One of my favorite things to do each month is write SQL Server Magazine's Essential BI column. I write two posts for the column each month. About a month ago I started to focus on SharePoint for Business Intelligence (BI) topics. For those of you who don't know, SharePoint is Microsoft's BI portal platform.

If you have ever seen a Microsoft BI slide deck then you probably know of the ‘hamburger slide’. The ‘hamburger slide’ is a common slide which shows that SharePoint is the outer-most layer in the Microsoft BI stack. Below is the slide, notice how SharePoint Server is at the top with its various BI capabilities in the tabs:

My last two posts for the Essential BI column has been on SharePoint for BI topics. First, I wrote about SharePoint's overall key BI features including integration points with the other pieces of Microsoft BI software. Next, I created a piece on how you can use Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 for BI. A lot of companies have access to WSS 3.0 via Windows Server licenses but do not have the larger Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server (MOSS) edition.

From here I have some additional topics, the first of which I have just begun to write:

·         MOSS BI: Data Connection Libraries

·         MOSS BI: Native KPIs/Dashboards/Filter WebParts

·         MOSS BI: Enterprise Search for BI/Business Data Catalog (BDC)

*Excel Services was recently written about quite well by Paul Vaughn in this month’s edition of SQL Server Magazine (August 2008).