Microsoft SharePoint Business Intelligence Training

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Microsoft SharePoint Business Intelligence Training

By Della Wyler

Friday, October 18th, 2013

“BI is about providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can take the right decisions” – Nic Smith with Microsoft BI Solutions Marketing. Because of its collaboration features, SharePoint is the tool that can get important data to the right people at the right time. Data is one of the most valuable resources to an organization, and because of advances in technology, data access, entry, tracking, and analysis has become easier and more efficient over the years. Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of theories, methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information for business purposes. Microsoft SQL Server provides the necessary storage and management foundation for business data, and a set of reporting an analysis tools. Microsoft SharePoint can help users access and analyze the data, giving them the ability to make better business decisions. Analysis of data is even more important than the data itself. We can collect and collect, but it’s what we do with the data we collect that it most crucial to monitoring and improving business operations. You are probably aware of the excellent sharing and collaboration functionalities of SharePoint, but did you also know it is a great business intelligence tool, with tremendous analyzing capabilities?

SharePoint 2010 Business Insights

There are several different business intelligence tools within SharePoint that are used based on the data you are analyzing and the problem you are trying to solve. The SharePoint server platform allows users to obtain information from various unstructured sources such as blogs, wikis, presentations, and documents, as well as structured sources such as reports, spreadsheets, and analytical systems. Data can be drawn from Excel, Visio services, and SQL, and published in SharePoint where users can recognize the interface, and the data can be used to make insightful business decisions.

SharePoint and Excel and PowerPivot for Excel –Used to give users browser-based access to a server-calculated version of an Excel spreadsheet. Users can view, refresh, and interact with analytic models connected to data sources, and for analysis, filtering, and presentation of locally stored data. PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint allows users to combine native Excel 2010 functionality with the PowerPivot in-memory engine so users can interactively explore and perform calculations on large data sets. Use PowerPivot for Excel when you want to quickly manipulate millions of rows of data into a single Excel workbook for ad-hoc reports.

Excel Services – A Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 shared service that brings the power of Excel to SharePoint Server by providing server-side calculation and browser-based rendering of Excel workbooks. Excel Services can be used for: Real-time, interactive reporting to include parameterized what-if analysis, for distribution of all or part of a workbook for analysis by using SharePoint Server or the Office client applications, and as a platform for building business applications. Use Excel Services when an end user or analyst wants to share content with multiple persons across an organization. It provides a mechanism for taking authored content in Excel 2010 and making it available in a browser. Excel Services is also used when an end user or analyst has generated a model that can be widely used (such as a mortgage calculator). In both cases, Excel Services lets the author publish targeted content without making the underlying intellectual property available to consumers.

Visio Services – A new service on the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 platform that allows users to share and view Visio diagrams. The service also enables data-driven Microsoft Visio 2010 web drawings, VDW files, to be refreshed from a variety of external data sources. Visio 2010 and Visio Services let you connect diagrams to data from multiple data sources (including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, SQL Server, and SharePoint Foundation List), publish data-driven diagrams to Visio Services on SharePoint Server, and view and refresh datadriven diagrams in a browser. Visio Services and SharePoint Server integration supports visual mashups of actionable data and diagrams for an information-rich viewing experience. Data overlaid on diagram helps put information in context making it more meaningful. Datadriven diagrams help identify trends and exceptions at a glance. Use Visio Services to build a visual representation of your business structures that are bound to data. Examples include healthcare metrics on a hospital floor, retail metrics on a store layout, network health status on an IT network, organizational chart with metrics for each individual.

Performance Point Services – In SharePoint Server 2010 is a performance management service with tools to monitor and analyze business. It provides easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs). PerformancePoint Services can help individuals across an organization makeinformed business decisions that align with company-wide objectives and strategy. You can bring together data from multiple data sources (including Analysis Services, SQL Server SharePoint lists and Excel Services) to track and monitor your data. Use the visualization Decomposition Tree is a new report type that enables you to quickly and visually break down higher-level data values from a multi-dimensional data set to understand the driving forces behind those values. Use PerformancePoint Services for creating dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that help deliver a summarized view of business a performance. The dashboard is a point of entry to drilldown analysis for driving agility and alignment across an organization. PerformancePoint Services gives users integrated analytics for monitoring, analyzing, and reporting.

