructure. Now that the report is available on the application server, the power user

can view the report in Windows Internet Explorer by specifying the report URL. Viewing

the report is a quick way to verify that the previous publishing process ended

successfully.

3. There is one more step before end users can see the report in the myBI report catalog:

registering the report URL by using the myBI Catalog Admin client, as illustrated in

Figure 8. Power users can specify report attributes that enable searching and

categorization for end users, such as report owner, geographic region, and report type.

Power users can specify access permissions for a folder or an individual report.

Following the click on the Publish command, the report is immediately available on the myBI

portal. A quick check in Internet Explorer gives the power user the confidence that this

process finished successfully. Figure 8 shows an example using ProClarity Desktop.


Figure 8. Publishing a ProClarity report on the myBI portal

End UsersEnd users see all their reports in the myBI report catalog. They can browse through the folder

list or search for reports based on categories and metadata, such as report type, department

name, and geographical information. For example, an executive manager can search for

scorecards across all business units of a specific geographical region and have these

scorecards displayed under each other. Of course, it is also possible to open each report

separately. In either case, displaying reports from any location is easy because all reports are

centrally available in myBI.

Figure 9 shows two ProClarity reports in the same browser window. However, the end user

can also select different types of reports because the reports pane is not application specific

and works simultaneously across all business intelligence solutions available on the myBI

portal. The end user selects the desired reports in the catalog pane, clicks Load Reports,

and the reports pane shows the business information side by side in the same browser

window for convenient analysis and comparison. The user can minimize and maximize

individual reports.


Figure 9. Specifying multiple default reports in myBI

The myBI report catalog also supports customization so that users do not need to search for

their favorite reports each time they go to myBI.

The most important features to personalize the myBI user interface are:

Default reports As illustrated earlier in Figure 9, the user can right-click any report and

then click Set as Default Report. Default reports have the suffix (Default) to indicate

that the reports pane loads these reports automatically when the user displays the

Reports tab.

Favorites Because more than 3,000 reports are available, myBI gives users a feature

to narrow down the listed reports. One common way is to add preferred reports to a

Favorites folder. To accomplish this step in the myBI report catalog, the user only needs

to right-click the desired report and then click Add to Favorites. The report then appears

as an individual item in the Favorites folder.

Saved filters End users with a large number of reports might find additional filtering

capabilities helpful. On the Advanced Filter tab, the user can define and save filter

settings similar to a template. Then, the user can apply the filter on the General tab to

list only those reports in the folders that meet the filtering criteria. In addition, the user

can have multiple predefined filters and specify one as the default view on the General

tab. This feature is particularly useful for managers that work with varying types of

reports during different periods, such as financial reports at the end of the fiscal year.

Ad Hoc ReportingThe customization features that the myBI user interface displays in the reports pane depend

on the business intelligence software that renders the report. For example, ProClarity

Analytics enables the user to drill down into specific questions and save the current view

directly on the application server as ProClarity My Views, as illustrated in Figure 10.


Figure 10. Saving an ad hoc report in ProClarity Analytics

End users can also add external reports to their favorites. Another option that end users can

use to perform ad hoc reporting is the export of report views to Office Excel.

Sharing of ReportsAnother important feature of the myBI report catalog enables myBI users to share individual

reports directly with other myBI users. The prerequisite is that the all users have the required

access permissions to the myBI portal.

Figure 11 illustrates how report sharing works on the myBI portal.

Security Context

Business Unit

myBI

Manager Direct Reports

Figure 11. Sharing business reports on the myBI platform


In the example depicted in Figure 11, the manager performs the following steps to share a

report with three employees:

1. The manager creates a group under a special folder called Groups and grants the

employees access permissions.

2. The manager right-clicks the desired report and then clicks Add to Groups to add the

report to the group in order to share it with these employees.

3. The employees can see the report in the catalog pane and select it to analyze business

information.


ONBOARDING TO THE MYBI PORTAL

For BI COE, myBI onboarding refers to the process of transitioning business units from

isolated business intelligence islands to the myBI infrastructure. In this transition, business

units must receive a clear path to move to the myBI Portal, including clearly defined roles and

responsibilities. With every myBI release, the myBI team reviews the onboarding process to

ensure that it remains in line with business requirements and executive direction.

