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more likely it is that the information that the user relies on is already cleansed and highly processed,
is already compatible with data from different sources, and has been restructured for reporting and
analysis.
Because this information has long-term value and is vital to strategic planning, a solid BI infrastruc-
ture exists to automate the necessary cleansing and processing. Usually, this information is provided
to upper management in a summarized, structured format with limited analytical capabilities. Report-
ing Services can be useful as a delivery mechanism for this type of information online, in print, or via
email. Other online viewing options include dashboards and scorecards in SharePoint Server 2013 or
PerformancePoint Services.
As business users move closer to the operations of the business, their information needs diverge,
depending on the type of work a user performs. People at this level of the organizational hierarchy
can be information users, information consumers, or power analysts.
The information requirements of these users differ from those of upper management because
these users often combine official corporate data from a BI system with other data either created
manually or obtained from external sources. This combination of data might occur only occasionally
or might be an ongoing exercise. Either way, this type of quick data mash-up typically has only short-
term value, so it's not a candidate for a formal BI implementation. On the other hand, it's a perfect
scenario for a data model in Excel or PowerPivot in Excel, which very easily accommodate this type of
ad hoc data integration.
Note
Both the Excel data model and the PowerPivot in Excel tabular model are desktop
versions of the tabular model that was first introduced in the PowerPivot for Excel 2010
Add-in. In turn, the tabular model is one type of the Business Intelligence Semantic Model
(BISM). You can publish the desktop tabular models to a SharePoint Server 2013 farm that
includes Excel Services and PowerPivot for SharePoint 2013. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 in-
troduced a server version of the tabular model that you can use to host tabular models cre-
ated in SQL Server Data Tools independent of a SharePoint Server 2013 farm. Conceptually,
the desktop and server versions of the tabular model are similar. The differences lie in the
features supported in the models and the server infrastructure requirements for centralized
storage and access. The other type of BISM is the multidimensional and data-mining model
which requires installation of a SQL Server Analysis Services instance. You can learn more
about this in Chapter 3.
BI communities
Microsoft has another way of grouping users that focuses instead on how users work with BI and how
much collaboration they require. These BI communities and the BI tools designed for each com-
munity are shown in Figure 2-2. As the diagram makes clear, some overlap of tools exists between
communities.
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