Monday, March 17, 2008

Microsoft's BI Suite and SoftArtisans's OfficeWriter



Microsoft has delivered full BI Suite from end to end. End to end means like loading the data, Analysing &Reporting and Performance scorecards. Basically Micorsoft BI falls under the following work load.

  1. Data Warehouse
  2. Analysis and Reporting
  3. Performance Management
Data Warehouse
Data warehouse is a storgae which facilitates data for Analysis and Reporting. In broader scope, data warehouse means, To Extract data from sources, Transform the data, and To load the into database, simply "ETL". Microsoft has a full fidelity ETL tools with MS SQL Server 2005 called SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) which is the replacement of existing Data transformation services(DTS) in sql server 2000. By using the SSIS object model we can program it and load the data in to database base.


Analysis and Reporting
Microsoft ship the SSAS and SSRS services with SQL Server 2005. The developers can leverage the services by using the object model of SSAS and SSRS. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services offers a comprehensive, server-based solution that includes traditional managed reports, interactive reports, and embedded reports.

Performance Management
Performance measurement is the process of assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals. Performance management is building on that process, adding the relevant communication and action on the progress achieved against these predetermined goals.

RDL( Report definition language)
The xml based language to define the report in SQL Server Reporting Services. The RDL will contain report format, data source and report parameters.

SoftArtisan's OfficeWriter
SoftArtisan's OfficeWriter is third party tool to build the report by using SSRS. It is like Front face of SSRS. The Business Users can define the report template in Excel or Word without developer help. This software leverages the RDL and storing the Word and Excel file template as a 64 bit serialized stream in RDL.
You can view more details about SoftArtisan's OfficeWriter in the below Link which has been published in Microsoft's SQL Server Developer center.


http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa964136.aspx#sqlsrsandow_topic1