PerformancePoint Monitoring Server SP1 includes the following enhancements:
· Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008
· Add a default display condition report view (see related blog post)
· Multi-select Monitoring server filters passing to multi-select SQL Server Reporting Services report parameters
· Time Intelligence Post Filter formula date corrections
o In some instances filters were passing a one day offset, this is resolved
o Date format of filter will now honor localized formats
· Negative numbers will not cause a text wrap in scorecards
· Dashboard filter performance improvements
· Expand/collapse functions work properly with hidden parent KPI members
· Updated sample data file
· Tabular filter support
· Multi-select filters can now be passed to a Strategy Map report view
· Limit of 1,000 characters in an MDX expression for KPIs has been removed
· No longer blocked from using SQL Server 2008 as a data source (NOTE: full support for 2008 is coming in SP2, we just won’t prevent you from running on it with SP1)
Since PPS M&A requirements SharePoint, I bet you find yourself doing a lot of SharePoint setup and development. I found the following link today that I have found kind of useful.
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pedia/pages/home.aspx
I got this from an internal document on how to install PPS on the same machine that has Active Directory installed.
Domain Controllers
While it's not a hard-and-fast rule, most AD administrators will tell you that a domain controller should not run other applications. Since your domain controllers are the "keys" to your network "kingdom", you should do your best to isolate them from attack. By adding additional applications to run on a DC, you are increasing the number of ways that a malicious user can attack that DC. Depending on the size of your network, having dedicated domain controllers may also improve performance in terms of user authentication, and logon times.
Running PerformancePoint Server 2007 on a domain controller is not an advised production scenario and is not a supported scenario. This is why the installer blocks the install of PerformancePoint Server 2007 on domain controllers.
Workaround
There is a command line parameter that will allow the PerformancePoint Server 2007 to install and configure on a domain controller. There are some manual steps to be complete before installation and configuration.
Installing PerformancePoint Planning Server on a Domain Controller
1. You MUST create a new domain account for the Planning Service Identity. You cannot use the domain administrator account as the Service Identity.
2. Using Start\Administrators\Active Directory Users and Computers:
a. Create a new domain account, e.g. DOMAIN\PlanningSI
b. Add it to the Domain Administrators group
c. Add it to the IIS_WPG group
3. Open Start\Administrative Tools\Domain Controller Security Policy
a. Under Local Policies\User Rights Assignment:
i. Grant PlanningSI the “Log on as a batch job” right
ii. Grant PlanningSI the “Log on as a service” right
4. Install the Planning server MSI using this command line:
a. msiexec /i PPLSrv.msi SKIPOSCHECK=true
5. In the Configuration Wizard, specify the domain account created above as the SI account
Installing PerformancePoint Monitoring Server on a Domain Controller
1. If you are using a domain account, you must add it to the Administrators and IIS_WPG groups before installing the Monitoring Server. You don’t need to do this if using Network Service (recommended).
2. To add a domain account to the appropriate groups: Use Start\Administrators\Active Directory Users and Computers:
a. Add it to the Domain Administrators group
b. Add it to the IIS_WPG group
3. Install the Monitoring server MSI using this command line:
a. msiexec /i PscSrv.msi SKIPOSCHECK=true
What is in it, got this email the following week. It doesn't list everything, but if they are doing everything that is in the email, that is a good thing.
· Filter performance – you should see a 4-6x improvement in your filter performance, this is an area we would like some feedback on
· Multi-select filters in PPS will now pass to multi-select parameters in SSRS reports
· Negative numbers causing text wrap
· Time Intelligence day offset issues and localization issues
· Display conditions not working for strategy map and excel services views
· Null actual values yielding incorrect status
· Dashboard designer dashboard layout improvements
· Chart/grid bug fixes
· Strategy map improvements
· And many more
There are almost 300 fixes that are implemented in SP1.
I saw this question on an internal Microsoft alias, so I answered it and several people like the answer so I figured I should blog it...
Question: What are the possibilities for combining Dashboard elements (KPIs, scorecards, filters and reports) with SharePoint elements (e.g. as shown below: list of links, announcement and shared documents)? Can this be accomplished through PerformancePoint Server / Dashboard Designer or do we have to construct the page from SharePoint using the different webparts, including Dashboard elements?
You can also do this, we have done this numerous times, works well. I have also presented this "how-to" at the Office and SharePoint developer conferences recently.
- Create a blank .ASPX page using SharePoint Designer
- Drop your desired "List" onto the page
- Link the page with your site style sheet, so it looks pretty
- Save the page and remember the URL
- Open PPS M&A Designer
- Create a NEW Web Page Report View
- Enter the URL from above
- Go to your Dashboard page and drop that report view where you want it.
- Publish ALL and then Publish Page to SharePoint.
- Done.
