The release of PerformancePoint Server 2007 should be of special interest for those of you who are passionate about business intelligence (BI), dashboard, and scorecard solutions.
Enterprises gather data related to line-of-business (LOB) operations. Data as-is is not useful. You need to transform it into information so you can understand your business and make decisions. PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a product that can help you to build a performance management application. It integrates with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and helps you define a set of rules to monitor, analyze, and report information in dashboards or scorecards to help users with planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Optionally, you can use the PerformancePoint Server 2007 APIs and extend reporting to Excel, PowerPoint, and MOSS 2007. PPS is a new platform for a new set of BI Office Business Applications (OBAs).
While reading about PPS, I discovered some cool things that developers can do to extend its functionality:
Here's a list of resources that can help you to learn more about the product…
Last week we published the new PerformancePoint Server Developer Portal on MSDN. This page compiles pointers to the new PerformancePoint Monitoring SDK, the PerformancePoint Planning Business Rules Development Guide, and useful links to data sheets for planning, analytics, monitoring, and management reporting.
If you want to see an online demo, you can watch the Performance Management 101 Webcast, the TechNet Webcast: Business Intelligence with Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, and the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Interactive Product Introduction.
For blogs, visit the The Microsoft PerformancePoint Team Blog, Ben Tamblyn's blog, and Bruno Aziza's blog.
For other related-sites check-out…
Finally, if you want to get your hands on PPS, here are the links to the evaluation downloads…
Have fun!
RSS feeds changed the strategy that lots of people use to learn about new things. As developers we are faced with a bulk load of emerging software development technologies and products and sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the cool things you can do. RSS feeds help you discover the latest news from multiple sources and bloggers and learn more about new products and technologies. You can use Outlook, Windows Live, Windows Vista Sidebar, or other programs to subscribe to your favorite RSS feeds.
I've been posting for the last couple of months links to just published content for the MSDN Office Developer Center to help you keep up with new Office and SharePoint developer content. Today I am very happy to announce that we finally automated our RSS feed generation process. We have an internal tool that we use to track all our content publishing queue and workflow and we extended it to generate RSS feeds for Office and SharePoint. This will allow us to provide you weekly updates on new articles, code samples, videos, new pages, announcements, and fresh news related to Office and SharePoint development.
We published our RSS feeds for the first time last Friday 9/21 and you can subscribe to them using the following urls:
You can also find links to our RSS feeds on the following pages:
If you want to know more about Office and SharePoint, you can also subscribe to the following RSS feeds:
Have fun keeping up with the latest news!
The following content items were published from 9/1/2007 to 9/15/2007:
Publishing Date
Title
Products
Authors
9/13/2007
Language Reference: SDK: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Developer Reference Find conceptual overviews, programming tasks, samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on PowerPoint. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb265982.aspx
2007 Microsoft Office System
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Saul Candib
9/11/2007
How-To article: Visual How to: Adding Programs to Access 2007 Deployment Packages Mike Stowe shows you how to add an add-in to an Access 2007 deployment package created by using the Package Solution Wizard. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687991.aspx
Microsoft Office Access 2007
Michael Stowe
Technical article: How to Optimize a SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Site for Performance Learn to optimize an Internet-facing Web content management (WCM) site to achieve maximum performance and an effective user experience. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727371.aspx
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Avneesh Kaushik
Book excerpt: Book Excerpt: Chapter 1: Introduction to Excel Services (Programming Excel Services) In this book excerpt, author Alvin J. Bruney provides an introduction to Excel Services, a new technology built and conditioned to interact with Excel spreadsheets. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb758869.aspx
Alvin J. Bruney
SDK: SDK: Excel 2007 XLL Software Development Kit Create high-performance worksheet functions for Excel 2007 using conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and sample files. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687883.aspx
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Microsoft Corporation
Multimedia content: Visual How to Video: Adding Programs to Access 2007 Deployment Packages In this visual how-to video, you'll learn to add an add-in to an Access 2007 deployment package created by using the Package Solution Wizard.
http://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msdn/office/2007OfficeVisualHowTos/ ac2007AddingProgramsToAccess2007DeploymentPackages.wmv
Book excerpt: Book Excerpt: Chapter 3: Excel Web Access (Programming Excel Services) In this book excerpt, the author focuses on building Web Parts from Visual Studio 2005 and installing them on SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 so that they can be used in SharePoint applications. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb758868.aspx
Download: Download: Excel 2007 SDK: Excel 2007 XLL SDK The Microsoft Office Excel XLL Software Development Kit (SDK) contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and sample projects to guide you in developing Excel 2007 XLLs.http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/a/9/ba90d322-4364-4be9-b088-87e8fef8be47/Excel2007XLLSDK.EXE http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5272E1D1-93AB-4BD4-AF18-CB6BB487E1C4&displaylang=en
Steve Dalton
API reference: SDK: Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) Reference Use the Unified Communications Managed API version 1.0 SDK to create and deploy SIP-based applications for real-time communications and collaboration. The intended applications can be client-based or server-based and can be written in Microsoft .NET Framework-supported C#. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb759538.aspx
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
Unified Communications
Technical article: Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 3 of 3) This is the third in a series of three articles that describes the Open XML object model code that you can use to access and manipulate Microsoft Office Word 2007 files.http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727374.aspx
Word
Frank Rice
Technical article: Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 2) This article, the second in a series of two, describes the Open XML object model code that you can use to access and manipulate Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 files. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727373.aspx
API reference: SDK: Office Communicator Automation API The Microsoft Office Communicator Automation API contains a set of COM interfaces, objects, events, enumerated types, and other related programming entities. With Office Communicator Automation API, you can program a Communicator instance from a third-party application, as well as extend and customize user experiences with Communicator. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb758719.aspx
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007
Technical article: How to Create a SharePoint Server 2007 Custom Master Page and Page Layouts for a Web Content Management Site Follow step-by-step instructions with code examples to create a SharePoint Server 2007 custom master page and related page layouts based on a minimal master page. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727372.aspx
9/4/2007
How-To article: Visual How to: Inserting a Bibliography Citation in Word 2007 Programmatically insert bibliography sources and citations into a document by using the Microsoft Office Word 2007 object model.http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676880.aspx
Microsoft Office Word 2007
Joel Krist
Column: OfficeTalk: Bringing Improvements to the Excel 2007 Table (Part 2 of 6) Learn about enhancements to tables in Excel 2007 such as selecting parts of a table with a single mouse click, quickly locating your position in a table, and maintaining table formatting as you add data. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb736198(office.11).aspx
Excel
Multimedia content: Visual How To Video: Inserting a Bibliography Citation in Word 2007 In this visual how-to video, you will learn to programmatically insert bibliography sources and citations into a document by using the Word 2007 object model. http://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msdn/office/2007officevisualhowtos/ wd2007insertingbibliocites.wmv
Enjoy!
We have great news for Office Developers and Architects. We will have an Office Developer Conference next year!
When: February 10-13, 2008
Where: San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA
Who: 2000 developers and architects who build solutions on the Office platform (Office clients, servers, and services)
ODC 2008 will bring together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders and key partners in a public forum for the first time! Together, we will redefine what it means to be focused on Microsoft Office development, exchange ideas on how to continue innovating in this ever-changing space, and share best practices on how to craft the next generation of Office Business Applications. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will deliver a special keynote that is not to be missed.
Registration opens in October this year. If you would like to be notified when registration opens or when more information about the conference becomes available, visit the 2008 Office Developer Conference site.
Hope to see you all there!