Database Reference
In-Depth Information
THe PlACe oF eACH FRonT-enD Tool
Chapter 2 introduced the concept of strategic, tactical, and operational views,
with a statement that the tools loosely match to the following concepts:
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PerformancePoint is the strategic tool, allowing for monitoring of business
metrics and some analysis when the values are out of band.
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Excel is the tactical tool for data exploration. It is split into two pieces,
with PowerPivot being the data integration tool, and Power View being
the visualization tool.
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Reporting Services fits in as the operational tool, showing detailed data.
In reality, this view is off-kilter, with quite a lot of overlap.
Historically, these tools were developed by different teams within Microsoft,
which is why there's some overlap. Table 3-3 shows the differences in the tools.
TABle 3.3
Front-end tools
TooL
ProS
CoNS
PerformancePoint
Scorecards: High-level
overview, drill down
Analytics : Interactive
Not totally customizable
SSRS
High fidelity
Advanced visualizations
Drill down/drill through—
can be dynamic, requires
more work
Interactivity requires work
and even then is limited
Excel/Excel
Services
Fully customizsable
High fidelity
Loses fidelity in Excel
Services
Not as interactive
with other SharePoint
components
Power View
Very interactive—data
exploration
Animations
Not a great deal of control
over visualizations
Requires a model for
visualizations
Gimmicky GUI
