Merit Matters Blog - Performance Point Server

PerformancePoint Server Shift to SharePoint Server

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:06:00 -0500

Microsoft has recently announced changes to its BI Roadmap, including shifting PerformancePoint Server into SharePoint Server.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 will be released during the summer, after which Microsoft will stop all further investments in the standalone versions of PPS. The decision comes after in-depth product roadmap reviews and customer feedback. This shift will make the scorecard, dashboard, and analytical capabilities of PerformancePoint available to all users in an organization.

A more detailed product roadmap will be revealed at Convergence 2009 New Orleans... just another reason to attend!

Performance Point Server Data Integration Toolkit - Part 3

nospam@example.com (Zdravko) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:36:54 -0500

DIT uses customized .NET collections for retrieval of the dimension data from the source systems. Alongside already mentioned default dimensions, you can define any number of custom dimensions. In order to populate the required custom collection (dimension) with the corresponding source system data you first need to retrieve it from the source system. Often, source system stores the financial data in the database, and you can access it using the .NET data access classes and methods. Since memory is not an infinite resource, you should use SqlDataReader for data extraction. Once you obtain the data from the source system you can store it in the memory stored customized collection. All dimension data is stored in memory stored customized collections and overridden GPProvider methods are used for the dimension data retrieval.

Balance data is retrieved based on the carefully crafted balance request. Balance request contains a number of account and balance criteria. Your provider's task is to build (based on the submitted criteria) and execute the appropriate SQL query on the source system data. Unlike dimension data, balance data is retrieved via customized SqlDataReader object. For example, an ordinary company can store tens of thousands of transactions in its source system. Again, since memory is not an infinite resource, data is read directly from the source system database. DIW reads it using the returned customized data reader and populates it directly into the PPS database hence, no memory is used during the data extraction. By far, balance request functionality implementation is the most challenging part of the custom provider development. In order to successfully implement it, you need the thoroughly analyze the source system data. Also you should write unit tests for each of the overridden GPProvider methods, since balance request criteria testing can easily turn into a time consuming nightmare.

View Part 2 of this series.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 Now Available

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:06:11 -0500

The Microsoft Downloads Center has the following Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 products available for download:

PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 (64bit)
PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 (32bit)
PerformancePoint Server 2007 Management Reporter SP2

Note from the PerformancePoint Team Blog:
We are also releasing a script from MS Downloads, which PerformancePoint Server Planning customers who have installed builds 3.0.3999.1 or higher are required to run before installing PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2. PerformancePoint Server customers who are deploying SP2 with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 must also install four SQL Server 2005 CU9 redistributables, which are available for download as hotfixes from the SQL Server 2005 CU9 site. For details, see the PerformancePoint Server Planning Readme.

PerformancePoint Server Data Integration Toolkit - Part2

nospam@example.com (Zdravko) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:55:00 -0400

Data Integration Toolkit (DIT) was introduced in the part 1 of this post. In part 2 we will focus on how it can be used to create a custom provider for your source system.

By now, it is assumed that you have downloaded and installed the DIT on your development system. If you look at the DIT assemblies, you will find a number of general ledger (GL) related data collections.

The main task of the provider you are going to create is going to be the retreival of GL data from your source system. This data will be stored in those GL related data collections. The main DIT class, which is called from the PerformancePoint Server (PPS) Data Import Wizard (DIW) and used for preparation of the source system data for the PPS, is the GLProvider class. You can find it in the Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.PerformancePointServer.GLDataProvider.dll DIT assembly.

To start building your custom data provider you will have to inherit the GLProvider class and override a number of its methods. The GLProvider class contains override methods for the extraction of the default dimensions. Some of those dimensions are calendars, entities, currencies account types, account segments etc. In addition to this, any number of custom dimensions can be specified. You will find more info about the implementing of the various dimension retrieval methods in the Part 3 of these posts.

Microsoft issued a Dynamics GP to PPS integration provider. This provider is created using the DIT and it is extracting data from Dynamics GP and importing it into PPS. You can look into it to find out what you're striving for and what a custom provider should look like.

If you want to read more about it, you can find a review here.

Microsoft Performance Management Solutions – PerformancePoint Server / Management Reporter

nospam@example.com (Brent) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:18:41 -0400

Direct or FDM 7.0 data warehouse? That is the question.

You may fall into one of the following Microsoft FRx partner profiles: an existing ERP partner of Microsoft FRx, a new prospective ERP partner, or a customer who (instead of FRx) desires to use PerformancePoint Server and Management Reporter for your enterprise reporting needs.

