PerformancePoint Services

What’s So Special About SharePoint’s December Update?

kpdonovan — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:18:00 GMT

Just in case you didn’t already know, a cumulative update for SharePoint Server 2010 was released in mid-December, and it’s a big deal for business intelligence.

Cumulative Update 2011-12 (CU 2011-12) for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is exciting because it enables people to view PerformancePoint reports, scorecards, Excel Services reports, and other items on Apple iPad devices. Imagine how convenient it will be for users to open and use dashboards on an iPad.

We just published an article on TechNet that provides more details about which kinds of reports and scorecards will and won’t work on iPad devices, how to configure business intelligence content to display with best results, and how to navigate content on iPad devices. See Viewing reports and scorecards on Apple iPad devices (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh697482.aspx), and tell us what you think.

Want to learn more about CU 2011-12? Start with the following resources:

Updates for SharePoint 2010 Products (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ff800847.aspx) provides links and information about the latest software updates, including CU 2011-12. Start here for the latest information and guidance about how to apply software updates for your SharePoint Server environment.
KB 2597014 - Description of the SharePoint Server 2010 cumulative update package (SharePoint server-package): December 13, 2011 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2597014) provides information about CU 2011-12, including prerequisites, known issues, hotfixes, and other details.
December 2011 CU for SharePoint 2010 has been released (http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_gossner/archive/2011/12/14/december-2011-cu-for-sharepoint-2010-has-been-released.aspx) provides an overview of KB articles that are relevant to CU 2011-12 and links to additional information.

We’re always interested in your feedback, so please let us know what you think. You can add a comment to this blog post, or use the feedback mechanism in the upper right corner of the TechNet article.

Thank you, and Happy Dashboarding!
Denise Stendera
Writer, Business Intelligence in SharePoint Server

You Can Use SQL Server "Denali" PowerPivot Models as PerformancePoint 2010 Data Sources

kpdonovan — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:14:00 GMT

Since SQL Server Denali hit the public download space, several people have tried using it to create PowerPivot models as data sources for PerformancePoint 2010. And why shouldn't they? PerformancePoint works just fine in the scenario where you specify the reference to a PowerPivot model in the data source connection string for an Analysis Services data source.

The Problem

But just about every one of those cutting-edged users has wisely pointed out that something fundamentally breaks when trying this same scenario with a Denali RC0-based PowerPivot workbook. There are a couple of reasons for this, which I address below. The error that manifests in the event log indicates that the existing, installed provider is too old. And that's true if you're running a standard SharePoint 2010 SP1 installation. The error most people have been seeing is this:

Exception details: Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient.AdomdUnknownResponseException: Unsupported data format : application/vnd.ms-excel.12

The good news is that a workaround exists.

The Solution

The easiest way to make this scenario work is to install the ADOMD.Net (version 10.5) data provider on your SharePoint farm. You can get this by downloading it from the SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Feature Pack (make sure that you download the version appropriate for your server architecture). Version 10.5 of this provider is backward compatible with the new version 11.0. And because it's a minor version, it will overwrite the version 10.0 provider, which is the major version that PerformancePoint looks for at runtime. This latter notion explains the alert that the installer throws when you begin the installation. Go ahead and click, "Yes".

The Detail

I will use the example of a 1M farm in this case. SharePoint's pre-requisite installer will install both the 2005 and 2008 versions of ADOMD.Net. This ensures that Analysis Services data connections work smoothly out of the box. If you look in add/remove programs on your SharePoint server, you can see the provider versions. Version 10.1 is the one that PerformancePoint will use when connecting to the PowerPivot workbook when you use it as a data source.

When you install SQL Server Denali, it will install the version 11.0 ADOMD data provider. You can see this as well by looking at the list of assemblies on the server.

