PerformancePoint Services : Upgrading PerformancePoint Server 2007 to PerformancePoint 2010 - Straightforward and easy?

 
Doesn't seem that straightforward to me.  Most customers I know that would run Sharepoint would have a hard time giving their BI groups access to their corporate Sharepoint portals.

The "Import PerformancePoint Server 2007 Content" option seems the most straightforward requiring the least amount of database access, however the limitation of requiring Sharepoint admin rights to create security groups might be an issue for some clients.

At least there are quite a few different options to migrate content.

Most of the customers who have been using PerformancePoint Server 2007 have accumulated several months, if not years, worth of dashboards and data. Their KPIs, grids, charts, scorecards, and custom objects have gone to good use, providing a great deal of corporate discussion about how to handle business decisions and to help plan for the future. And while the 2007 version of PerformancePoint helped to do this very well, the SharePoint BI 2010 version does it even better. Understandably, most companies want to build on top of their old dashboards in 2010. And the idea of starting from scratch is unthinkable. Fortunately, Microsoft has a nice migration path so that you can migrate all of your existing objects to the new version. The migration process is straightforward, but to help ensure that things go smoothly, we’ve created a set of steps to follow.

PerformancePoint Services : Upgrading PerformancePoint Server 2007 to PerformancePoint 2010

Microsoft Excel – Asymmetrical Reports

No more counting rows of data in PerformancePoint and matching them up with the previously selected data to create asymmetrical reports.  Excel 2010 has this functionality built-in… provided you have a cube or data source behind the scenes created.

I wonder how dynamic it really is though… seems like next year (or next month) I’m going to be changing the columns in my report manually.  There had better be some dynamic time intelligence in there – without resorting to custom MDX.

Creating an Asymmetric Report with the New Set UI

A very common report layout needed by our customers is to show actual sales for the year 2008 while showing forecasted sales for the year 2009. Here is a PivotTable showing actual, budgeted and forecasted sales quotas for the last two fiscal years (click to see larger image).

As you can observe there is a lot of irrelevant information in our report such as Forecast for 2008 (since we have actual data for 2008) and Actual for 2009 (since this only includes 9 months of data). If I tried to hide Actual it would actually get hidden for both 2008 and 2009, but since I have Excel 2010 I can go ahead and create a set out my information on columns by simply going to PivotTable Tools -> Options in the ribbon, and selecting “Create set based on column items”.

Now the Named Set creation UI will pop up (click to see larger image):

The UI contains all the tuples that currently define the column labels of my Pivot report. Now I can easily remove the tuples I no longer want. In this case I am going to go ahead and remove:

Microsoft Excel

Fast GPUs Accelerate Performance of In-Memory OLAP Server | SYS-CON AUSTRALIA

 
Looks like NVidia’s Tesla cards are getting some traction.

The development is based on the open-source Jedox's Palo OLAP Server. By utilizing fast GPUs originally designed for computer games, the team of researchers and developers was able to make the breakthrough and accelerate the performance of OLAP analyses with Palo by up to 40 times of its current performance.

A prototype of this GPU version of Palo will be introduced by Jedox at this year's CeBIT at their stand in hall 4, D 53. Additionally, Jedox will also present the new release of its multiprocessor version of Palo 3.0.

Fast GPUs Accelerate Performance of In-Memory OLAP Server | SYS-CON AUSTRALIA

PerformancePoint Server Planning Gets a New Lease on Life -- Enterprise Systems

Not so much a new lease on life, as a transplant of an appendage that may or may not get rejected, the source code for PerformancePoint is released.

PerformancePoint Server Planning Gets a New Lease on Life

Microsoft last week announced a reprieve, of sorts, for beleaguered users of its PerformancePoint Planning Server.

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 06/24/2009

PerformancePoint Server Planning Gets a New Lease on Life -- Enterprise Systems

Microsoft BI: Partners

Microsoft releases the source code for PerformancePoint Planning to partners and customers.

Financial Planning Accelerator

Microsoft is pleased to make available the Financial Planning Accelerator (FPA). The FPA is source code and project files derived from the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Planning module. Based on requests from customers and partners, we are making this code available on a no-cost, individual license.
This is unsupported source code that customers and partners can use to support or change PerformancePoint Server Planning functionality. Derived object code files can be distributed to end users with Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise Client Access Licenses. To obtain access to the FPA a license agreement between Microsoft and the customer or partner is required. After that agreement is in place, download instructions will be made available.
Please e-mail fpasupp@microsoft.com to request the agreement.