Onboarding Roles and ResponsibilitiesSeveral teams must work together to migrate the reporting solutions of a business unit to the

myBI portal. On the side of the business unit, the Business IT team develops and tests

reporting solutions. On the side of BI COE, the myBI Platform team and the myBI Production

Support team share responsibilities. Responsibilities of the myBI SME include managing all

aspects of the onboarding process, evangelizing the process, training customers, and

prototyping for customers. The myBI SME works very closely with the Business IT team and

reports progress to a product manager in the business unit, who assumes the responsibility

of defining business requirements and provides feedback during integration and user

acceptance testing.

Onboarding ProcessFigure 12 illustrates the myBI onboarding phases. The process starts with a business unit

that maintains its own departmental data warehouses, application servers, and reporting

solutions. The process ends with the myBI team hosting the reporting solutions on the myBI

application servers. Only the business data remains within the environment of the business

unit.


Getting Started

Prototyping

Business Data

.

.

.Prototype Server

Business Data

ApplicationServer

Sandbox Environment

Business Data

Staging Environment

Catalog and Metadata

.

.

.

Catalog and Metadata

.

.

.

.

.

.Catalog Metadata

Extranet Intranet

Production Environment

Business Data

Extranet Intranet

.

.

.

.

.

.

Production Rollout

IntegrationTesting

User Acceptance

Testing

myBI Business Unit

Figure 12. The myBI onboarding process

The preferred approach to transition a business unit from an isolated business intelligence

environment to the global myBI infrastructure includes the following phases:

1. Getting started When the CIO charged Microsoft IT to adopt the myBI solution across

the entire IT organization, an executive memo informed all Business IT units within

Microsoft IT about the strategic nature and importance of the myBI solution. This memo

also included where to find more information about myBI. For example, business units

can attend presentations and demonstrations that myBI SMEs provide. Business units

can also go directly to the myBI site for hands-on experience and to access online

documentation.

To initiate the onboarding process, the business unit must fill out an onboarding

questionnaire based on a Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 form. This questionnaire gives

the myBI team details about the current business intelligence tools and data, the

estimated number of power users and end users, the primary contacts who will work with

the myBI team during the onboarding process, and the desired onboarding timeline. The

myBI team maintains this information in an onboarding database to track status and

manage capacities. Among other things, the gathered information helps the myBI team

to estimate onboarding requirements, including hosting and support aspects. Business


units and the myBI team collaborate to determine how existing solutions and data

warehouses can best be integrated with myBI to accommodate the requirements of the

business unit and provide necessary support.

2. Prototyping The prototyping phase begins when a business unit agrees to onboard to

myBI. The goal of this phase is to assess technical requirements and help the business

unit plan for the future. Following the successful completion of prototypes, the business

unit must fill out an onboarding document that describes in detail the required

configuration needed to deploy the business unit's reports based on its data sources

within the myBI infrastructure. System accounts and security settings for data

warehouses are examples of such configuration information. The business unit must

also specify the user accounts or security groups of end users and power users who

need access permissions on the myBI portal.

3. Integration testing The myBI sandbox environment is an integrated test environment,

maintained and supported by the myBI team. Business units can use their own

environment for developing and testing purposes. After development and test teams

approve the reports and data as part of the Microsoft IT software development life cycle

(SDLC) process, the business unit can start integration testing in the myBI sandbox

environment. More specifically, the business unit uses the myBI sandbox environment to

verify that the reports work on the myBI portal. If there are any issues, the myBI SME

involves the developers and testers from the myBI team to find a solution. The myBI

team also provides regular training sessions, Help documentation, and sample scripts to

the core set of power users who develop and publish reports on the myBI portal.

After each onboarding phase, the myBI team tracks the onboarding status to prepare for

the next round. At this point, the most important information to obtain from the business

unit is confirmation that the integration tests finished successfully and according to

business requirements.

4. User acceptance testing Following successful system integration, the business unit

and the myBI team are ready to start the user acceptance phase. For this purpose, the

myBI team provides a staging environment, hosted in the data center and supported by

the Data Center Operations and myBI Production Support teams. This is a much higher

level of support than is available in the sandbox environment. This is an important aspect

because user acceptance testing involves the power users creating the reports and the

end users confirming that the reports meet their requirements.

