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PerformancePoint Services and Business Intelligence WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER? Installing and confi guring PerformancePoint Services Dashboard Designer Importing PerformancePoint Server 2007 content to PerformancePoint Services 2010 PerformancePoint Services (PPS) is one of the built-in services in SharePoint Server 2010. PPS is a performance management application that individuals use to monitor and analyze business data to help improve effectiveness and effi ciency. Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) solution is based on using PPS in SharePoint 2010, SQL Server, and the Offi ce Platform. PPS is avail- able to any company that installs SharePoint Server 2010 using an Enterprise key, and has purchased Enterprise Client Access Licenses (CALs) for its employees. Microsoft introduced PerformancePoint capability in a stand-alone product called PerformancePoint Server 2007 (PPS2007), and this capability integrated with SharePoint Server 2007 through the use of Web Parts. With the introduction of SharePoint Server 2010, PPS is now an integrated part of SharePoint 2010’s architecture and exists as one of the available services. PPS retains many of the same features and functionality as its predecessor while including additional ben- efi ts, enhancements, and new functionality. PPS provides the capability to create and utilize BI objects referred to as dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs). PPS also provides the capability to upgrade PPS2007 content using a wizard-driven process. Using PPS begins with creating objects using a rich client tool called Dashboard Designer. Dashboard Designer provides a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get authoring experience. 20 586 CHAPTER 20 PerformaNcePoiNt services aNd BUsiNess iNtelligeNce Designer objects are stored in SharePoint lists and libraries so that they can be utilized by other SharePoint 2010 features. Once these objects have been created, they are published or deployed to SharePoint 2010 websites so that their information can be viewed by individuals across the enterprise. To do justice to the PerformancePoint capability in SharePoint Server 2010, we would need to write a whole book just to introduce the numerous features. The good news is that you will find books dedicated to PPS if you are interested, as well as books that are dedicated to specific elements of PPS. Yes, it is both deep and wide. Our purpose in this chapter is to provide the administrator with the information necessary to install and configure PPS, while briefly introducing the BI capability and features. We start with a very brief introduction of key PPS features and terminology. PPS FEATURES AND TERMINOLOGY This section introduces the PerformancePoint Services capabilities, and provides a table summarizing the relevant terminology that is used in Microsoft BI and in this chapter. PerformancePoint is one of the services in SharePoint Server 2010. The administrator will utilize the new service application architecture to install and configure PPS. PPS is used to create, display, and interact with first-class objects (FCOs). FCOs are dash- boards that contain scorecards, reports, KPIs, filters, and data sources. FCOs bring data together from multiple data sources. Table 20-1 provides descriptions of the FCOs. FCOs are stored as content types and secured within SharePoint Server 2010 lists and librar- ies, providing a single repository for the information. Specifically, data sources are stored in document libraries, and all other FCOs are stored in lists. Dashboards that are stored in the list as FCOs represent dashboard pages, while dashboards that have been deployed are stored in a different document library. Under the covers, an FCO is defined by XML data in the content type. Because PPS is now built into SharePoint Server 2010, it can take advantage of the other SharePoint Server 2010 features, such as the security framework, scalability, collaboration, backup and restore, search, and disaster recovery capabilities. PPS Web Parts can link to other PPS Web Parts or other SharePoint 2010 Web Parts on the same page. PPS includes a new type of report called the Decomposition Tree. The Decomposition Tree simplifies the display of a multi-dimensional data set so that the data can be more readily interpreted. Because easy visualization and interpretation is at the heart of the BI process, this is going to be a very popular view. Before we introduce Dashboard Designer and demonstrate how BI objects are created and published, we need to describe how to install and configure PPS. This is a key aspect for the administrator, so it represents the bulk of the chapter. PPS Installation and Configuration 587 TABLE 201: First-Class Object Terminology OBJECT DESCRIPTION Dashboard A visual display of information that helps promote collaboration and improve decision making. This display includes scorecards, KPIs, reports, and filters. A dashboard is created using Dashboard Designer and published to SharePoint Server 2010. Scorecard One or more elements of a dashboard that represent a compilation of KPIs. They are used to track status, and they help measure KPIs. Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Measures the performance or success against some metric defined by the organization. This usually involves comparing a target value to an actually achieved value. For example, you could compare target sales by geography to actual sales by geography. Filter Controls the view of a dashboard so that only select items are available. Indicator A visual element of a KPI that quickly displays the status without drilling into the data. The iconic example is the red, yellow, and green colors of the trac light. Data Source Provides the information for PPS to connect to a back-end system that con- tains information. PPS can connect to Analysis Services, Excel Services, Excel Workbooks, SharePoint Lists, and SQL Server Table and Views. Reports Allows data to be visualized and summarized using charts. PPS includes several types of reports: Analytic Chart, Analytic Grid, Strategy Map, KPI Details, SQL Server Reporting Services reports, and Excel Services. PPS INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION The installation and configuration of SharePoint 2010 was presented in depth in Chapter 4, so only the pertinent details for installing and configuring PerformancePoint Services are discussed in this chapter. You should review Chapter 4 to ensure you have a good understanding of the SharePoint 2010 installation and the wizards that are available to assist in the configuration, but some of the relevant details are repeated here for simplicity. After SharePoint 2010 is installed, the administrator must configure the SharePoint farm. There are two wizards: the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard, which is used to create a new SharePoint farm or add your server to an existing farm, and the Farm Configuration Wizard (or Central Administration Wizard), which is used to help you provision service applications. Our inter- est is in the second wizard. Both of these wizards were run as part of the installation instructions in Chapter 4; but you should know that the Farm Configuration Wizard can be launched from the Central Administration home page using the Configuration Wizards link and the Launch the Farm Configuration Wizard link on the Configuration Wizards web page. This should display the web page shown in Figure 20-1. 588 CHAPTER 20 PerformaNcePoiNt services aNd BUsiNess iNtelligeNce FIGURE 201 At this point, you have two options. The first option activates the wizard discussed in Chapter 4, whereas the second option returns you to the Central Administration default page. If you don’t use the wizard, you will have to manually create the default web application, the default site collection, and activate any service applications that are necessary to support the PerformancePoint capability. Because the wizard has likely already been run, it is possible that the necessary services are already available and PerformancePoint is ready to be used. However, SharePoint administrators should know how to enable and configure the PerformancePoint capability regardless of the state of the server farm, so we will discuss the manual configuration approach here in order to ensure that you have a thorough understanding of the details. PerformancePoint Service Application and Proxy The first step in configuring PPS is to ensure that the PPS service application and proxy have been created, along with the corresponding applications for the Secure Store Service. The following steps take you through this process. 1. Ensure that the PerformancePoint Service and the Secure Store Service have been started. These services need to be running on the application servers to support PerformancePoint capability. Browse to the Services on Server web page in Central Administration (see Figure 20-2). You should see a list of the different services and their status. Scroll down the page until you can see the two services and verify that they are both in the Started state. If not, click the Start link directly to the right of the Stopped value in the Status column and start the service. The PerformancePoint service application calls instances of these services to process requests. As you can see, these service instances can be started on a per-instance basis. Therefore, administrators only need to start the services that will be used, which is one of the key advantages of the SharePoint 2010 service architecture. Contrast this to SharePoint PPS Installation and Confi guration 589 2007, where the shared service provider included a fi xed set of services that were all running all of the time, regardless of which was actually needed. FIGURE 202 2. The next step is to ensure that a PerformancePoint service application has been created and is running. Creating the service application creates the service application proxy that facilitates web ser- vice calls between the WFE and the application server using the Windows Communication Framework. This is accomplished by confi rming that the PerformancePoint Service Application is running. To do so, browse to the Manage Service Applications web page. If the service application does not exist, click the New button in the Ribbon and choose PerformancePoint Service Application from the list of options, shown in Figure 20-3. The set of service applications can also be obtained using the PowerShell cmdlet Get-SPServiceApplication. A unique name and an application pool are required for confi guring a new service applica- tion, as shown in Figure 20-4. The name is the display name of the service, and differs from the service application’s identity, which is a GUID that is automatically assigned when the application is created. The identity is used to distinguish the service application from any other service application, as two different applications cannot have the same GUID. The identity can be viewed using PowerShell, with the Get-SPServiceApplication cmdlet. 