Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 (Programmer to Programmer)

In this chapter, you discovered Excel Service’s features in SharePoint Server including key performance indicators (KPIs) and Dashboard reporting. You also learned the following:

• Because companies have a large amount of data in spreadsheets, users are familiar with Excel as a client application and prefer to use it for reporting because it supports calculations, data connections, and interactivity.

• Companies need employees to access information related to performing duties and making decisions. However, they do not need to provide too much information to generate duplicate reports, or to release confidential or proprietary information. As workbooks begin to pile up on local drives, network shares, and even SharePoint sites, greater risks appear related to an orga-nization’s ability to achieve these goals.

• Excel Services supports publishing business data stored in spreadsheets to a centralized repository on SharePoint. This reduces duplicate workbooks from emails or uncontrolled environments.

• Excel Services renders browser-based versions of workbooks. This exposes only the calculated data and not the formulas or calculations themselves, and controls the access users have to shared reports. These workbooks are stored in a central library where only a limited number of resources have Edit capabilities. Those with Read or View Only capabilities can view the information they need, interact with the report by filtering, sorting or refreshing details, and perform what-if analysis or advanced calculations without affecting the data’s integrity.

• SharePoint’s KPIs generate scorecard-type reports based on important business data. You can generate KPIs from a variety of locations including SQL Server Analysis Services, Excel, or even a SharePoint list. In some cases, it may also be beneficial to create a KPI based on manually tracked and entered data.

• You can use SharePoint’s specialized Reporting Web Parts to create interactive Dashboards. These dashboards provide personalized information to business users and decision makers.