The problem is that there is no policy telling the request to use the latest version of the provider, and PerformancePoint is looking specifically for major version 10. So, in effect, version 11.0 is sitting there all alone and unused. However, when you install the ADOMD client version 10.5, things work because that version is compatible with the latest PowerPivot models, and PerformancePoint is still happy because it sees version 10, just like it expects to. Unlike major versions of the provider, which exist side-by-side, minor versions overwrite each other, which is why PerformancePoint grabs the right one even after you overwrite version 10.1 with version 10.5. So, after installing the SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 update, when you look at the list in add/remove programs, you will see this:

Once you have updated your provider, PerformancePoint should be able to connect to the PowerPivot workbook as you would expect.

There are a couple of parting notes here. First, notice that the name of the cube, as interpreted by PerformancePoint, is now called "Model". You may recall that it was called "Sandbox" for PowerPivot 2010 models. Second, most of the published documentation indicates that you need to add the PROVIDER property to the PerformancePoint connection string, like this: PROVIDER=MSOLAP;DATA SOURCE=http://contoso/Documents/PowerPivot_Sample.xlsx. This string is a little redundant; there is no need to set the provider property because the provider is adomd.net. And adomd.net will create the right data access object without the user having to specify MSOLAP to connect to the data source.

Kevin Donovan
Program Manager, Office BI

Finding the Latest PerformancePoint 2010 Services Updates

kpdonovan — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:02:00 GMT

Sometimes it's difficult to find the latest updates for SharePoint 2010 and for PerformancePoint Services, specifically. The easiest way to see these latest updates is to visit the Microsoft Office Update Center or subscribe to the Updates for Microsoft...(read more)

How to Highlight Table Rows Based on Slicer Selection

kpdonovan — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:30:00 GMT

When you connect Slicers to Pivot Tables or Pivot Charts, their effect on the data is obvious: changing your Slicer selection causes data values to change and in some cases, rows to disappear. However, rather than excluding rows with a Slicer, sometimes...(read more)

Choose the Right Business Intelligence Style for your Project

kpdonovan — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:18:00 GMT

The Office Business Intelligence group gets the occasional question about why we offer several different BI solutions when our competitors often only offer one. Microsoft offers its customers no shortage of choices when it comes to BI solutions. We do...(read more)

Poll Your Friends with Photo Vote

kpdonovan — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:34:00 GMT

Poll Your Friends with Photo Vote In this post, we'll introduce you to Photo Vote, a new app created by the Office Business Intelligence team in partnership with the Microsoft Office Labs team. With Photo Vote, you can create quick polls in Facebook...(read more)

Using PowerPivot to incorporate publicly available data sets in your PerformancePoint dashboards

Wade Dorrell — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:41:00 GMT

Windows Azure Marketplace is a great place to find publicly available data for use in your BI solutions. In this post, I'm going to show how convenient it is to use Windows Azure Marketplace to get public data into your PPS dashboards. You will need...(read more)

Intro to Excel Services Data Sources

kpdonovan — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:32:00 GMT

Introduction The Excel Services Data Source in PerformancePoint 2010 allows you to create data using familiar Excel tools and methods that you can then surface in PerformancePoint scorecards. To demonstrate the use of the Excel Services Data Source...(read more)

Getting Data in PerformancePoint

Wade Dorrell — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:21:00 GMT

PerformancePoint Services 2010 (PPS) provides a variety of ways to use data in analytic solutions. The usage of Analysis Services cubes and SharePoint lists in PerformancePoint is relatively well understood. Upcoming posts from the Office BI team will...(read more)

Creating simple budget KPIs from SharePoint Lists

Office BI — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:17:19 GMT

In this post we're going to walk through how our favorite fictional company Litware uses PerformancePoint Services with SharePoint list data to do simple "under budget" KPIs. In Litware's party planning committee we log how much we spend on...(read more)

PerformancePoint Data Connection Libraries and Content Lists in SharePoint

Office BI — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:42:12 GMT

All the items you create when you build BI solutions using PerformancePoint are stored in SharePoint. PerformancePoint data sources are stored in specialized SharePoint document libraries. PerformancePoint content is stored in specialized SharePoint lists;...(read more)

Sharing Up-to-Date Information in Convenient Locations

Office BI — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:27:50 GMT

As part of the Office Content Publishing group at Microsoft, our team writes Help content about business intelligence capabilities in SharePoint Server. In this blog, we'll look at how you can reuse and share your business intelligence content in team...(read more)