Example Screen
Got an email from Bruno today about a new book by him, Bruno Aziza and Joey Fitts.
I hope you have been doing well. I just wanted to share some news with you – and it’s not an April Fool’s Day joke! My book, Drive Business Performance is being printed as we speak! It will be available at your local bookstore (Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.) by April 25, 2008. However, you can pre-order it now for 40% off from Drive Business Performance: Enabling a Culture of Intelligent Execution (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series)
About the book
We were very fortunate to have Drs. Robert Kaplan & David Norton, creators of the Balanced Scorecard management methodology, contribute the Foreword. And we’re excited to see business executives and thought leaders alike afford the book praise: "a pragmatic guide for world-class decision making," "a ground-breaking book that executives and managers alike should read," "provides specific and easy-to-follow guidance to deliver results. A must read for any organization seeking to win."
Stories and guidance…not jargon
Drive Business Performance explains the competitive advantage experienced by organizations that create and manage a "Culture of Performance." It is filled with first-hand accounts from Fortune 500 companies who are winning by building accountability, intelligence, and informed decision-making into their organizational DNA. The book aims to demystify performance management and is jargon-free.
Debut events
· World Innovation Forum in NYC on April 8-9th: Featured in a session on Please let me know if you happen to be attending the World Innovation, the book will make its debut there.
· Stanford Executive Briefing on April 16th: The book co-author Joey Fitts and I will present on How to Drive Business Performance. Please let me know if you are planning to attend & I’ll look forward to seeing you there!
I hope you enjoy the book!
Found this article on PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics performance tuning.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb660539.aspx
My laptop was not joined to a domain, so it took a little while longer to install that I wanted it to. The setup help wasn't any good either... Anyway, I got it up and running. Looks like this should be fun to learn... More to come
The first screenshot is what the startup screen looks like.
This screen is a good example of the Report Definitions.
Microsoft just released to manufacturing PerformancePoint 2007 Management Reporter. I'm in the process of installing it and will upload some screenshots and thoughts over the next couple weeks.
Business Objects and Cognos have long been considered the leaders in business intelligence platforms. But in a surprising new report, Gartner
ranks Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) ahead of those companies in its ability to execute.
More at link: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206104502&subSection=News
From my session sponsors web site....
Well folks, the ODC is a week away, and the Architecture Track team is all set to deliver a compelling track that will hopefully leave you well educated about the capabilities of the Office System as a Business Solutions Platform, and yearning for more!
The final list of track sessions can be found at the following URL:
https://microsoft.crgevents.com/ODC2008/Content/default.aspx?p=7VE4KC
We have a number of top SharePoint/Office MVPs and MS folks who live & breathe the Office System day in and day out, ready to rock your days at the conference.
If you are amongst the Solution Architects or Techno Business Descision Makers who are wondering or want to learn more about what all this is buzz about Office Business Applications (OBAs) and the Office System as a Business Solutions platform is all about, then the ODC 08 Architecture track is the train that you need to ride from start to finish.
The track's single and focused overarching theme is "The Business Solution Platform capabilities of the Office System and OBAs - Office Business Applications". The track sessions are categorized into the following 3 broad sub-themes:
Fundamentals: Office System Platform capabilities related to enabling compelling Business Solution User Experiences, Business Intelligence, and BPM solutions to extend the reach of investments in Line of Business systems & applications, across an enterprise/organization. Sessions related to this theme will also help you wade the maze of MS platform offerings of pertinence to these areas, how they relate to and interplay with teh Office System to enable rich information worker and user productivity, and provide prescriptive guidance on making the optimal technology choices in these areas to land solutions that meet your business needs.
Cutting Edge: Composite Solutions Architectures, the benefits of composite solutions development, composite solution platform requirements, and how composite solutions can be materialized using the Office System will be the "cutting edge" theme for the Architecture track at ODC 08. A very cool and new open source "OBA Composition Reference Toolkit" will be announced and demonstrated to illustrate the related concepts and capabilities. Without giving too much away... if you ever wondered what Web 2.0 mashup experiences like those enabled by Popfly for the social communities could possibly mean to an enterprise/business...you should not miss seeing this work that we will be demoing and announcing in both the opening session of the Architecture track (to be delivered by Javed Sikander, a Senior Director in the Platform Architecture team at MSFT) and in the deeper drill down session on building composite Office Business Applications (delivered by your's truly).
Real World: The application of OBA concepts and solution architectures in the real world. Related sessions will include a presentation delivered by the MCS team on their real world experiences in deploying SharePoint and Office Business solutions, sessions that describe solution architectures adopted by real world ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics and SAP to integrate with the Office System and extend the reach of their solutions, and industry focused sessions delievered by leading Microsoft Industry experts who will talk about how OBAs are being adopted and used in the Financial Services and the Public Sector industries.
