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SharePoint Server 2010 Hosting - ASPHostPortal :: Monitoring Your Business Using PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010

What is PerformancePoint Services?

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.

 

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Need some advice on Microsoft Certification for SMS?

Hello,

I plan to do a Microsoft Certification. I use SMS(Systems Management Server) and wish to know if there is a Microsoft Certification only for SMS. I also have Comptia Security + 2009, CUSA and ITIL foundation. Any suggestions please.

Thank you and appreciate you all for your time.

Passing exam 70-401 will certify you as:
MCTS: System Center Configuration Manager 2007

"System Center Configuration Manager" is the current name for the SMS product. If you are still using SMS2003 or earlier, you may need to study up on the changes prior to taking the test.

Microsoft recommends the following classes for preparing:
6451B: Planning, Deploying and Managing Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2

50243A: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Certification Prep Course

6451A: Planning, Deploying and Managing Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Microsoft Foundations Server
EPiServer Scrum Dashboard for Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Development – Creating External Lists

One of the most acknowledged features of Microsoft SharePoint for Microsoft SharePoint development is external lists which have converted the MOSS 2007 Business Data Catalog (BDC) into Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010. It can be created independent of the SharePoint server as it is already included in Microsoft foundation. External lists though look like regular lists to an end user actually spread to external systems such as web services and databases.

Developers who have worked with BDC earlier know very well what a trouble it is to create external list. Heavy data XML files which contained the application definition were to be forged. This was a very massive task and developers often depended on external tools to make the task easier for them. The latest version of Microsoft SharePoint development that is SharePoint 2010 has made creating external lists really very simple, speedy and fast. A SharePoint developer can expose them under SharePoint 2010 in just 10 minutes if the database table is ready.

To create external lists for the customer external content type based on the customers table in Northwind database using Microsoft SharePoint development you will have to first run Business Data Connectivity Service Application. Ensure that it is running perfectly by going to central administration panel and click on manage service applications. Apart from this you will need external content type and Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 or the browser.  

Server running SharePoint server should be equipped with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later, Northwind SQL Server 2000 database and customer external content type for creating external lists using Microsoft SharePoint development practices. To begin with move to SDK Samples SharePoint site from the Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010. Click View All Site Content from the site's actions menu on the left. Click the create button and then click external list from the custom lists section. Here we will create a new external list by entering a new name and a small description for the list on a new page.

Type the name of the external content in the text box if you know the name of the content type in the data source configuration section or else use the picker to help you pick the right name. It lists all different external content types denoted in the metadata store of the site's service application's Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service. After selecting the type in Microsoft SharePoint development click external content type picker.

Now SharePoint developer can move to the new list in the SharePoint site to view and edit items in the list. It is not mandatory to work online you can easily move the list offline in SharePoint Workspace and Microsoft Outlook.

Similarly external lists for customers can be created using Microsoft SharePoint development. The beginning process remains the same as mentioned above with the only difference that you need to select customer external content type as the data source. Click the create lists and forms button as shown in the figure to open the create list and form for customer dialog box. Name the new external list as NWCustomers List, SharePoint designer will then generate external list.

About the Author

Tatvasoft provides Microsoft SharePoint development services like project management, enterprise content, business process, portals and collaboration.

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