Better with SharePoint

Office BI — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:14:00 GMT

PerformancePoint Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (PPS) makes it easy and convenient to organize and share your business insights. Upcoming blog posts by Office BI pros will delve into the following topics: Efficiently organize PPS content...(read more)

Using Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode with PPS 2010 with SQL Server “Denali” CTP3

Office BI — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:52:00 GMT

The SQL Server team has made a small change to the location of the web service that PPS calls in order to render SQL Server Reporting Services reports when running in SharePoint Integrated mode. In this blog post, I’m going to go over how to work...(read more)

Analytic Report Samples Published to MSDN Samples Gallery

Office BI — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:50:45 GMT

Two samples that work with PerformancePoint analytic reports are now available on MSDN. · PerformancePoint Services 2010: Change Analytic Report Data Source Sample lets users change the data source that an analytic report points to. · PerformancePoint...(read more)

Cascading Filters in PerformancePoint Services

Office BI — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:10:09 GMT

One long-awaited and much-requested feature for PerformancePoint, Cascading Filters, is available in SharePoint Server 2010 SP1. I wanted to go through the deployment of a dashboard using Cascading Filters to show both the ease and a little of the power...(read more)

Fast Prototyping with PowerPivot

Wade Dorrell — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:00:00 GMT

Today's "better together" post is by Poornima Hanumara, a program manager on the Office BI team. Thank you Poornima, and to our readers, have a great week! I want to quickly prototype a new dashboard to keep track of the products in my sporting goods...(read more)

Using Project Server 2010 with PerformancePoint Services

Wade Dorrell — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Today’s post is by Denise Stendera, a writer on the SharePoint business intelligence team. Thanks Denise! Got Project? When you create a Project Web App in SharePoint Server, you automatically get a Business Intelligence Center. If PerformancePoint...(read more)

Better together: PerformancePoint Services and other Microsoft products

Wade Dorrell — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:45:00 GMT

This month on the PerformancePoint Services blog we'll focus on techniques involving other Microsoft products. For example, Got Project? When you create a Project Web App in SharePoint Server, you automatically get a Business Intelligence Center...(read more)

Naming Your PerformancePoint 2010 Database

Office BI — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:49:52 GMT

In my blog post about SP1 features for PerformancePoint , I mentioned some new capabilities around the PerformancePoint (PPS) database side of things. For instance, you can now assign a failover server for the PPS database, assign a custom database name...(read more)

PerformancePoint Scorecard Annotation Improvements in SharePoint Server 2010 SP1

Office BI — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:46:20 GMT

In the recent blog post What's New in PerformancePoint Services and SP1? , Kevin provides a table highlighting the major new features and improvements coming to PerformancePoint Services. A seemingly small but exciting new feature in in that table is...(read more)

What’s New in PerformancePoint Services and SP1?

Office BI — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:55:27 GMT

I know that a lot of people have been anxiously waiting for some meaningful information about what’s coming in Service Pack 1 (SP1) for PPS. The release is scheduled for the end of June, and as Jason mentioned at the end of his kickoff blog , I’m releasing...(read more)

May’s PerformancePoint Blog Wrap Up

Office BI — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:23:19 GMT

It’s been a super hectic month for the Office BI team this May. We are hard at work figuring out what’s next for the Office BI products, we had TechEd in Atlanta, and we put the finishing touches on Office 2010 Service Pack 1 with some special surprises...(read more)

How to use Time Intelligence Filters with Excel Services or how to pass a range selection into your Excel Report

Office BI — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:00:00 GMT

PerformancePoint Dashboards have a set of filters that allow both PerformancePoint content and other content to connect and interact with each other. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the Time Intelligence Filter and how you can use this to get...(read more)

What is PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint 2010 – And what else is it?

Office BI — Tue, 17 May 2011 20:05:32 GMT

What is PerformancePoint? PerformancePoint Services has one major mission in life: to enable you to create rich, context-driven dashboards that aggregate data and content to provide a complete view of how your business is performing at all levels. If...(read more)