All in all...it should be a terrific show in the Architecture track. I look forward to greeting you all at the ODC in a week from now.
Make sure to attend the opening session of the Architecture track on Monday Feb 11th at 1:30PM. This is a track keynote type session delivered by Javed Sikander (Senior Director, Platform Architecture, MSFT) that will provide you a broad overview of the focus domain for the Architecture track, and will include teasers + pointers to the many following drill down Architecture track sessions that will be delivered across the 3 days.
Regards, Karthik |
The PerformancePoint Server 2007 exam link has just gone live: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-556.mspx
Prep for the exam with self-directed learning courses, which have been designed to give you a quick start on building your performance management solution. Click here to get started.
The link is currently posted on https://partner.microsoft.com/US/program/competencies/iwsolutions/40043177
The PerformancePoint Server 2007 Planning & Architecture Guide, Deployment Guide, and Operations Guide are now available as downloadable books.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161069.aspx
This is from my BI Manager Kristi Taylor
We recently began the process of migrating a PPS Application from our development environment into test and into production. We utilized the Planning Server Data Migration Wizard to help us accomplish this task. Although this wizard saved us a lot of time we still ran into some problems and I would like to share with you the resolutions.
Problem #1 our inherited application had some “manual edits” renaming the PPS calendar dimension members. When we ran the PSD Import command line the calendar was created with the PPS default labels and when we went to sync the staging db to the app db on the destination, the tool failed because the calendar dimension didn’t match.
Resolution: For auto-generated PPS dims and members such as Time, it is critical that you create the destination application and then go in and rename the members to match those renamed members in the source server.
Problem #2 It turns out when migrating the tables, many dimensions get new Primary Id’s assigned to their members. Your scorecard file by default references these id’s (through your KPI creation). After we finally migrated our application we opened our pre-existing Dashboard Designer file and re-mapped the data source to our new AS cube. Our scorecard would not render any values however we were able to create a “new” report pointed to the Olap cube and could see all values associated with each KPI.
Resolution
· If you DON’T have multiple applications running on one PPS site server, reference Database Mirroring on technet for guidance which will enable exact table replication, therefore not running into the problem of “re-generated” primary key. This is not recommended for environments running multiple applications.
· Manual Primary Key Remapping: The tedious way which must be repeated for each KPI every time you migrate: manually delete all filters (dimensions and members) associated with each KPI (and each actual, target and trend indicator associated with each KPI)
OR
· Eliminating the primary key dependency in your Dashboard Designer file. We have to give credit to Srikanth Yalamanchili for pointing us in this direction:
We will likely apply these steps to EVERY Dashboard Designer File we create so that future migrations are not an issue and we have no dependency primary keys that change on every migration. Here are the steps that can be applied prior to or after an application migration:
· Open the Tables in your PPS App DB for all dimensions being in your Dashboard Designer KPI’s, in our application this was:
Scorecard Scenario
KPI’s
Measures (Actuals, Target and Trend)
· Identify the primary key # associated with each of the members you are referencing
· Open the Dashboard Designer file with Notepad
· Find and replace all primary key strings with the actual “Label” name of the members you are referencing
Example for Scenario Reporting:
Find .&[112]
Replace ALL with .[Reporting]
· Once you have done this save your file and open with dashboard designer.
· Your dashboard designer file is now independent of “changing” primary keys
· You can “see” what you have done if you Open a KPI, Open the Dimension Filters associated with the KPI, note that “no” member name is actually highlited here (if it were it would again populate the xml with the primary key # instead of the label)
· REMEMBER if you add a kpi, or any attribute to a kpi such as trend etc, you will again have a primary key value assigned to that KPI, if you don’t follow the steps above, when you migrate your connection will again break.
Problem #2.B We had some KPI’s that use an & in the name i.e. “Windows & Sharepoint….”, these KPI’s could not be replaced with the label because they have an & in the label.
Resolution: For these KPI’s apply Manual Primary Key Remapping noted in the first resolution above.
Problem #3 We also ran into an issue when “publishing” these changes to the Sharepoint and M&A Server we were migrating to. We would “Publish” our book to the destination M&A server and all seemed well, however any dashboard previously published to this server with the same name was not truly “overwritten”. This was apparent when we attempted to either preview or publish the new dashboard to sharepoint and received an error that the dashboards couldn’t be found. When we refreshed (anticipating to pull down the dashboard we had just published) what we had published moments earlier was overwritten by the pre-existing dashboard with the same name… again resulting in no values showing for the scorecard.
Resolution We refreshed the Dashboard Designer file from the destination M&A server and “deleted” all (to be safe) pre-existing published data on the server regardless of name (Dashboards, KPI’s, Scorecards, Reports and Data Sources). We then published our newly edited book and successfully were able to publish to Preview and Sharepoint seeing all of our changes.