Microsoft BI: Partners

Simple Studies - Best Free Online Accounting Lessons

We provide free online accounting lessons that teach introduction to accounting. These accounting tutorials explain financial accounting principles in simple accounting terms. The website also has accounting exercises with solutions and accounting dictionary. 

Simple Studies - Best Free Online Accounting Lessons

Reed Me : Bing: there it is! My PPS setup problem(s) solved.

 
Some tricks to setting up PPS with SQL 2008.

Obligatory bing plug. The name is growing on me... Link #1 in the search results was Nick Barclay’s great post on sorting out PPS setup issues with SQL Server 2008:

"System.Web.Extensions" performancepoint "configuration error" - Bing

Useful reference linkages:

• Installing and Troubleshooting M&A on Win / SQL 2008
• Install PerformancePoint Monitoring Server with SQL Server 2008 (TechNet)
• ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 (the missing piece what was causing the problem)

Reed Me : Bing: there it is! My PPS setup problem(s) solved.

Example Gallery – Tableau

Tableau has some interesting data visualizations and can connect to both relational and OLAP data sources, including PerformancePoint Planning.  Plus it’s really easy to use if you are familiar with pivot tables and drag-drop functionality. 

Check out the blog for more details and other interesting examples

http://www.tableausoftware.com/community/blog 

Example Gallery

Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites

MS has been dropped from Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CPM.

Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance
Management Suites

Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites

Microsoft Excel : Common Questions Around Excel 2007 OLAP PivotTables

 

Common Questions Around Excel 2007 OLAP PivotTables

Today's author: Allan Folting, a program manager who works on the Excel team.

I have gotten lots of questions from customers around specific functionality in Microsoft Excel 2007 PivotTables that is missing when connected to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Service Pack 2 cubes:

1. Filtering individual calculated members
2. Showing non-visual totals when filtering

I have also gotten lots of requests for the ability to add calculations to OLAP PivotTables using the object model, specifically:

1. Adding calculated members/measures
2. Adding named sets

Today I'll discuss these topics and outline current ways and workarounds to address this.

Microsoft Excel : Common Questions Around Excel 2007 OLAP PivotTables

Ten Tips for Using SharePoint Server 2007 with Excel Services

 

Ten Tips for Using SharePoint Server 2007 with Excel Services

Summary: Learn ten tips to improve your use of SharePoint Server 2007 with Excel Services from the SharePoint - Excel Services forum. (15 printed pages)

Joel Krist, Akona Consulting

May 2008

Ten Tips for Using SharePoint Server 2007 with Excel Services

Nick Barclay: BI-Lingual: PerformancePoint Monitoring Data Source Connection Problems

 

A PPS Monitoring server's default, out-of-the-box, behaviour is to connect to all data sources using a PPS application pool identity account.

That last sentence is important so it's worth repeating...

A PPS Monitoring server's default, out-of-the-box, behaviour is to connect to all data sources using a PPS application pool identity account.

Nick Barclay: BI-Lingual: PerformancePoint Monitoring Data Source Connection Problems

Download details: Microsoft Windows Dynamic Cache Service

Investigating bottlenecks with 64-bit servers?  Check the memory and ensure it is available.

Overview

The Microsoft Windows Dynamic Cache Service will manage the working set size of the Windows System File Cache. For 64 bit systems this service helps to address the problem of excessive cached read I/O that could eventually consume all of physical memory. Sample source code and compiled files are included in the compressed file.

Download details: Microsoft Windows Dynamic Cache Service

Request for comment: Global filters linked to different models

Modifying the RDL of a PPS Matrix to activate functionality within the product… tedious but useful.

We've found a way of implementing global filters (we use dimension property filters) for different models... and we'd like to know pitfalls of our approach (for the moment I can guess 2 :-))

Task: Apply global "Entity - Office" filter to Operations and Salary models

Approach:

1. Create all matrices and filters needed and apply corresponding filters to matrices.

Matrix 1: Model - Operations. Columns - Entity:Business unit Leaves. Rows - Account. Dimension property filter: Entity - Office. 

