Kevin White's PerformancePoint Blog

Competing on Analytics

kevinwhite — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:46:45 GMT

Here’s another book recommendation: Competing on Analytics by Tom Davenport. I read this book about a year ago but still consider it a must read for anyone who is involved in BI applications. Davenport does and excellent job describing how gaining insight into your business by leverage what you already know can make you more competitive. That is what BI is all about and why we come to work each day.

PerformancePoint book recommendation

kevinwhite — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:45:29 GMT

If you are considering reading a book on PerformancePoint, I recommend purchasing this book: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. The PerformancePoint Planning chapters are written by Steve Hoberecht who has worked on the PerformancePoint product team for the past 4 years. His wealth of knowledge is a benefit to us all. The other authors are all long time PerformancePoint product team members with the exception of Tim, who has been training Partners on PerformancePoint since our earliest days.

Reading this book makes you smarter! :)

A brief overview of PerformancePoint Planning business rules

kevinwhite — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:24:47 GMT

Over the course of the past year I’ve had a number of conversations on what type of business rule to choose for a PerformancePoint model. The answer is always - ‘it depends’. Choosing the right type of business rule depends on the the context of your business requirements. For example, technical accuracy of a rule (i.e. Sales Volume * Product Price) can be done through any rule type - but choosing the right rule type requires you to consider how the resulting data is processed and stored in the system and how that impacts or aligns with your business requirements.

I have described the behavior of PPS rule sets below. Any rules that are added in these rule sets follows the described behavior.

Automatic: All rules implemented here are stored as MDX script in the AS cube. The values are persisted in the fact table each time the rule is run. These rules run when an internal dirty flag is set and the system understands data has changed and rules need to be rerun. You must reprocess the cube for the results to commit to the AS cube.

Definition: All rules implemented here are stored as MDX script in the AS cube. These rules run every the scope of a change impacts the scope of a definition rule. Calculated values are never stored in the fact table and are only accessible in the cube.

Procedural – All rules implemented here are saved as a stored procedure in the application database and are executed by the Business Modeler client, scheduled to run as a job by a the Modeler client, or launched as a Job in the Excel Client by a user with Modeler security permissions. If the rule is a MDX defined rule, this rule will query the cube and then write the results to the model fact table in the application database. The cube will not updated with the result until the next reprocess. If the rule is a SQL defined rule, this rule will query, calculate and store the result on and in the Application database. Again, a reprocessing of the cube needs to happen before the results are in the cube.

For each rule sets, you can create the following types of rules:

Rule Set	Rule Type
Automatic	Assignment
Definition	Definition
Procedural	Assignment Allocation PushCrossModelAllocation PullCrossModelAllocation Variable

Each rule type inherits the behavior of the rule set it is defined in.

Based on the description above, there are some design considerations to take in while choosing the correct rule for your requirements. Here are few that come to my mind.

1. If you want to calculate a ratio which does not need to be persisted and may only used for display in a form, you may want to choose a definition rule. Be aware, that ratio will not be stored in the SQL table and so you can not us it for outbound rules or ETL processes that use SQL. Also, any change to a cell within the scope of the MDX generated query will cause this rule to rerun. Sometime, this becomes a performance problem depending on the number and complexity of definition rules.

2. If you choose a procedural rule, the results are processed on the server and will not show up immediately in a excel matrix. Why? Remember, the excel client queries the cube and you need a reprocess of the cube before a procedural rules results are shown. I usually set the reprocess interval in the Admin console to 1 second for demo scenarios. That way I can demo procedural rules without waiting a few minutes for the servers to sync. Of course, this is not advised for production systems unless. You should do load testing on the servers and determine the best interval for your application.

3. Automatic rules run all the time! This is a great benefit for most scenarios but if you have an automatic rule that is very complex, takes a long time to run and/or is CPU intensive, your performance will suffer. You may want to consider a schedule procedural rule.

Those a few that come to mind. To sum it up – take into consideration all angles of how rules work when choosing the rule type or combination of rule types to meet your technical and business needs.

Kevin

Microsoft BI Conference

kevinwhite — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:01:58 GMT

The 2nd annual Microsoft BI Conference will take place October 6-8 this year in Seattle. If you have the time, I'd encourage you to make the trip out to Seattle and attend the conference. The sessions we have lined up are outstanding and cover all Microsoft BI products. I will be giving a talk on how to improve business decisions using PerformancePoint Server and almost all of the PerformancePoint Program Managers and Developers will be at the conference in various capacities. Most of us will be located at the product booth talking to customers and partners. If you ever wanted to give feedback about the product directly to those who define and code it - this is your opportunity.

Details on the conference can be found here: http://www.msbiconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

It's been a while

kevinwhite — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:47:00 GMT

It's been a while since my last post and let me explain why. On April 4th my wife and I had twin boys, Connor and Nicholas. For those of you parents of twins, you'll know that during the first few months you live in survival mode. I'm happy to say that we've survived , Connor and Nicholas are now sleeping through the night, and I have more time to work on this blog!

Integrating Applications with PerformancePoint Planning

kevinwhite — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:28:00 GMT

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!!

SQL Server 2008 November CTP released

kevinwhite — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:33:00 GMT

The SQL team has released the latest CTP for SQL Server 2008. Download it here.

As the backbone of Microsoft BI, it is always exciting to see the new innovation captured in the next release of SQL Server. I have seen a few demos of new features in AS and Reporting Services and I'm definitly excited to start using this product. If you need more detials on the CTP check out the SQL web site.

On a side note, I did see a cool web site last night: www.cyberhomes.com. They have build the site using the leveraging key features of SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence, Virtual Earth, Ajax, Silverlight for Data Visualization, and Visual Studio 2008. Very cool to see the latest technology in action!! If you want to learn more and live in Denver - check out this in person event where their dev team will present the technology architecture.

Choosing the right technology for your scorecard implementation

kevinwhite — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:21:02 GMT

Philo wrote a quick summary of pros and cons when approaching technology choices for creating scorecards. There are many options within the Microsoft BI stack so it perfectly normal to feel a bit overwhelmed when first trying to pick a technology. If you are new to Microsoft BI - take a look.

http://blogs.msdn.com/philoj/archive/2007/10/08/scorecards-sharepoint-sql-server-or-performancepoint.aspx

PerformancePoint Server 2007 Product Video

kevinwhite — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:27:00 GMT

During the final days of shipping PerformancePoint Server we had a video crew on campus filming the finishing touches and conducting interviews with our team. We all knew that critical mass and excitement was building in the marketplace so it fun to open up our offices and meetings to the camera. Enjoy watching this video. We had a blast making it. There are a lot great people at Microsoft working on PerformancePoint and a few of those people are highlighted here. Of course, it takes more than a few to build and ship software so it goes without saying that beyond those in the video, there are many others who have dedicated time and hard work over the past few years to to create PerformancePoint. Kudos to every one of them.

<\/embed><\/div>";" galleryimg="no" mce_src="http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/kevinwhite/WindowsLiveWriter/PerformancePointServer2007ProductVideo_931B/video7d775ed6c070.jpg">

A special thanks to Lucy Smythe for all her hard work and dedication getting this video created.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 book available

kevinwhite — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:02:50 GMT

We are proud to announce that the first EVER Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 book is now available!

This book is the result of a collaborative effort between one of our partners, our development and marketing teams. This first book covers deployment as well as implementation tips to help customers and partners understand what PPS is, and how to get started with the application (details here).

This is the first of a large list of titles. In about a month, a second book will be published covering Planning with PerformancePoint Server (details here), and over the next six to nine months, a set of other books will be made available, including a “PPS for Dummies”!

