PerformancePoint Server 2007: What is it and how can I get started?

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.

What is it?

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:

• PPS allows you to create your own custom Report View plug-ins using the Microsoft Office Performance Point Dashboard Designer. You can deploy your custom dashboards to ASP.NET and SharePoint sites. This is very cool! If you already have a custom SharePoint site or ASP.NET Web application you can integrate them with Performance Point Server 2007 to display reports, dashboards, and scorecards.
• Also, you can use the Microsoft Office Performance Point Server 2007 APIs to generate Excel and PowerPoint documents by referencing Microsoft.PerformancePoint.Scorecards PPS assemblies. You can find a complete code sample here. According to this sample, you can generate (export) Excel and PPT reports server-side.

How can I get started?

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…

• Office Online: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server
• Microsoft TechNet: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
• Product Information: https://www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint/default.aspx
• Microsoft BI: https://www.microsoft.com/bi/ and https://www.microsoft.com/bi/products/performancepoint-overview.aspx
• Press Pass: Microsoft to Expand Its Business Intelligence Product Line: Announcing Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

Finally, if you want to get your hands on PPS, here are the links to the evaluation downloads…

• Download PerformancePoint Server 2007 Evaluation Version (x86)
• Download PerformancePoint Server 2007 Evaluation Version (x64)

Have fun!