Business Intelligence on the Microsoft Application Platform dated circa 2015 was achieved through combining three Microsoft technologies: SQL Server as the data and analytical engine, SharePoint as the collaboration platform, and Office for the primary user experience. It is possible to use these technologies alone, for example PowerPivot in Excel for self-service analytics of large amounts of data, or just by using the Data Mining or Tabular and Multidimensional analysis components of SQL Server. Nevertheless, the most interesting, and the most complete, enterprise-grade BI solutions are created when the entire platform is used together, especially for larger, more traditional corporations. Newer, post-2015, cloud-first solutions tend to be less centralised and use the more recent Power BI, which has now separated from its original roots in Excel.

Below, you will find eight free, older, short videos introducing different capabilities of a hypothetical BI solution built on that more traditional Microsoft Application Platform. If you work for a larger bank or another company that uses “big” enterprise software, you may even find this very relevant today, and for quite some time to come, perhaps into 2020s.

If you are looking for a more in-depth online course on these subjects, head for the Introduction to Business Intelligence course, or browse the full content catalogue which also covers newer approaches.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence (Article)

Predictive Analysis with Microsoft SQL Server & Excel

Self-Service Data Mash-ups with Microsoft PowerPivot and SharePoint Server

Dashboards and Scorecards with Microsoft SQL Server and SharePoint Server

Data Warehousing and Integration with Microsoft SQL Server

Multidimensional Analysis with Microsoft Excel and SQL Server

Spatial Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server and SharePoint Server