SharePoint is becoming a real contender when it comes to platforms for building business dashboards. Did you know that Microsoft SharePoint now holds 10% of the portal market? In speaking with an enterprise dashboard project manager, I realized that many people don’t realize that Microsoft released a bunch of preconfigured SharePoint site templates meant to address various business departmental needs. There are over 30 such demo sites. The problem is that these sites are not hosted by Microsoft on the web so that enterprise dashboard afficionadoes can play with them. They are offerred for download at the Sharepoint Community Portal, but you have to install them into your Sharepoint environment to play with them.

I’ve done so and am impressed with them. I’ll be taking screenshots of some of the more interesting executive dashboards and share them with you Dashboard Spy readers.

Here is the Competitive Intelligence Dashboard template. Sharepoint parts dedicated to competitive intelligence needs include document libraries such as Competitor, Industry, Sales Tools, PR Tools, etc. I’ve included a screenshot below of one of the document libraries:

Here is the document library screenshot. It is shown partly populated by sales tools such as white papers and case studies.

Note: If the IT department has Sharepoint installed at your company, it most probably is still Sharepoint 2003. If you are new to Sharepoint, the best book for learning that version is Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SharePoint 2003 in 10 Minutes (Sams Teach Yourself). If you are lucky enough to have the Sharepoint 2007 version, be aware that things have changed significantly. Start with Microsoft SharePoint 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Dashboard Spy Info: This is another post in the series of business intelligence dashboard studies done by a mysterious individual known only as The Dashboard Spy. No one knows who he is, but his collection of BI Dashboards is becoming quite famous. If you have a business dashboard project that you would like to have featured, send Dash an email at info -at_ enterprise-dashboard.com. Please replace those characters with the @ sign.

The Dashboard Spy Business Intelligence Dashboards Blog