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SQL Server Audiences and Roles

New: 14 April 2006

Roles represent five general categories of SQL Server users. Each role associates users in that category with the sets of tasks they perform when they use SQL Server, and the knowledge they must have to successfully complete those tasks. The audience for each topic in SQL Server Books Online is the role or set of roles whose members would find the information in the topic useful.

SQL Server Audience Roles

Every topic in SQL Server Books Online contains information that is intended for members of one or more of these five roles. The InfoCenters that are listed in the table are technology-specific topics that guide you to the information and tasks that are most important for being successful in a given combination of role and technology. For example, the Analysis Services Administrator InfoCenter has links to the information that is important for Analysis Services administrators.

  • Analyst role icon Analyst
    Creates reports and data models for personal use and perhaps for other people in an organization. Analysts can be data processing professionals, but are more frequently responsible for analyzing enterprise data while they perform other job functions.

    Available InfoCenter for this role:

    Reporting Services

Note

The audience roles that are described here differ from the security roles that are used by the SQL Server technologies, such as the server-level roles or database-level roles that are defined for the Database Engine.

Matching a Role to Your Job

Books Online uses five roles that map to a range of job classifications. Using relatively few roles simplifies the presentation of information, but it also means that few users will perform exactly the set of tasks defined for a given role. Workers in large enterprises will frequently have jobs that focus on a more narrowly defined set of tasks than are described by a given role, whereas people in small to medium size organizations might have jobs that include tasks from two or more roles. For example, enterprise developers might work on applications, Web sites, databases, or reports only, and some enterprise administration tasks might be performed by database administrators, data center operators, and Help desk operators. By contrast, in a small organization, the same person might perform both database administrator and database developer tasks.

Therefore, use the roles as general guidelines for the type of information that is contained in a topic. Look for topics that are related to the role, or combination of roles, that best fits the tasks you perform with SQL Server.

See Also

Concepts

SQL Server InfoCenters

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance