Integrating Applications with PerformancePoint Planning

Building PerformancePoint on the Microsoft BI platform has produced some natural areas of integration that you can leverage with your exiting LOB or custom applications.  This blog topic will concentrate only on integration methods withe PPS Planning components.  I'll write another post on Scorecards and Analytics grids later.

There are infinite scenarios where you may want to integrate PerformancePoint Planning with within your LOB or custom applications, so instead of focusing on any scenario, I will review the basic technology diagram of PPS planing and call out the available areas for integration.

Blow is a diagram of the major components of the PerformancePoint Planning system. 

There are some details that I have omitted so if you want to learn about the exact topology system components read the PerformancePoint Planning architecture guide.

SQL Service Analysis Services

When you build and deploy planning models, those models are represented as cubes in SQL Analysis Services.  Any tool that can read from a cube can integrate with your planning models.  For example, you can use excel to connect to a PPS created cube and use the pivot table integration features with that model.  There is no customization needed to enable this because you leveraging the capability of the complete Microsoft BI product stack.  We do not execute direct write back to the application database from the cubes, so using this method of integration will only provide read-only access to your model data.

SQL Server

Each Planning application contains an application database, staging database, and outbound database.  Staging and outbound databases enable data management and data integration for planning applications.  You should consider using these databases when you are planning to move data in and out of PerformancePoint Planning applications. 

The staging database will allow for you to:

• Insert, Change or Remove dimension members
• Create and Modify Dimension Hierarchies members
• Insert, Change or remove fact data for PPS models.

The outbound database provides the ability for regularly scheduled data extraction from PerformancePoint models.  Use this database and extraction method when you need to get data out of the PPS system and incorporate this data into other LOB or custom applications.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel as the PerformancePoint Planning client allows you to leverage Excel features to enhance your desired user experience.  There are currently no hooks into the PerformancePoint add-in but as we store all customization for PPS forms as part of the excel form template, you can extensively customize the form template once and all business users will get that form.

Here are some common scenarios to think about:

• Use Excel Macros to provide rich client-side enhancements to the workbook.
• Use Excel formulas when implementing complex or repetitive client side data entry rules.
• Use Excel formatting to build professional looking client forms and reports. 
• Create workbooks that pull data from multiple sources enabling rich analysis when completing plans.

Wrapping up, there are a number of ways to creatively think about using PerformancePoint planning in your applications. If this perked your interest, make sure to read the PerformancePoint Planning architecture guide.  There is more detail about the each of the technology components.  It does not necessarily point out how you can integrate with each one - but think about the Microsoft BI platform and the options you inside and outside of the context of PerformancePoint!!