590 CHAPTER 20 PerformaNcePoiNt services aNd BUsiNess iNtelligeNce FIGURE 203 FIGURE 204 PPS Installation and Configuration 591 As part of creating a new service application, you have the option to specify whether this service application instance should be available by default for use by web applications in the farm. Checking this option adds the instance to the farm’s list of default service applica- tions. However, even though a service application proxy exists within the default group, it does not automatically make it the default application proxy within the default group. Let’s see what it means to enable this option. A default application proxy is used by all ser- vice applications in a given web application to communicate with that service application’s web service. For a proxy to be the default of the default group, it must be designated as such on the Service Application Associations page. The Service Application Associations web page displays the relationships between the web applications in the farm, the Application Proxy Group, and the Application Proxies, as shown in Figure 20-5. FIGURE 205 Only one proxy group can be associated with a web application. Within that proxy group, you can enable as many proxies as necessary. If you disable proxies, the associated service applications won’t be available for use within the web applications associated with that proxy group. As shown in Figure 20-5, two different PerformancePoint service applications exist: the PerformancePoint Service Application created by the wizard during the install and the Test PPS service application that the author created manually for illustration. By clicking on the default proxy group link, you will see (as shown in Figure 20-6) that Test PPS is not the default of the default group. You can change the default association by clicking the [set as default] link. Now that you better understand what enabling this option means, you can complete creating the service application by defining an application pool. You can use an exist- ing application pool or a new application pool. A new application pool requires the use of the Configurable option because the Predefined option is not available for creating PerformancePoint dashboards, and the recommendation is to use a domain account. After the Name and Application Pool sections are complete, finish the process by click- ing the Create button. After the service application and proxy have been created, the 592 CHAPTER 20 PerformaNcePoiNt services aNd BUsiNess iNtelligeNce New PerformancePoint Service Application dialog is displayed, as shown in Figure 20-7. You should review this dialog, especially the additional steps required to complete the configuration. FIGURE 206 FIGURE 207 3. PerformancePoint Services service applications utilize a SQL Server database for storing infor- mation. This database is created when the service application is created and can be viewed by opening SQL Server Management Studio. As shown in Figure 20-8, the two PerformancePoint PPS Installation and Configuration 593 service applications that have been created are displayed here: PerformancePoint Service Application and Test PPS. As you can see, there are several different databases, each asso- ciated with different service applications. These databases are created automatically and usually append a GUID to the end of the database name to help ensure a unique database name. By default, all new PerformancePoint service application databases are installed on the same server as the configuration database. The data displayed in PerformancePoint dashboards can be stored in any SQL Server instance, assuming that the proper security context has been set up for the users who view and create those dashboards. FIGURE 208 4. Browse to the PerformancePoint Service Application web page by clicking the service applica- tion link on the Manage Service Applications web page. As shown in Figure 20-9, there are four different categories of options that further specify the PerformancePoint configuration. We will return to these later in this chapter. FIGURE 209 594 CHAPTER 20 PerformaNcePoiNt services aNd BUsiNess iNtelligeNce Secure Store Service Application and Proxy The Secure Store Service is a new capability in SharePoint 2010 that replaces the single sign-on (SSO) capability present in SharePoint 2007. SharePoint 2010 stores the credentials for accessing the external data in the database associated with the service application. PerformancePoint Services requires the use of the Secure Store Service to connect to external data sources on behalf of users or groups using the unattended service account. The unattended account utilizes a domain account whose password is stored in the secure store. The secure store is configured by providing a passphrase, and the passphrase is used to generate a key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the credentials stored in the Secure Store Service database. The following list details a few key aspects of the Secure Store Service. The service provides the capability to store and retrieve access credentials to external systems. These credentials consist of a user identity and password that are mapped to an application ID. The Secure Store Service supports both individual mappings and group mappings. Application IDs are used