Most of the time it happens that the metrics that make up your key
performance indicators are not simple values from a data source. In SharePoint Server 2007 PerformancePoint
Services, you could create two kinds of KPI metrics: Simple single value
metrics from any supported data source or Complex multiple value metrics from a
single Analysis Services data source using MDX. Now things are even easier with
Performance Point Services in SharePoint 2010. Let us check what is it?
PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint
Server 2010 is a performance management service that you can use to monitor
and analyze your business. By providing flexible, easy-to-use tools for
building dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators
(KPIs), PerformancePoint Services can help everyone across an organization make
informed business decisions that align with companywide objectives and
strategy. Scorecards, dashboards, and KPIs help drive accountability. Integrated
analytics help employees move quickly from monitoring information to analyzing
it and, when appropriate, sharing it throughout the organization.
Prior to the addition of PerformancePoint Services to SharePoint
Server, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 functioned as a
standalone server. Now PerformancePoint functionality is available as an
integrated part of the SharePoint Server Enterprise license, as is the case
with Excel Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. The popular features
of earlier versions of PerformancePoint Services are preserved along with
numerous enhancements and additional functionality.
New PerformancePoint Services features
PerformancePoint Services now can utilize SharePoint Server scalability,
collaboration, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery capabilities.
Dashboards and dashboard items are stored and secured within SharePoint lists
and libraries, providing you with a single security and repository framework.
New features and enhancements of SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint
Services
With PerformancePoint
Services, functioning as a service in SharePoint Server, dashboards and
dashboard items are stored and secured within SharePoint lists and
libraries, providing you with a single security and repository framework.
The new architecture also takes advantage of SharePoint Server
scalability, collaboration, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery
capabilities. You also can include and link PerformancePoint Services Web
Parts with other SharePoint Server Web Parts on the same page. The new
architecture also streamlines security models that simplify access to
report data.
The Decomposition Tree is a
new visualization report type available in PerformancePoint Services. You
can use it to quickly and visually break down higher-level data values
from a multi-dimensional data set to understand the driving forces behind
those values. The Decomposition Tree is available in scorecards and
analytic reports and ultimately in dashboards.
You can access more detailed
business information with improved scorecards. Scorecards have been
enhanced to make it easy for you to drill down and quickly access more
detailed information. PerformancePoint scorecards also offer more flexible
layout options, dynamic hierarchies, and calculated KPI features. Using
this enhanced functionality, you can now create custom metrics that use
multiple data sources. You can also sort, filter, and view variances
between actual and target values to help you identify concerns or risks.
Better Time Intelligence
filtering capabilities that you can use to create and use dynamic time
filters that are always up to date. Other improved filters improve the
ability for dashboard users to quickly focus in on information that is
most relevant.
Ability to include and link
PerformancePoint Services Web Parts together with other PerformancePoint
Services Web parts on the same page.
Easier to author and publish
dashboard items by using Dashboard Designer.
SQL Server Analysis Services
2008 support.
Increased support for
accessibility compliance in individual reports and scorecards.
The KPI Details report is a
new report type that displays contextually relevant information about
KPIs, metrics, rows, columns, and cells within a scorecard. The KPI
Details report works as a Web part that links to a scorecard or individual
KPI to show relevant metadata to the end user in SharePoint Server. This
Web part can be added to PerformancePoint dashboards or any SharePoint
Server page.
Create analytics reports to
better understand underlying business forces behind the results. Analytic
reports have been enhanced to support value filtering, new chart types,
and server-based conditional formatting.
To conclude, PerformancePoint Services, by becoming tightly integrated with
SharePoint Server 2010, takes advantage of many enterprise-level SharePoint
Server 2010 features. Unfortunately, SharePoint
Foundation 2010 doesn’t include this feature. There are still many choices in SharePoint
family of products that include SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Foundation,
SharePoint Server 2007 and associated free
SharePoint web parts and templates.
