More than ever, today's organizations are challenged to empower employees with actionable data to drive business performance and increase worker productivity. With the countless sources of data available to aid in making well-informed daily decisions, there is an even greater need for effective business intelligence (BI) solutions...

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White Papers by Topic

Analysis

SQL Server Integration Services with Oracle Database 10g
This paper focuses on the advantages of using SQL Server Integration Services to extract data from heterogeneous sources and import data into Microsoft® SQL Server™ for business intelligence (BI) analysis and reporting.

Improving Performance in Excel 2007
Learn about the increased worksheet capacity in Office Excel 2007 and techniques you can use to design worksheets that can help improve calculation performance.

Excel Services Technical Overview
Read about Excel Services and how it works with Office Excel 2007 to help provide robust and secure shared workbook solutions.

SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Overview
Get a high-level look at features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services that build on the significant investments in Analysis Services 2005 around scalability, advanced analytics, and Microsoft Office interoperability.

Business Value

The Payoff of Pervasive Performance Management
Read this exclusive report from BusinessWeek Research Services on distributing data analysis tools from the executive suite to the shop floor.

Spreadsheet Compliance in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
See how Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help your business get to a single version of the truth.

Extending an Organization's ESRI GIS Investment by Using MapPoint Web Service
This article explores the strengths of a combined, complementary MapPoint Web Service and ESRI location platform for deploying enterprise-class solutions. Particularly, this article focuses on how MapPoint Web Service can enhance existing ESRI infrastructure, improve solution performance, and reduce costs of deploying an enterprise location solution.

Contextual Data Visualization with Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007
By bringing Business Intelligence into the IT space, Microsoft® Office Visio® Professional 2007 gives the IT professional, the tools and resources to efficiently and effectively manage the day-to-day IT operations. With Microsoft® Office Visio® Professional 2007, IT professionals can visualize, analyze and communicate complex IT infrastructure, systems and process easily enabling collaboration and better decision making.

Microsoft Office Excel Services Business Value
See how Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help your business get to a single version of the truth.

Dynamics AX BI Whitepaper
Learn how Microsoft Dynamics AX Empowers your people with self-service Business Intelligence. This white paper reviews current trends and challenges and explores the advantages of an appropriate and effective BI solution in an ERP environment.

Dynamics NAV BI Whitepaper
This white paper reviews how Business Intelligence tools and capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics NAV help empower companies to improve business performance as their business grows and their requirements changes.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 White Paper: Configure the Default OLAP Cubes
Configure the Default OLAP Cubes: Use the information in this paper to configure the default online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes that are provided with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.

Reporting and Business Intelligence in Microsoft Dynamics AX
The goal of this white paper is to provide a broad overview of the current features and future directions of the Microsoft Dynamics AX Reporting and BI framework.

Microsoft Dynamics GP
Learn how Microsoft Dynamics RoleTailored Business Productivity enables your people to get up and running quickly

Microsoft Business Intelligence Interoperability with SAP
This white paper describes the key aspects of the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) solution including the Microsoft products and services that are used in the solution. The paper also describes how these components can interoperate together to deliver an effective BI solution to SAP customers.

Data Integration

Data Integration Solutions for Master Data Management
Learn how application developers can use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services functionality to address the data integration challenges of Master Data Management applications.

ETL Performance: Unisys and Microsoft Speed Up the Process
Learn about an optimized ETL solution that can support even the most demanding enterprise BI initiatives.

Contextual Data Visualization with Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007
Office Visio Professional 2007 is an advanced data visualization layer that easily connects to datasets and effectively turns the data into information. By bringing Business Intelligence into the IT space, Office Visio Professional 2007 gives the IT professional the tools and resources to efficiently and effectively manage the day-to-day IT operations.

Data Integrity and Scalability

Handling Data Integrity Issues in Analysis Services
Learn about common data integrity issues and tools in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services that can help you easily handle them.

Strategies for Partitioning Relational Data Warehouses in Microsoft SQL Server
Find out why, when, and how to design, implement, and maintain partitioned tables using SQL Server 2005.

