The lifecycle of a business intelligence implementation - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 66

Here is a summary of the process that occurs during the lifecycle of a BI implementation.

Your “customers” have an idea of what questions they need to answer. This process evolves as
analytic-minded business users have opportunities to explore the data.

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Tip As users discover new insights that they want to see, ask that they prioritize which are
most critical, useful, or insightful.

As users discover new insights, you will discover what data is needed and begin strategizing
on how to prepare that data for modeling.

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Tip Try not to lament too much on how database design could have made life easier. Every
organization is at a different maturity level. You will discover workarounds and maybe en-
courage some refactoring.

How you model the data determines how the client will view data. You enhance the client's
view of the data by delivering metrics in the form that they want to see. This is where most of
your effort will be expended.

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Tip Quickly get a working knowledge of DAX.

Deploying to Analysis Services puts your model in a database from which clients can consume
via a BISM connection file, an ODC connection in Excel, or other methods explained in just a
short while in “Step 7: Create a BISM file in SharePoint 2013.”

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Note This is only one alternative. You can also model in Excel 2013 or PowerPivot in Excel
2013 and publish directly to SharePoint.

Clients can upload their Pivot tables and workbooks to SharePoint. If they are using Excel
2013, they can share the visualizations they create in their workbooks and Power View reports
very easily.

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Tip Train users in Power View. It's the most un-Microsoft tool I've ever used. However,
there is a return on investment after two to three clicks. Power View is a very ad hoc, very
easy, very visual report builder. Consider who will be a champion of this visualization tool.