During the process of user acceptance testing, end users must confirm that their reports

work as expected on the myBI portal. The myBI team keeps track of the formal approval

in the onboarding document.

5. Production rollout The production rollout essentially follows the same process used to

deploy the solutions in the staging environment. Based on the procedures, verified

during integration and user acceptance testing, the myBI Production Support team

ensures that the myBI application servers can access the business data sources over an

encrypted connection, configures access for extranet users, and grants general myBI

access permissions to power users and end users. The business unit can subsequently

refine these permission settings. The business unit can then deploy its approved

reporting solutions and communicate to the end users that the reports are live on the

myBI portal. Again, the myBI team keeps track of progress and coordinates further

services with the myBI Production Support team.


BEST PRACTICES

Centralizing business intelligence across a large and multinational company, such as

Microsoft, is a complex organizational and technological challenge. It requires a reliable

business intelligence infrastructure, scalable business solutions, executive support, clear

communication, tremendous coordination, and sound project planning. Although Microsoft is

a unique environment, other IT organizations that want to implement solutions similar to myBI

might find the following general best practices useful:

Get executive support Changing the business intelligence landscape of a company

can be a challenge for individuals and business units alike because it disrupts

established business processes in favor of new procedures and technologies. One of the

most important issues to realize is that this effort is primarily about process improvement

and operational innovation and not about technology. Even on grounds of compelling

business benefits, transforming business processes at a company-wide scale cannot

succeed without executive involvement, approval, and active support.

Provide demonstrations, presentations, and guidance from the beginning Another

important element is compelling product demonstrations and presentations that clearly

show the benefits and advantages of the business intelligence solution. It is important to

use visually attractive prototypes and presentations based on realistic business

scenarios. For example, the myBI team spent almost three months with three developers

on this effort. The initial prototype helped the myBI team get the necessary funding. The

prototype work continues with every new feature and release to win more business units

for myBI and maintain the support of upper management. The myBI team also created

several small training and demonstration videos, which in conjunction with Microsoft

Office Live Meeting sessions and on-site presentations help myBI SMEs promote myBI

across the enterprise. Prototype work, demonstrations, presentations, training, and

continuous support are keys to ensure a very high level of customer satisfaction.

Become a process leader When business processes change, business units need a

clear understanding of the motivation behind the changes and precise directions. The

onboarding process must happen in a predictable way even if certain aspects do not go

as planned during system integration and user acceptance phases. Developing change

management processes based on established frameworks, such as the Microsoft

Solutions Framework, is vital to move business units in a logical order of events to the

new environment. It is also important to define key roles and responsibilities, implement

clear communication paths, and report progress to business units frequently. It is

necessary to document the onboarding processes and to keep these documents up to

date.

Involve the customer and maintain project documentation To complement the

onboarding processes, it is important to integrate members of the business units actively

into the design process as stakeholders and members of steering committees, document

expectations, business requirements, and priorities, and to obtain support for changes.

The Microsoft IT SDLC involves business units at all key stages during the project life

cycle. Accordingly, the myBI team collaborates with the business units to define the right

scope based on prioritized requirements, reviews the design and obtains regular

feedback to ensure that the delivered solutions are relevant and useful, and maintains

requirement documents and technical specifications that clarify expectations and details

about myBI functionality.


Set realistic goals This is a basic concept, but it is a tricky task in a global project that

delivers results to managers and executives in all positions and locations of the

company. Starting with a small and basic solution that delivers immediate results is often

better than developing a deluxe version that tries to solve all the problems at once.

Adding features and capabilities based on user feedback over time and avoiding

excessive customizations are keys to success. It is important to start with a solution that

meets general business needs and implement a feedback process to convert

customization requests into feature requests that are useful for all users.

Focus on security and scalability from the beginning This should be a best practice

in any software development project, and it is vital for a solution that provides access to

sensitive business information. Designing for security means that the solution works

based on the principle of least privilege, validates all user input, provides fault tolerance,

and responds in a managed way to system exceptions and other critical states.

Designing for scalability means that the solution can accommodate any number of users

through additional server hardware if necessary.