SQL Server Reporting Services – Provides a full range of ready-to-use tools and services to help you create, deploy, and manage reports for your organization, as well as programming features that enable you to extend and customize reports. The report authoring tools work with an Office type application and are fully integrated with both SQL Server tools and components as well as the SharePoint Server environment. You can build reports on top of SharePoint lists, publish reports to SharePoint Server 2007 or 2010, incorporate reports inside your portal using a reports Web Part, and fully manage your reports published in SharePoint document libraries. When to use SQL Server Reporting Services. Use SQL Server Reporting Services to deliver reports that publish at regular intervals and on-demand. It’s also suitable where report requirements are well established and customers are not always familiar with the underlying data set.

Save 10% on SharePoint Training for Business Intelligence class

This information provides some insight on how SharePoint 2010 can assist with BI and really leverage important business decisions. To get hands-on training of how these tools work, and learn how to use them within your own organization in specific situations, there is a SharePoint training class that you can take! Microsoft Official course 50429: SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence is a 5-day instructor-led course that explores how to use SharePoint as your platform for Business Intelligence. It takes you through the SharePoint Business Intelligence Center, Excel Services, Reporting Services, Analysis Service, Performance Point and PowerPivot to implement your BI Strategies and enable your decision makers to see data in new and dynamic ways! This course will take you down a path of building a BI environment from scratch to full interactive dashboards using the Microsoft BI Stack. This course is running on 11/4/2013, so you still have plenty of time to register, and we are offering and 10% discount when you register with promo code SP10BI. You can either register online by clicking here, or you can contact a TechSherpas Rep by calling 866-704-9244.

Categories : Microsoft, SharePoint, Training & Education

Tags : SharePoint 2010, sharepoint business intelligence, sharepoint training

One-day Microsoft training classes get you in and out with what you need

By Della Wyler

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are mastery technological skills, but a solid foundation certainly can be. In just one day, you can learn to be more efficient through software capabilities, taking the guessing and learning curve out of your daily job functions. In just one day, you can get what you need to make your work day more productive. Among our vast selection of IT training courses, we have the one-day, wham bam, and let’s get down to business, course for you. With these courses, you will get the skills you need to wiz through daily tasks, impress your fellow peers and your boss, and help calm the storm the next time someone is a battering their keyboard. This week’s featured classes are those 1 day-ers that get you in and out, preparing you to move onto bigger and better things.

80447: Integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010
Customers make the business world go round. That is why utilizing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is crucial. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM system can help reduce costs, and increase productivity by automating business process that nurture customer relationships and satisfaction. There are many advantages to integrating Sharepoint with CRM. Some of the main pluses are:

The ability to share folders with all types of documents
Enterprise search
Customer/client portal
Out-if-the-box dashboards
Class 80447 is a one-day course that will explain why and how to integrate these two Microsoft technologies. By taking this one day course, you will learn the following:

The kinds of business problems SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed to solve
Identify the most common scenarios where SharePoint and Dynamics CRM can be used together
Learn basic Microsoft Dynamics CRM customization techniques required to build integrated applications
Understand and Work with SharePoint Web Parts and Pages
Understand and Use SharePoint Designer Data Views to Expose Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Data
Understand how to use the Business Data Catalog with data From Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Filtered Views
Understand how to configure, publish, and view Excel spreadsheets using Excel Services
Demonstrate how to install, configure, and use the default integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.
Understand how Business Connectivity Services and Excel Services can be used to display Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 data within SharePoint.
Understand how to leverage and configure SharePoint searching capabilities to search Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 data from within SharePoint.
Explain how Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, PowerPivot, and Power View can be used together to provide rich business intelligence solutions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.
Mastering Microsoft Office Word
Word processing is the use of computers to create, revise, and save documents for printing and future retrieval. Back in the day it did this in the most basic way, with a couple formatting option, bold and underline texts. Nowadays, this tool can transform a plain typed document into a colorful vivid piece of marketing art. Word! It is also a wonderful tool for creating professional business documents. Most of us use Microsoft Word on a daily basis, and don’t even fully understand all of its functionalities, and end up screaming at the screen because formatting is a little funky or you just can’t get it to do what you want. Yes, you remember that fit you had once or twice. Well these courses will solve that problem, and provide endless business solutions. You will be impressed with all the cool things this tool really can do.

50126: Microsoft Office Word 2007 Step by Step Level 1
Course 50126 is the first in a series of three Microsoft Office Word 2007 courses. It will provide you with the basic concepts required to produce basic business documents, as you will create, edit, and enhance standard business documents using Microsoft Office Word 2007.Once you have completed this course you will be able to:

Create a basic document using Microsoft Word.