Matrix 2: Model - Salary. Columns - Account. Rows - Entity:Employees. Dimension property filter: Entity - Office

2. Edit RDL

2a. Find filter definitions

<ReportParameter Name="PerformancePoint_ebb03fb2_b6f8_4298_91cf_ceb94ee473ff"> ' Filter from Operations Model to be applied to Salary model

…

</ReportParameter>

<ReportParameter Name="PerformancePoint_ef581824_8178_4b6b_a743_59a26f740964"> ' Filter from Salary Model to be "skipped"

…

</ReportParameter>

2b. Replace Name and Value for QueryParameters using appropriate name of one of the filters (ReportParameter) you want to use for different models:

<QueryParameters>

<QueryParameter Name="PerformancePoint_ef581824_8178_4b6b_a743_59a26f740964"> ' to be replaced with see bellow

<QueryParameter Name="PerformancePoint_ebb03fb2_b6f8_4298_91cf_ceb94ee473ff">

<Value>=Parameters!PerformancePoint_ef581824_8178_4b6b_a743_59a26f740964.Value</Value> ' to be replaced with see bellow

<Value>=Parameters!PerformancePoint_ebb03fb2_b6f8_4298_91cf_ceb94ee473ff.Value</Value>

</QueryParameter>

</QueryParameters>

3. That's it.

If I select Office for Operations matrix, it's also applied to Salary Matrix :-)

Guessed pitfalls:

1. Forms and reports created using this approach can't be migrated to other application - this is hardcode! :-(

2. Any change to report definition will destroy our filters override - this is hardcode! :-(

Any thoughts re other difficulties we'll meet?

Regards, Vasily

Request for comment: Global filters linked to different models

Log Parser Lizard GUI (free edition) - Lizard Labs

Using Lizard to parse PPS Planning logs.

1. Create a header file.

DateTime Event PPS Location User Details

Note that spaces delimit the file.

2.  Create a new Log Parser Lizard Group & Query for PPS.

3. Select Tab-separated and space-separated values

4. Enter Query

select top 100 *
from '\\Path_To_PPS_Server_Logs\trace log\server.log'
--where details like '%error%'
order by rownumber desc

5. In Query Properties:

iHeaderFile = <step 2 filename>
nFields = 6
iSeparator = ‘space’
FixedSep = true

Save and “Generate” (run) the query.

 

Log Parser Lizard GUI (free edition) - Lizard Labs

Log Parser Lizard GUI (free edition) - Lizard Labs

 

Click here to download Log Parser Lizard

Log Parser is a very powerful, free and versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data, such as log files, XML files, and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Microsoft Windows operating system, such as the event log, IIS log, the registry, the file system, and the Active Directory services.

Because the command-line interface is not very intuitive, I have created Log Parser Lizard, a GUI tool for managing queries, exporting results to Excel, charts, etc… In addition I have added input filters for RegEx and log4net input log formats (with support for regular expressions) and SQL server T-SQL queries. There are some helpful examples included in installation package to help you start using Log Parser Lizard (and it’s SQL like syntax) for a web log analyzer and system log analyzer.  

Log Parser Lizard GUI (free edition) - Lizard Labs

Jon Gallant's Blog : Most Popular Microsoft Blogs – January 09

Microsoft PerformancePoint Team Blog was #81.  I wonder how it’s looking this month…

The Microsoft blogs solution has a lot of great features, but an important feature that is missing is popularity metrics. I want to know what the community is most interested in and keep up on all things Microsoft. The “all posts” feed that comes OOB doesn’t do the trick. My team inherited the Microsoft blogs apps (http://blogs.msdn.com/, http://blogs.technet.com/) recently and we are in the process of looking at adding new features to support many views over the data. Until we have all the details fleshed out I will continue post the 100 most popular MSDN and TechNet blogs on a monthly basis…complete with Opml so you can subscribe to them all at once.

Jon Gallant's Blog : Most Popular Microsoft Blogs – January 09

SQL Server 2008 Training Resources - Canada

Large collection of training resources.

SQL Server 2008 Training Resources - Canada

The Baker's Dozen: 13 Tips for Querying OLAP Databases with MDX

Roll your own Assumption Model with LookupCube.

with member [PurchaseAmt] AS LOOKUPCUBE("Project Materials Cube", "([Measures].[Purchase Amount],[Fy Qtr].[" + [FY Qtr].CurrentMember.Name + "])" ) -- We need to construct a string that looks -- exactly like this&#133; -- ( [Measures].[Purchase Amount] , [Fy Qtr].[2005 Q1]) select { [Measures].[HoursWorked], [Measures].[Total Labor], [PurchaseAmt]} on columns, [Fy Qtr].children on rows from [Project Labor Cube]

The Baker's Dozen: 13 Tips for Querying OLAP Databases with MDX

Cubegeek: Microsoft PPS: Dead.

This site will soon be called www.performancepointed.com I think.

Per-for-mance-Point-ed - definition:  To develop a planning & forecasting tool for the masses and bring the role of IT back into to Finance, and then communicate that you are discontinuing the tool after planning & forecasting cuts, and realizing many of the masses don't have multiple SQL Server Enterprise Edition and Sharepoint servers just laying around.