Documentation

kevinwhite — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:19:00 GMT

Here are some good links to PerformancePoint documentation:

Information Worker: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/performancepoint/FX102380591033.aspx
Developer: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb660518.aspx
IT Pro: http://technet.microsoft.com/office/performancepoint/default.aspx

How do you add or change Form Assignments in PerformancePoint Planning?

kevinwhite — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:57:40 GMT

I have had this question come up a bunch of times with customers and partners. It usually surfaces when you are asking yourself some of these questions:

"Why is it that when I add a new form to an existing cycle it does not show up for user assignments?"
"What are the children nodes in the Molder after I create a Cycle?"

I could spend all day writing about Process Management but I will scope this blog entry because typically when you are asking these questions you are experiencing the difference in behavior between Cycle and Form Assignment definitions and instances. This does get confusing because the differences between a definition and an instance in Modeler are negligible and their behavior is not always intuitive. Let me do my best to try and explain how this works…

When you create a cycle, what you are actually creating is a cycle definition. This cycle definition will spawn a cycle instance once the cycle is saved and you reach the start time of the cycle definition. The start and end time are set in the cycle creation the wizard. When you define a cycle, you also have the option to create it as a recurring cycle. That is, a new cycle instance will be spawned based on a schedule. Say for example, a Monthly Budget cycle definition would spawn a new cycle instance the first day of each month for a monthly budget process. If you have a recurring cycle, you will see multiple cycle instances for the recurring periods in the planning modeler once they are spawned. Once you have a cycle instance spawned, changing the cycle definition will not change the cycle instance. A cycle instance is never changed based on a change to the definition. You can think of the definition as the template that is used to create the instances. After they are created, the link between definition and instance is broken except for that fact that the instance is related to the underlying definition.

Here is a screen shot that illustrates cycle definitions and cycle instances:

If you want to change a cycle instance you need to either:

Update the specific instance on the cycle instance summary page or
Purge all cycle instances and regenerate new cycle instances from the updated cycle definition. You can do this from the Available Actions link on the Process Scheduling Tasks window.

Since Cycles are just containers for form assignments and jobs, we must also look at how those are defined and how instances are created also.

Each cycle instance can have 1 or more form assignments that will function as the actually user assignment that will be used to collect data. Typically, you will create a form assignment definition on the cycle definition. When done, each cycle instance created from that point on will look at the Cycle definitions form assignments and create those form assignments for the new cycle instance. They key to this statement is that only for future cycle instances will the modifications to the form assignments be used. If you create a cycle instance and then you add a new form to the cycle definition, the new form assignment will not be included any current or past cycle instances.

Here is a screen shot for the Assignment Definition:

As you can see, the cycle is the MonthlyBudget definition. The form associated with this cycle definition is a form assignment definition. What this show is that any cycle instance created from the MonthlyBudget cycle will include the form assignment below.

Below, is a screen shot of a cycle instance and its associated form instances:

As you can see, the cycle is the MontlyBuget-Sep07_1 cycle instance is the instance for the month of September based off of the MonthlyBudget cycle. There are 2 instances below because in my Form Assignment definition I created the contributor of the assignment as a business role. My users Cindy and John are the users in that role. Again, if I were to change the Form Assignment definition within the cycle definition after these instances were created, those changes would not be reflected in this cycle instance.

Understanding the concepts of instances and definition should make answering the question 'How I do create or update a form assignment for an existing cycle instance'? What you need to do is actually change the cycle instance. There are two ways of doing this.

Option one: you can go to the cycle instance and add additional form assignments. After adding a new form assignment you start the assignment. This can be done by clicking the assignment, choosing 'Available Actions' on the Assignment Tasks window and selecting start. This process will only add the form assignment for the cycle instance and will not be applied to any future create cycle instances.