Edit documents by locating and modifying text.
Format text.
Format paragraphs.
Add tables to a document.
Add graphic elements to a document.
Control a document’s page setup and its overall appearance.
Proof documents to make them more accurate.

50542: Learn Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step Level 2

Course 50542 is designed for those who already have the Level 1 Skills (ability to use Microsoft Word 2010 to create, edit, format, save, and print basic business documents containing text, tables, and graphics), but need to know how to create or modify complex business documents and customized Word efficiency tools. It also aims to assist those preparing for the Microsoft Office Specialist exams for Microsoft Word 2010. You will create complex documents and build personalized efficiency tools using Microsoft Office Word 2010, and will leave with these skills:

Ability to manage lists.
Customize tables and charts
Customize the formatting of a document using styles and themes
Modify pictures in a document
Create customized graphic elements
Insert content using Quick Parts
Control text flow
Use templates to automate document creation
Use the mail merge function
Use macros to automate common tasks

Save 10% with One-day Microsoft Courses

Microsoft training classes
Save 10% on these Microsoft training courses
You are probably saying to yourself right now, “Wow that would make life much easier”, and thinking of all the things you could get done if you knew how to use these software tools at full capacity. Time is precious, as we live busy lives so these one-day courses are ideal to get valuable skills sets to make a big difference in your day to day job tasks. Just one day can make a difference in your overall productivity and success on the job.

Featured Microsoft classes are always guaranteed-to-run and offer a 10% discount when registered for the following dates:

80447: Integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 – 7/30/2013
50126: Microsoft Office Word 2007 Step by Step Level 1 – 7/30/2013
50542: Learn Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step Level 2 – 7/31/2013

Remember to mention Promo code FC1day10 to receive your discount.

Categories : Featured Training Course, Microsoft, Office Word, SharePoint, Training & Education

Tags : class 50126, class 50542, CRM, Microsoft class 80447, Microsoft Dynamics training, Office Word training, sharepoint training

Inside Peek – SharePoint training 50470: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the Site Owner/Power User

By Della Wyler

Tuesday, June 18th, 2013

Why should you take Microsoft class 50470?

SharePoint is one of those tools that can truly change and facilitate the way we communicate with one another, especially in the job setting. This is why the demand for SharePoint savvy people has increased over the last several years. Want to land a good job in IT? Want to become a valued team member that your company can’t do without? Learn SharePoint!

Gain the skills you need to become a “power user” for a SharePoint site by enrolling in our two-day, instructor-led training course, 50470: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the Site Owner/Power User. Learn how to create lists and sites, manage user access levels, and customize your lists and pages. This class uses the SharePoint Server 2010 version of SharePoint. While it is of equal value for users of SharePoint Foundation, it does include a few features not found in Foundation. After completing this course, students will be able to:

Manage Sites and Site Collections
Add users and groups and manage site, list, folder and item security
Add and configure web parts
Configure sites, include themes, title, description and icon
Configure site navigation
View site activity reports
Customize lists and libraries
Work with Site Columns and Site Content Types
Create Forms libraries
Configure Check out/in, Content Approval and Versioning
Create and modify pages and web part pages

Upcoming SharePoint Training Classes

SharePoint training class 50470 is on our upcoming Guaranteed-to-Run schedule, running July 11^th – July 12^th. There is still time to register for this class, so visit our website or contact your TechSherpas Rep. Other class dates are available.

We also offer a list of other SharePoint training classes, including:

20331: Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
55014: Upgrading Your Development Skills to SharePoint 2013
10174: Configuring and Managing Microsoft SharePoint 2010
10232: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Applications
50354: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SharePoint Designer
50478: SharePoint 2010 Advanced Foundation Development
50352: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Overview for End Users

For a full list of SharePoint 2013 classes, click here.

For a full list of SharePoint 2010 classes, click here.

Mention this blog post and receive 10% off your registration for 50470.

Categories : Microsoft, SharePoint

Tags : microsoft class 50470, microsoft training, sharepoint classes, sharepoint training

Get your head out of the Clouds…or maybe not?

