| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 2007 |
| Stable release | 1.0 SP2 / 2008 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Enterprise Performance Management |
| License | Proprietary EULA |
| Website | www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint |
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server was a software product from Microsoft for the business intelligence sector. Development on PerformancePoint was discontinued in April 2009.[1] The dashboard, scorecard, and analytics components of PerformancePoint have been incorporated into Sharepoint Server 2010.
PerformancePoint Server 2007 integrated with other Microsoft Office products including Excel, Visio, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server. It was also the successor to the scorecard capabilities of Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager and the monitoring and analytic capabilities of recently acquired ProClarity.
PerformancePoint Server also provided a planning and budgeting component which was directly integrated with Excel and SQL Server Analysis Services. PerformancePoint gathered data from disjointed systems in keep overall accurate information. This includes the views of Project financials with Schedule performance with integration of EPM 'Dashboards' into the SharePoint-based PerformancePoint. Since PerformancePoint uses 'data cubes' to manage the information being collected, you can make connections into existing cubes or schedule data transfers from existing backoffice systems into these data cubes to easily represent the same information within more advanced and informative 'Value' added dashboards.
Microsoft is only one of a number of vendors in this emerging business intelligence market; others include: MicroStrategy, Information Builders, Oracle, Business Objects (acquired by SAP in 2007), Hyperion (acquired by Oracle in 2007), Cognos (acquired by IBM in 2008), SAS, Informatica, QlikTech and Pentaho.
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Although the version 1 product was not officially released until November 2007, Microsoft had been offering Community Technology Preview releases since mid-2006. A recent analysis by Gartner[2] predicts that interest will be strongest among companies that are looking to move up from Microsoft's earlier BI offerings including Excel and SQL Server, which were not quite feature-rich enough to allow Microsoft to compete with the other enterprise-level vendors in this market segment. The acquisition of ProClarity Corporation in 2006 has enabled Microsoft to add deep analytics for reports created by its PerformancePoint Monitoring Server.
Microsoft will discontinue PerformancePoint Server as an independent product and is folding its Dashboard, Scorecard and Analytic Reporting capabilities into SharePoint Server, signaling a significant change in the company's business intelligence software strategy. The technology will live on as "PerformancePoint Services" and is projected to be potentially disruptive in the marketplace.[3]
The Monitoring and Analytics features, which include Dashboards, Scorecards, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), Reports, Filters, and Strategy Maps, are delivered via a Monitoring Server, which includes two client user interfaces: Dashboard Designer and SharePoint Web Parts. Dashboard Designer is downloaded from Monitoring Server, and enables business analysts or IT Administrators to:
Dashboard Designer saves content and security information to a SQL Server 2005 database that is managed through Monitoring Server. Data source connections, such as OLAP cubes or relational tables, are also made through Monitoring Server. Reports based on these data source connections are run and updated through Monitoring Server, however some reports, such as PivotTables and PivotCharts, have independent connections to their source data (queries for these reports are not processed by Monitoring Server).
After a dashboard has been published to the Monitoring System Database, it can be deployed to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services. HTML pages that represent the dashboard content are stored in a document library and can be viewed in a browser. When dashboards are opened in a browser, Monitoring Server updates the data in the views by connecting back to the original data source and retrieving the most current data.
PerformancePoint Monitoring Server comes with an API that allows developers to add extensions to the Dashboard Designer, such as custom reports, custom data source providers, custom wizards, and user interface extensions.
The PerformancePoint Planning Server supports a variety of management processes, which include the ability to define, modify, and maintain logical business models integrated with business rules, workflows, and enterprise data.
Additionally, through its support of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Planning Server enables business users to publish live reports from Excel to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and SharePoint Services.
Planning Server is built on a SQL Server stack, with extensive use of Excel for line-of-business reporting and analysis.
Management Reporter is the fourth component of PPS (Planning, Monitoring and Analysis being the first three). This component is specifically designed to perform Financial Reporting and can read the PPS Planning Financial Models directly. A development kit is also available to allow this component to report off of other repositories.
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