Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Performancepoint Services Unleashed

This is a comprehensive, expert guide to all facets of planning, deploying, managing, and utilizing the brand-new SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services. Authored by business and technical experts and a key member of the Microsoft PerformancePoint Services development team, this book demonstrates exactly how to apply PerformancePoint Services to gain real-time insight into all aspects of business performance.

Writing for architects, implementers, developers, and administrators, the authors combine crucial technical information with hands-on insights for success, including a case study that identifies key challenges throughout the project lifecycle.

Along the way, the authors bring together realistic, proven techniques for integrating with SharePoint, Microsoft Office, and enterprise data sources. They implement KPIs and scorecards; design effective dashboards; ensure security; administer PerformancePoint Services; present best-practice solutions; and much more.

• Determine what you want to measure and plan the best ways to measure it
• Install SharePoint Server 2010 and configure PerformancePoint Services
• Create effective, easy-to-understand dashboards with the Dashboard Designer
• Integrate and use multiple data sources including SQL Server, Excel, and SharePoint
• Build KPIs quickly using the Scorecard Wizard
• Incorporate indicators and KPIs into scorecard views
• Utilize PerformancePoint reports including analytic charts and grids, KPI Details, and both Reporting Services and Excel Services reports
• Build Strategy Maps to visualize sales pipelines, processes, and layouts
• Secure PerformancePoint data sources, dashboards, and reports
• Use PerformancePoint APIs to add even more functionality
• Maintain PerformancePoint Services using SharePoint 2010’s tools and settings
• Streamline PerformancePoint administration with PowerShell and Cmdlets

Tim Kashani, founder and CEO of IT Mentors and author, has trained more than 100,000 students worldwide. He builds scorecards to track how many vegetables his son consumes daily. Tim thinks increasing is better. His son wants more information before making a strategic decision on the issue.

Ola Ekdahl has worked with PerformancePoint since its early alpha stages, as a trainer, content creator, and author, and has extensive experience developing business intelligence solutions. He’s currently developing a KPI measuring how much catnip his cats can consume. The cats think they should use increasing is better but Ola disagrees.

Kevin Beto, a 10-year Microsoft veteran, is currently a test lead on the Microsoft SharePoint BI team. He builds scorecards to track his performance in arm wrestling and twister contests. The calculations and thresholds for these scorecards test the outer limits of performance monitoring and business intelligence.

Rachel Vigier is a writer. She has authored two volumes of poetry, a book about dance, and many technical and business works. She uses scorecards to track how many books her family reads. Increasing is definitely better and so far everybody consistently exceeds targets.