Option two: Create the new form assignment on the cycle definition and then regenerate the forms assignments cycle instance based off the new form assignments in the cycle definition. To regenerate the forms in the cycle instance, you click on the cycle instance and then choose 'Regenerate' from the Assignment Actions window. Also, by making this change to the cycle definition, all future cycle instances will use the form assignments added to the cycle definition.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

It has been a while...

kevinwhite — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:10:00 GMT

My original intent was to write on this blog every week or so. As you can tell, that has been a bit of a challenge - But for good reasons! We closer than ever to shipping PerformancePoint Server. I have been spending most of my time working with the team putting the final touches on the product, fixing those last minute bugs and reviewing all the documentation. Over the weekend the final icons were released into our builds. Look for CTP4 to release on the connect site soon (http://connect.microsoft.com) and the final release this fall.

So, what is PerformancePoint?

kevinwhite — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 06:42:00 GMT

Earlier this week I attended the CFO conference in NYC. It was very interesting talking to CFO’s and Finance directors about how they are addressing performance management in their organizations. Most of those who I talked to were inspired to dive more into performance management (and BI in general) but had not necessarily taken the plunge yet. Microsoft had a booth, which interestingly enough came in 4 boxes with no instructions. Now, for trade show experts that might not be a problem but for 3 guys from the development team with no marketing/trade show experience, building this booth this was an interesting challenge. After unpacking all of the boxes, we were staring at posters, felt carpets, metal rods, magnets and an expandable wire frame. It was like looking at a gigantic jig saw puzzle spread out all over the floor with no box to see the picture! Luckily, we were surrounded by trade show roadies (those people who travel from one show to another and give you the same pitch) and they were able to easily master the challenge of setting up the booth. Rule of thumb: don't send out members from you R&D department and expect them to put together a marketing booth with no instructions!

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. The comment that everyone seemed to state when they stopped at the booth was "Wow, I didn't realize that Microsoft was in the Performance Management business." Immediately followed up by - "what is PerformancePoint"? So I figure that’s what I'll blog about. You can check out the PerformancePoint web site www.microsoft.com/performancepoint for starters. That gives the basic overview of the product and how it may apply to your organization. Let me also give you my perspective.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 allows you to plan, monitor and analyze your business performance and assist in driving corporate strategy. So what the heck does that mean? Sounds like a bunch of marketing buzzwords. What exactly is a performance management solution you might say? Well, performance management is different for everyone. For some people, it is understanding the trends of past performance in concert with defining complex algorithms to measure and predict the future costs and profitability of your business. Then, using those predictions to align corporate strategy and monitor your performance. This is very import to our finance departments (at MS we've deployed PerformancePoint to our finance team) to help with budgeting and forecasting. PerformancePoint can also be used to help predict and plan for changes in your market due to competitor discounts, new products, etc and help change strategy. It can also be as easy as creating a dashboard of key performance indicators for account teams to monitor their sales quota each month. At the end of the day, PerformancePoint is about giving you the tools to define how to analyze, plan and monitor your business. And when needed, empowering you to change strategy based on your data.

Currently Microsoft has 2 separate products which solve some of the performance management requirements: Business Scorecard Manager 2005 and ProClarity Analytics 6.3. Both of these products have been incorporated into PerformancePoint Server 2007 with the addition of new planning component (formally known as Biz#) which helps you model and plan your business. Tougher, Microsoft now provides one product which ties together the cycle of performance management.

It is an exciting time for performance management and based on all the feedback I’ve received from our early adopters, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is going to make a real impact in the market. For anyone who wants to try out the product you can download the CTP2 release at http://connect.microsoft.com. This site also contains training documents and enrolls you into a newsgroup where you can ask the development team questions.

Welcome

kevinwhite — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:36:00 GMT

Hi and welcome to my blog. My name is Kevin White and I'm a program manager on the development team for Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. I've created this blog so you can read about what's on the top of my mind about performance management and PerformancePoint. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions. Hopefully this will generate some interesting blogging topics that might not occur to me.