Interoperability

Microsoft Office and SharePoint Products and Technologies Integration—Fair, Good, Better, Best
This paper describes how different versions of Office programs work together with the 2003 and 2007 versions of SharePoint technologies. Although an overview of the integration features of Office 2000 versus Office XP with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 is provided, the paper’s focus is on the integration features of the Office 2003 Editions versus the 2007 Office Suites with the 2007 SharePoint technologies.

Accessing External Data Sources with Analysis Services
Learn about different client object models supported by Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services when connecting to relational data sources.

Using Reporting Services with SAP NetWeaver BI
Learn tips and tricks that can help you make the most of the integration between Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and SAP NetWeaver BI.

Integrating Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SAP
See how enhanced integration between Microsoft Dynamics and the 2007 Microsoft Office system offers applications that provide critical data in an easy-to-understand format to help your organization gain deeper business insight.

Microsoft Dynamics and the 2007 Office System
Learn how to bring the power of SAP assets into the tools and applications that information workers are familiar with. Read about the innovations in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that make interoperability with SAP easier than ever.

Integrating the SharePoint Server 2007 Business Data Catalog and SAP Enterprise for Search
Find out how you can use the innovations in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to make searching with SAP Enterprise easier than ever.

Integrating the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Business Data Catalog with SAP NetWeaver
Learn about using the innovations in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to make interoperability with SAP NetWeaver easier than ever.

Configure Office SharePoint Server for SAP iView Web Parts
Learn how to use the integration between SAP and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by using SAP iView Web Parts to display SAP data in SharePoint sites.

Microsoft® Office Programs and SharePoint® Products and Technologies Integration – Fair, Good, Better, Best
Although an overview of the integration features of Office 2000 versus Office XP with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 is provided, the paper’s focus is on the integration features of the Office 2003 Editions versus the 2007 Office Suites with the 2007 SharePoint technologies.

Metadata

SQL Server 2005 BI Metadata
Learn about metadata management in SQL Server 2005.

Portals

SharePoint Deployment at MTV Networks
This white paper examines the move to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in detail, including the previous portal environment and the challenges that this environment presented, requirements and selection process for a new portal solution, development process and architecture, new portal environment and capabilities, how various business units and IT groups are benefiting, and future plans.

Using Excel Web Services in a SharePoint Web Part
Learn how to create a Web Part that can be deployed to Office SharePoint Server 2007 and how to use Excel Web Services to perform custom calculations.

An Introduction to SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
Discover how SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS) can help information technology departments meet data integration requirements in their companies. Real-world scenarios are included.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment at MTV Networks
This white paper examines the move to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in detail, including the previous portal environment and the challenges it presented, the requirements and selection process for a new portal solution, the development process and architecture, the new portal environment and capabilities, how various business units and IT groups are benefiting, and future plans.

Reporting

Microsoft Dynamics AX
The Microsoft Dynamics AX Reporting and BI Framework comprises tools and services to enable the implementation, integration, deployment, and use of business performance management features in Microsoft Dynamics AX solutions. The framework is a model driven Microsoft platform integrated solution that will continue to evolve in future releases of the product to support richer scenarios and advances in the Microsoft Reporting and BI platform technologies (Microsoft® SQL Server™ and Microsoft Office® system) upon which it is built.

Accessing Large- Scale ROLAP Environments with PerformancePoint Server 2007
This white paper is for PerformancePoint Server administrators and IT professionals who want guidance about how to develop and deploy PerformancePoint Monitoring Server applications utilizing ROLAP data sources built with Analysis Services and Teradata.

Designing and Delivering Rich Office Reports with SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 and SoftArtisans OfficeWriter
Discover how to use Reporting Services and SoftArtisans OfficeWriter to design and deliver full-fidelity, data-driven Office Excel and Office Word reports.

Using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services with Hyperion Essbase
Learn how Reporting Services can be used to build high-quality reports against Hyperion Essbase sources.

SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
Read about how Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services provides a complete server-based platform designed to support a wide variety of reporting needs, including managed enterprise reporting, ad hoc reporting, embedded reporting, and Web-based reporting.

Reporting and Business Intelligence in Microsoft Dynamics AX
The Microsoft Dynamics AX Reporting and BI Framework comprises tools and services to enable the implementation, integration, deployment, and use of business performance management features in Microsoft Dynamics AX solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Intelligence
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a good example of cross-product integration. This complete, flexible solution meets the requirements of small businesses that need easy-to-use, yet effective tools and of larger organizations that need the most technically advanced business intelligence capabilities.

Publishing PerformancePoint Server in Extranet Scenarios
With the release of PerformancePoint Server 2007 Monitoring and Analytics, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) platform enables enterprises to develop and deploy web based dashboards, scorecards and analytics through SharePoint Products and Technologies. (In this article, "SharePoint Products and Technologies" refer collectively to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.) As Microsoft continues to add functionality and depth to its platform, companies are looking at more advanced ways to use Business Intelligence within their organizations. Historically, most Business Intelligence solutions are developed for use within the organization, and are consumed over the intranet by company employees. There are, however, many situations where a Business Intelligence solution can provide significant value by allowing users external access, over the Internet.

Extending Enterprise Search Capabilities to Your BI Applications
Quickly get up and running on the key concepts of delivering BI search using features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SQL Server 2005. As an added bonus, download the sample content below and walk through the process step by step with the white paper.

Upgrade

Why Upgrade to SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence: A Technical Overview
SQL Server 2005 delivers technology that integrates seamlessly and scales to support your enterprise demands. SQL Server 2005 can take your organization to the next level of BI with integrated tools, faster performance, more reliability and availability, and an easy, low-cost upgrade path.

SQL Server 2008

Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 makes business intelligence available to everyone through deep integration with Microsoft Office, providing the right tool, to the right user, at the right price. Employees at all levels of an organization can see and help to influence the performance of the business by working with tools that are both easy to use and powerful.

Introduction to New Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008
With the 2008 release, SQL Server makes a major advance in scalability for data warehousing. It meets the data warehouse needs of the largest enterprises more easily than ever. SQL Server 2008 provides a range of integrated products that enable you to build your data warehouse, and query and analyze its data.

SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Overview
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services builds on the value delivered with the significant investments in Analysis Services 2005 around scalability, advanced analytics, and Microsoft Office interoperability. This paper covers a high-level look at the key Analysis Services features available in SQL Server 2008.

SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Overview
This paper discusses how Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services provides a complete server-based platform that is designed to support a wide variety of reporting needs including managed enterprise reporting, ad-hoc reporting, embedded reporting, and web based reporting to enable organizations to deliver relevant information where needed across the entire enterprise.

An Introduction to SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
This paper discusses the challenges that face businesses that rely on data integration technologies to provide meaningful, reliable information to maintain a competitive advantage in today’s business world. It discusses how SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS) can help Information Technology departments meet data integration requirements in their companies. Real-world scenarios are included.

An Introduction to New Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008
Get a high-level look at the new performance and manageability features in SQL Server 2008 that offer a major advance in meeting the data warehouse needs of the largest enterprises.

SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Overview
Read this high-level overview of features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services that build on the significant investments in Analysis Services 2005 around scalability, advanced analytics, and Microsoft Office interoperability.

Predictive Analysis with SQL Server 2008
Learn about how the complete and intuitive set of data mining tools in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 can help provide predictive analysis for all users, insight at every step of the data life cycle, and data mining awareness in every application.

Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2008
Find out how Microsoft SQL Server 2008 makes business intelligence (BI) available to everyone through deep integration with Microsoft Office, providing the right tool, to the right user, at the right price.

Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and the ISV
This document provides a high-level overview of the Microsoft products, technologies, and feature sets in the Business Intelligence Data Warehousing (BI-DW) space; Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and relevant end customer (enterprise) scenarios of importance to ISVs; and roadmap adoption guidance for Microsoft ISVs.