By Della Wyler

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

SharePoint has earned a reputation as being an excellent business solution that can increase collaboration, effectively manage important business documents, manage workflow & processes, and promote social engagement. The way people are communicating and conducting business are constantly evolving as technology and business needs change. The new version of SharePoint 2013 has added a new capability that may serve businesses of all types and sizes quite well. SharePoint 2013 is just as much an online solution as an on-premise solution, and as technology and organizations continue to evolve it’s not inconceivable to think that all business may be conducted in the Cloud one day. Gartner Research predicts that 50% of Global 1000 companies will store customer-sensitive data in the cloud by 2016 (https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1862714). But, let’s just put the brakes on that thought for right now, and get a basic understanding of what business solutions in the Cloud versus on-premise look like, specifically for SharePoint.

SharePoint in the Cloud

SharePoint 2013 is taking it up a notch. Well taking it way up, to the Cloud. SharePoint in the Cloud is the managed, on-line delivery of the SharePoint technologies and servers. This can include a company’s intranet, extranet, document management, records management, or external website. This means that companies utilizing SharePoint in the Cloud can now experience the same feel, capabilities, and functions as the on-premise version of SharePoint. SharePoint in the Cloud allows an external provider to host and manage SharePoint, taking the burden of administration and maintenance off the organization’s IT department, allowing the organization to allocate those resources more effectively elsewhere. This is the premise of the Cloud. Allowing third parties, who specialize in cloud environments, to manage and maintain the IT needs of a company, leaving the company more resources to focus on the main goals & functions of the business. So what does this mean for companies using SharePoint and what should they consider before moving SharePoint to the Cloud?

Cloud vs. On-Premise

Once SharePoint has been implemented in the Cloud, companies do realize the benefits associated with the change (decreased management responsibilities for your IT team, increased flexibility in terms of scalability, infrastructure disaster recovery, and more cost effective licensing models) but first you need to decide if you should and can indeed complete the implementation of this program. You need to evaluate your resources and decide if your IT staff can complete this in-house or if it will be wiser and more cost effective to outsource it, or perhaps a little bit of both? A smooth transition is crucial for business operations to remain on point, unaffected by the decision to move to the Cloud.

Keeping up with the hardware and software of SharePoint can be a difficult task for many organizations. Maintaining the infrastructure takes time and money. One advantage of moving SharePoint to the Cloud is the savings realized in IT maintenance. The time and money spent on the challenges to start-up and maintain SharePoint can be reduced, and maybe even eliminated by hosting SharePoint on the Cloud. Be aware though, that the SharePoint provider will not take care of everything. The company still needs to make the important decisions of how they want the environment to look, it’s URL, as well as how the content is categorize, search functionalities, and the type of authentication.

Search requirements need to be discussed as they can be one of the most important functions for SharePoint users, and not all SharePoint providers allows full functionality of the search function. If this is a key function for the successful experience for your users then you may need to reconsider the migration or determine a solution that will allow you to search for both internal and external content.

As mentioned, categorizing content cannot be overlooked by the organization implementing SharePoint. This is how users are able to locate the information they are looking for. SharePoint on the Cloud can create some difficulties on this area that need to be evaluated and solutions explored.

Add up your scores, and see how you match up:

32: You are probably already on SharePoint Online or Office 365. Enjoy the view from your cloud!

24-31: You are a strong candidate for SharePoint Online. Study carefully and understand some of the functional tradeoffs of the platform. SharePoint Online doesn’t support the following:

Deployment of custom solutions that require direct access to the server, such as Visual Web Parts. It does support sandboxed solutions, however.
PowerPivot
SQL Server Reporting Service Integration
Business Connectivity Services (originally this was a blanket restriction, but a slipstream release in 2011 added support for access to web services-based remote data in O365 BCS).
FAST Search Server Integration
Web Analytics
Site collections greater than 100GB

10-23: You are somewhere in between. Understanding the platform advantages and tradeoffs is essential to figuring out your cloud strategy. Odds are good that you may use a hybrid approach in which parts of your SharePoint world remain on premises, with other aspects living on Office 365.

0-9: If SharePoint is already living in your data center, it’s probably in the right place.

Evaluate & Decide

So are you a good candidate for SharePoint on the Cloud? Should you implement SharePoint on-premise, on the cloud, or as a combination of both? It really just depends on the organization’s specific needs, size, and type of cloud environment that is right for the organization: Software as a Service; Infrastructure as a Service, or Managed Services. The decision to stay on premise versus moving to the cloud is an important one. The organization needs to decide what control they still want to have, and what they want others to have so they can focus on other things. What is most important to you and the success of your business?

Categories : Cloud Technology, Microsoft, SharePoint

Tags : sharepoint cloud, sharepoint training

Microsoft SharePoint Business Intelligence Training

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