Plan for sufficient project resources The company-wide deployment of a centralized

business intelligence environment poses software integration challenges. Individual

software packages do not integrate seamlessly. For example, ProClarity Analytics and

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services differ in terms of security features, terminology,

and architecture. Bringing these products together onto a unified business intelligence

platform takes effort, knowledge, and skills. Providing the required resources in terms of

time, money, and people is a key to success.

Provide training and support Business units need a substantial amount of assistance

during the onboarding process. Providing training, technical documentation, and support

to power users and end users is critical to the success of the onboarding process. Users

need to understand the advantages of the new environment and the benefits of learning

how to use new business intelligence tools. The better the training, Help system, and

technical documentation included in the solution, the lower the support requirements and

operational costs after a business unit has accomplished the onboarding process.

Help business units target the right users with the right types of reports The

capabilities that the full stack of Microsoft business intelligence products provides might

initially overwhelm business units that complete the onboarding process. Different

business intelligence tools cover different needs. Business units must receive expert

advice regarding the typical use of reporting solutions. For example, standard reports

based on SQL Server Reporting Services might be useful for a different user base than

the Office Business Scorecard Manager scorecards.


CONCLUSION

Centralizing business intelligence in a company-wide infrastructure based on Office

SharePoint Server 2007, Office Excel 2007, Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, Office

PerformancePoint Server 2007, ProClarity Analytics, SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services,

and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services can help IT organizations to deliver value-driven

services and to contribute to business performance. Business benefits range from lower

operational costs and streamlined business processes through higher productivity of mission-

critical employees and decision makers and closer collaboration with partners and vendors.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides the foundation to implement a reliable, scalable, and

security-enhanced infrastructure that provides centralized access to business data from

disparate sources. This foundation facilitates broad sharing of business information while

helping to protect sensitive data. An Office SharePoint Server portal can also provide access

to additional information. For example, departmental document libraries and custom

application pages can share helpful documentation, announcements about upcoming events,

contact information, and useful links to other content.

Microsoft IT's decision to use Office SharePoint Server 2007 for business intelligence

consolidation was strategic. Office SharePoint Server enabled Microsoft IT to establish a

hosted, integrated, security-enhanced, and configurable myBI infrastructure. This

infrastructure provides a continuum of reporting and business intelligence capabilities where

business units can give the right information to the right users in the right format. The myBI

solution expands the reach of the myBI report catalog and an internal line-of-business

application, and it includes the entire suite of Microsoft business intelligence software.

The core of the myBI infrastructure is a user interface portal that provides seamless access

to reporting tools and data across the company. BI COE maintains this portal in addition to

the application servers, reporting solutions, and associated metadata and catalog databases

for all business units that use the myBI portal. The individual business units remain in control

of their databases and data warehouses. To support partners and vendors in addition to

corporate users, BI COE deployed the application servers on the Microsoft extranet and on

the corporate network.

To help business units transition from isolated business intelligence silos to the myBI

platform, BI COE provides a comprehensive lab environment. This environment consists of

demonstration systems, sandbox environments, and staging environments that mirror the

configuration of the production environment closely. Business units can use these test

systems to evaluate myBI according to their business requirements. They can also perform

integration testing and user acceptance testing according to the Microsoft IT SDLC. To help

power users and end users unlock the full potential of Microsoft business intelligence

solutions on the myBI platform, BI COE provides assistance, training, and production

support.

One of the advantages of the myBI portal is that analysts and power users within each

individual business unit can continue to use ProClarity Desktop, Report Designer, Report

Builder, and Business Scorecard Builder to develop reports. Meanwhile, end users can share

standard and ad hoc reports, scorecards, and other business intelligence tools in a single,

personalized location with other users without having to involve IT staff or complex

administrative tools. On the myBI platform, managers and employees can find their favorite

business reports with a single mouse click and display multiple reports side by side for


convenient comparison. The myBI portal connects employees and decision makers with the

right information that is relevant to their specific needs. It enables the company to transform

business insight into decisions and actions more rapidly and maintain its competitiveness.


FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales

Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada information

Centre at (800) 563-9048. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your

local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information through the World Wide Web, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com

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The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

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