If you fit one of these profiles and are considering PerformancePoint Server / Management Reporter, you may be asking yourself the question, “Is it right for me to develop a data provider integration to PerformancePointserver and Management Reporter?”

At Merit Solutions, based on our findings and integration development experience with PerformancePoint Server and Management Reporter, there appear to be three different types of consumers pursuing answers to this question.

Current FRx partners with an FDM 7.0 (Financial Data Mart) integration to FRx.
Current FRx partners with a direct integration between their system and FRx.
ERP software companies or their customers who were not FRx partners but need a management reporting solution.

Your interest in migrating to Microsoft PerformancePoint Server / Management Reporter may be because you may want to take advantage of the Balanced Scorecard and other reporting functionality capabilities of Microsoft PerformancePoint Server / Management Reporter. To get there, you will need to decide between the direct approach or the FDM 7.0 approach.

Possible reasons to consider developing a direct integration:

Prior to Management Reporter, it was difficult if not impossible to do a direct integration, and Microsoft did all of the development in-house, so they only offered the service to specific partners. So, the FDM decision was often driven by having no other choice. Given the tools and interface publicly available, we can efficiently write the integration in a best-practices-Microsoft-supported manner.
Real time data
Less setup and maintenance required by your end customer (no data loading, no data refresh, no extra data warehouse to maintain)
If you have a previously developed FDM 7.0 integration, you already have most of the information you need to provide in order for us to create a data provider.

With regards to potential performance problems resulting from getting reporting data directly from the transactional database, the following can be said:

Smaller customers (with little hardware resources) and large customers (with huge quantities of transactions) are probably the ones most at risk. Careful analysis and allocation of resources can help manage the risks.
Very large integrations have been written to report directly from transactional databases with similar data (FRx’s direct integrations). They can work very well.
There are a great deal of opportunities to mitigate these potential issues, such as creating a mirrored database, data warehousing just transactional data or even setting reports to run on weekends or other off-peak periods, etc.

Merit Solutions takes a consultative approach to software development that takes into account business processes, best practices and customers’ preferred technologies among other factors to help you make the right decisions on these integration projects. So, contact us to set up a no-obligation evaluation of your situation and let us help you make the right decisions about implementing PerformancePoint Server with Management Reporter or any Microsoft Dynamics product.

About PerformancePoint Server 2007:

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server is a performance management application that helps users monitor the performance of their organizations, analyze the results, and make effective business decisions. While many solutions on the market focus on business analysts and BI experts, PerformancePoint Server is designed to reach everyone in your organization.

By importing data from your ERP system into PerformancePoint Server 2007, you enable end users to create reports and scorecards with familiar and easy-to-use Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, Outlook, and SharePoint. For more information about PerformancePoint Server, use the following links;

http://www.microsoft.com/bi/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/performancepoint/default.aspx

PerformancePoint Time dimension

nospam@example.com () — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:17:12 -0400

I need to create a Time dimension that starts on 1/1/1970 to load historical data. However, when I create the PerformancePoint calendar, I can't go back more than 25 years from now. I also tried to sync the dimension to staging so that I could load it there, but then I can't load it back into production because the 'Load this dimension from Staging Area' is not available. Does anyone have a work around for this? It is a serious matter for me. Thanks, ceecee

Performance Point Server Data Integration Toolkit - Part1

nospam@example.com (Zdravko) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:40:57 -0400

Microsoft Office Performance Point Server is a BI software product from Microsoft. It is fully integrated with other Microsoft Office products including Excel, Visio, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server. The software itself allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization. Performance Point Server is using Data Integration Framework to retrieve the data from diferent source systems. This framework enables the development of data providers that target various source systems (like Dynamics AX, Dynamics GP, or other third party source system) and surface data to consumers in a standardized and meaningful way. In the following posts, I will try to illustrate PPS Data Integration Toolkit architecture and the way of using it for development of custom data providers. For more information you can read Tim Kent's blog or search through PPS related blogs.

Top 10 Benefits of PPS

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:14:05 -0400

Merit Solutions, Inc. -

The Top 10 Benefits of Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 can help transform your business process and turn your data into a competitive advantage:

A complete and integrated performance management solution
Performance management for all business users
Monitoring, analyzing, and planning across the entire organization
Advanced analytic and visualization capabilities
Aligned and integrated corporate planning
Shorter budgeting cycles and broader contribution
Accountability from the individual to the enterprise
Cross-enterprise view
Enhanced partnership between IT and business analysts
Built on the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform

For more information on each of the benefits, read the full article: PerformancePoint Server 2007 Top 10 Benefits.