Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offers different ways to look at the data in the system. Let's take a look at the history of how we perform analysis with our CRM data, as indicated in the following figure:
In the previous version of Microsoft CRM, we could export the data into an Excel document and then further slice and dice the data to perform analysis on the data. At the more advanced level, users could leverage the out-of-the-box reports or create their own reports to get the information to help them drive their business decisions, or for communicating performance to other people. The reports only represent a snapshot of the transaction data in time and do not provide any trend analysis or any real-time, continuous flow of business decisions the way that most business intelligence software does. Companies usually spend quite a bit of money to incorporate charts and dashboards or any other kind of business intelligence into their system. All of the ways mentioned require...