to map individual users or groups of users to credential sets. Individual users are mapped to a unique set of credentials, while individuals in a group will all receive the mapping designated for the specific domain group. SharePoint 2010 or custom applications access the external data using the application ID on behalf of the user or group. Security governs each application ID, so each ID can have permissions applied that specify which users or groups can access the credentials stored for the application ID. The Secure Store Service runs on the application server, and it is a claims-aware authorization service. (For a review of claims-based authentication, read Chapter 9.) In our example, the wizard created a Secure Store Application instance, and the Chapter 4 instal- lation instructions configured the instance by supplying the passphrase. If the store had not been set up, you would have seen a warning on the PerformancePoint Service Application Settings page indicating that a secure store hasn’t been configured. Therefore, we will proceed assuming a store doesn’t exist, and the first step is to ensure that a Secure Store Application instance and proxy have been created. 1. Create a new Secure Store Service application and proxy called Test Secure Store using the same process used previously to create a new PerformancePoint Service application—clicking the New button in the Ribbon on the Manage Service Applications web page. The resulting Secure Store Service Application: Test Secure Store page is shown in Figure 20-10. As indicated in the figure, you must first generate a new key before you can use the store. [...]... all of the necessary SharePoint content types used to create BI dashboards You can certainly add PerformancePoint content types to standard Web Part pages, lists, and libraries in order to create deployment targets, but it’s much easier to use the Business Intelligence Center template If the Business Intelligence Center template isn’t visible, then you probably installed SharePoint 2010 server using a... Designer 2010 application Actual creation of PerformancePoint objects is done in the section “Creating an Analytic Chart Report and Dashboard.” 600 ❘ Chapter 20 PerformancePoint Services and Business Intelligence Installing PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer 2010 is the tool used to create and deploy your business intelligence objects to the SharePoint 2010 server... software updates have been applied to the SharePoint 2010 server This is all handled by the ClickOnce technology Figure 20-18 After Dashboard Designer has been downloaded and installed on the client desktop, it can be launched from the desktop using the PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer shortcut in the SharePoint folder on the Start menu It can also be launched from the SharePoint list that contains the... ClickOnce deployment process Dashboard Designer 2010 is automatically deployed to the client desktop using ClickOnce technology After a few checks, the designer is downloaded and installed to the client’s desktop and opened to the design pane Installation is quick, without any need for installation media or files The application is hosted on the SharePoint 2010 server, so software patches are applied... server Specifically, these include key performance indicators (KPIs), scorecards, reports, filters, data sources, and dashboards Once these objects have been created, they are stored in one or more SharePoint 2010 document libraries and lists so that they can be reused in different dashboards Dashboard Designer is a desktop application that must be deployed to an author’s desktop before it is available for... connected to the SharePoint 2010 server to edit and create designer objects Introduction to Dashboard Designer The visual elements of Dashboard Designer are displayed in Figure 20-19 Across the top of the designer display is a ribbon with three tabs: Home, Edit, and Create There is a Workspace Browser pane on the left-hand side of the designer, and a centrally located pane that contains two tabs A SharePoint. .. Designer is a NET Framework ClickOnce application that requires the NET Framework 3.5 SP1 or later If this is not installed on the client machine, Dashboard Designer will not install ➤➤ Visio 2007 or 2010 Professional for creating or editing strategy map reports Strategy maps are reports that enable you to connect KPI data to Visio shapes in order to visualize data ➤➤ Report Viewer 2008 for creating... There is a Workspace Browser pane on the left-hand side of the designer, and a centrally located pane that contains two tabs A SharePoint tab displays a view of the items that have been deployed to the SharePoint server, and a Workspace tab (shown in Figure 20-19) displays a view of the items in the local workspace A third pane, Details, is not shown, but will appear at different points in the process . capability integrated with SharePoint Server 2007 through the use of Web Parts. With the introduction of SharePoint Server 2010, PPS is now an integrated part of SharePoint 2010 s architecture and. stored in SharePoint lists and libraries so that they can be utilized by other SharePoint 2010 features. Once these objects have been created, they are published or deployed to SharePoint 2010 websites. Secure Store Service is a new capability in SharePoint 2010 that replaces the single sign-on (SSO) capability present in SharePoint 2007. SharePoint 2010 stores the credentials for accessing the