Disappointment indeed. It's now official. I can say with finality that I wasted a year in my career.

Cubegeek: Microsoft PPS: Dead.

Demand for PerformancePoint jobs in the UK experienced almost a 25% increase year over year.

If that was a stock I would probably be selling it.  Nice return and unsustainable growth?

Speaking of stock...

The trendline on this doesn't look very good, though I would suspect that we have some bottoms around here.  MS hasn't seen 18 bucks since the Asian crisis of 1998. 

From ITJobsWatch

I guess that intangible benefits like CFO visibility and the "potential" of Windows/Office 2007/SQL Server 2008/Sharepoint license sales and adoption don't matter in an economic downturn. Or perhaps the "what-if" analysis MS built for themselves was too good for their own good?  Maybe they forecasted something they didn't want to see?

I have been working with Planning since CTP2 and am a certified PPS Planning Trainer.  When they demo'ed Performance Point (Business Scorecard Manager) way back in 2005 at a partner convention I went to in Redmond, there was some serious excitement there.  Finally, MS would have the proper client tools for Analysis Services to compete with other OLAP vendors on, instead of some Office Web Components and a pivot table. 

Planning was just a bonus.  Bonuses get cut back in economic downturns... unless you're a bank, or a certain bank CEO. (Isn't MS a bank too?)

The good news is that PPS Monitoring is now free with Sharepoint (or is it Sharepoint is now free with PPS?).  Now if they would only release the source code for Planning & Management Reporter (and why not toss in Proclarity Desktop too?) so we can go back to building custom-tailored planning solutions without the constraints of a packaged planning tool... and have the ability to fix some of the troublesome bugs and performance issues inherent in a V1 product.

At least give us the source code for that Excel add-in reporting tool.  Lots of good possibilities there.

Nothing wrong with a little .NET code to solve some business issues.  So much more fun debugging rules in Visual Studio than trying to debug and maintain rules in a client tool like the PPS-P GUI.  Planning should have been a web application to begin with.  Keep it in the cloud guys...

Well, I'm off to develop the "yellow cell input" feature checkbox on the Excel 2007 ribbon.  The checklist for getting mine to work should be a bit shorter than the current "yellow cell input" checklist for Planning. 

1. Click the 'yellow cell input' checkbox in Excel 2007 (or just format the cell as INPUT).
2. Input your values.
3. Add your commentary next to the values.
4. Publish to your database and refresh the cube.

This was probably how Biz#/Planning got started too... 

I think we're on step #6 of the definition for performance at Microsoft.

per·form·ance [ pər fáwrmənss ] (plural per·form·ances)

noun

Definition:

1. artistic presentation: a presentation of an artistic work such as a play or piece of music to an audience

2. manner of functioning: the manner in which something or somebody functions, operates, or behaves
a high-performance car

3. working effectiveness: the way in which somebody does a job, judged by its effectiveness ( often used before a noun )
performance-related pay

4. thing accomplished: something that is carried out or accomplished

5. accomplishment of something: the act of carrying out or accomplishing something such as a task or action

6. display of behavior: a public display of behavior that others find distasteful, e.g. an angry outburst that causes embarrassment ( informal )

7. linguistics language produced: the language that a speaker or writer actually produces, as distinct from his or her understanding of the language.
See also  competence (sense 3) parolen (sense 5)

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861724999/performance.html

Sacha has more info.

http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/blogs/sachatomey/archive/2009/01/29/rip-performancepoint-planning.aspx

So does Ajay.

http://ppsinfo.blogspot.com/2009/01/pps-planning-is-being-discontinued-what.html

Convert PivotTable to PerformancePoint Planning Matrix - Sacha Tomey's blog

Sacha finds an interesting "upsizing" feature for Pivot tables.

Now if only it was so easy to convert from Report Wizard to Matrix to Custom MDX to Management Reporter Reporting Services... and back again.

There should be a market for PerformancePoint Planning RDL converters pretty soon...

Convert PivotTable to PerformancePoint Planning Matrix

I spotted a 'Convert to PerformancePoint Matrix' menu option on the context menu
of an Excel PivotTable recently.

I'd not noticed it before - it is documented within the PPS Excel Add-In help but only once, and subtly at that.  I'm glad to report, on first impressions, it appears to do a fairly decent job.

It's a one-way process that cannot be undone and it creates a 'User defined' MDX style matrix.  You are therefore limited to making subsequent edits using the Report Properties window but suffice to say it's a handly little feature that I'll no doubt use more and more now I've found it.

Convert PivotTable to PerformancePoint Planning Matrix - Sacha Tomey's blog