With business systems generating an overwhelming increase in data, municipal departments of all sizes must find ways to make sense of their data.

Business insight is becoming a priority in most Public Sector organizations. However, business intelligence tools have traditionally been out of reach for many organizations, including municipal governments, as they have been either too costly to acquire or too complex to build and operate.

But a new paradigm in the way data is managed has begun. With the release of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft now packages into each license the robust data management tools known as SQL Server Analysis Services. Finally, organizations can develop business-class data management solutions without breaking their budgets or investing in additional resources.

Benefits

• Drive effective decision-making to take action.
  Organizing and analyzing large amounts of data from varied sources can be a challenging task. Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) provides an efficient way for users to work with all of their data in a single location. Microsoft BI includes management tools and processes designed to help improve agency performance, facilitate operations, and enhance citizen services. By helping agencies focus on planning, forecasting, allocations, and other agency priorities, these performance management tools optimize financial, operational, and human resource data—offering a single, common overview of agency processes and resources.
  
  Delivering business intelligence in the familiar and easy-to-use Microsoft Office-based environment means mission-critical information is available wherever agency employees work, collaborate, and make decisions.



• Create flexible, customized scorecards.
  Dynamic scorecards deliver financial, operational, constituent, and human resource information in an easy-to-analyze format that gives insight into the drivers that affect performance. Take advantage of advanced scorecard functionality with reports, charts, graphs, and analysis tools. Easy-to-use templates and a single interface for viewing key performance indicators (KPIs) combine essential data with historical information, analytical tools, policies, and processes.



• Analyze root causes and environmental trends.
  Microsoft BI moves beyond simply monitoring agency-wide events. It offers analytics that are critical to understanding the reasons behind data trends and shifts. Intuitive data navigation, powerful calculation techniques, and patented data visualizations help users explore large quantities of data in a way that allows them to more readily spot trends and patterns while also providing rapid insight to help users make more informed decisions.



• Develop insight.
  Microsoft BI allows agencies to implement performance management by evaluating the relationships between performance metrics and important agency objectives, then analyze changes and identify opportunities for improvement. Customized views and advanced visualizations communicate information graphically, making it easier to develop knowledge and deep contextual insight. Geospatial dashboards enable sophisticated analysis of location-specific data—putting agency information in a context that makes sense for each jurisdiction.



• Manage performance.
  Microsoft BI also enables agencies to plan, budget, forecast, and gain a detailed view into supporting documentation. Create reports and charts and set role-based permissions, whether data comes from a relational, multi-dimensional, or user-defined data source. The " Click to Analyze " functionality helps workers go beyond monitoring data across the Microsoft BI-based platform to quickly investigate the root cause of changes in agency performance. In addition, the offering enables ongoing evaluations for full-circle business intelligence.



• Enable collaboration among departments and agencies
  Enhancing service to citizens requires planning, communication, and collaboration across departments and among agencies. Microsoft BI enables agencies to use the Microsoft communication and collaboration tools already in place to make working together easier—leading to increased insight and helping with more powerful decision-making.
  
  Increased collaboration demands enhanced security. Microsoft BI delivers, using management, calculation and interaction with the Web to provide enhanced security and broad access to data. By controlling access rights with tools that are password and rights-managed, it is easier to decide what information to share—and with whom.



• Work and analyze information online.
  The Microsoft-based server offering means agency workers can access and analyze agency information when they need to—and more efficiently create, manage, and share spreadsheets, while effectively controlling access to information through a Web browser in a centrally managed environment.
  
  With Microsoft BI, all users work with a single, true data source, while browser-based access also enables them to view and interact with spreadsheet data from within dashboards. Furthermore, they can evaluate the data in context using additional, comparative information present on the screen.

Accountability Solutions

• Excel Client, Excel Server: Provides spreadsheet management tools that are uniformly used and accessed. The enhanced visualization and analysis tools help quantify and compare trends.
  
  Excel Services is built into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and is integrated with the new Report Center, Report Library, Dashboarding, and KPI capabilities to provide an out-of-the-box BI solution.



• SQL Reporting Services supports both on-demand (pull) and event-based (push) delivery of reports. Industry workers can author and deliver reports to assist in departmental budgeting processes. Department managers can quantitatively assemble income and forecasting estimates based on reports.


• Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a complete performance management application for:


• Planning, budgeting, and forecasting
• Consolidations
• Scorecarding
• Reporting



• Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 enables you to view information from multiple data sources across an organization. Scorecards, reports and charts can be rapidly assembled and connected through advanced KPIs. With Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager, users can receive data-driven alerts, improve ability to forecast trends and compare and contrast performance using embedded analysis tools.



• Microsoft FRx brings insight and control to the financial report creation, generation, and distribution process. It allows financial professionals to create the kind of detailed financial reports BDMs require to help stay on top of trends and effectively run their organizations.



• Microsoft Forecaster helps streamline and simplify the financial management process from planning and budgeting through day-to-day performance management. Microsoft Forecaster gives people a faster way to gain control of budgeting and planning. Department managers gain visibility into the relationship between organizational strategies and department-level goals, supporting alignment across the organization. With integration to Microsoft Dynamics, Office and SQL Server software, Microsoft Forecaster offers a familiar and easy-to-use interface that is integrated giving organizational decision makers the control they need to manage more effectively, and help improve organizational performance.



• Microsoft Dynamics (including ERP and CRM) provides access to critical data that can be easily analyzed using familiar tools such as Microsoft Office Excel. Roles-based approach strikes a balance, offering employees direct access to the information they need to help drive organizational success while also providing managers the ability to control access to sensitive data.
  
  
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides scorecarding capabilities, self-service management and Information user sharing insights through collaboration.

More Information
Municipal departments of all sizes are challenged to make sense of their data. Business intelligence solutions from Microsoft and technology partners can help. To learn more, visit the Microsoft Business Intelligence homepage.