Chapter 1. Preamble

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) describes the ability to jointly analyze all of a company's data, distilling relevant information to be used to foster better business decisions. The foundation of any BI solution is the careful preprocessing of existing data, for example, in a data warehouse.

ReportServer acts as the gateway between end-users and the collected data, allowing users to efficiently access and analyze the available data. From camera-ready evaluations to fine-grained ad-hoc reporting; ReportServer provides you with the tools to support your daily work.

Target Audience

This document is designed for future administrators of ReportServer.

Separate manuals and instructions illustrate the various aspects of ReportServer.

• ReportServer Configuration Guide: Describes the installation of ReportServer as well as the basic configuration options.
• ReportServer User Guide: The user guide describes ReportServer from the point of view of the ultimate user. It includes an in-depth coverage of dynamic lists (ReportServer's adhoc reporting solution), execution of reports, scheduling of reports, and much more.
• ReportServer Administrator Guide: The administrator guide describes ReportServer from the point of view of administrators that are tasked with maintaining the daily operation of the reporting platform including the development of reports, managing users and permissions, monitoring the system state, and much more.
• ReportServer Scripting Guide: The ReportServer scripting guide covers the scripting capabilities of ReportServer which can be used for building complex reports as well as for extending the functionality of ReportServer or performing critical maintenance tasks. It extends the introduction to these topics given in the administrator guide.