PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010 is the next generation of Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server, as well as a totally new feature added to SharePoint 2010 for enterprise deployment.  PerformancePoint Services has one major mission in life, and that is to provide users with a more robust deployment, scalability, and performance model. It enables us 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. As stated in a TechNet article, “By providing flexible, easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs), PerformancePoint Services can help everyone across an organization make informed business decisions that align with companywide objectives and strategies.” Therefore, to effectively use PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010, it should be created and configured properly.

Challenge:

How do I create, configure, and consume PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010?

Solution:

I. Create PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010

Go to the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page -> Application Management -> Manage service applications (under the Service Applications section):

On the page listing of service applications, select the New button on the Ribbon, then PerformancePoint Services Application:

With the PerformancePoint Service Application form open, fill in the name of the service and either select an existing Application Pool or create a new one:

Click OK to finish creating PerformancePoint service.

II. Configure PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010

1. Configure Secure Store Service

Another TechNet article explains that, “In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the Secure Store Service replaces the single sign-on (SSO) feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Secure Store Service is a claims-aware authorization service that includes a secure database for storing credentials.” It is used to map users from a Target Application (e.g., Excel, Visio, PowerPivot, BCS, and PerformancePoint services) to a set of encrypted credentials stored in the secure database. These credentials are then used to authorize access to the external data source.

a. First, ensure the two services, Secure Store and PerformancePoint, are started.

Go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page -> Application Management -> Manage services on server (under the Service Applications section):

With the list of services open, start the two services if they had been stopped:

b. Generate a new encryption key for Secure Store Service

Before using the Secure Store Service, we must generate an encryption key. The key is used to encrypt and decrypt the credentials that are stored in the secure database.

Go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page -> Application Management -> Manage service applications (under the Service Applications section), then select your Secure Store Service:

With the service page opened, on the Ribbon bar, select the Generate New Key button:

With the Generate New Key form opened, enter your key:

c. Ensure that your Secure Store Service and PerformancePoint Services are default services in your Web Application.

Go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page -> Application Management -> Configure service application associations (under the Service Applications section):

Click on the default link on the Web Application that you are configuring for:

With the list of running services on the Configure Service Application Associations page opened, check and uncheck services you want to run as defaults on the Web Application:

2. Configure PerformancePoint Services to use Secure Store Service

Go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page -> Application Management -> Manage service applications (under the Service Applications section), and select your PerformancePoint Services:

With the service page open, select PerformancePoint Service Application Settings:

Enter your unattended service account and leave the other boxes as they are (you can change them when you need to):

Note: The unattended service account is an account that is used the Target Application to provide broad database access to all users in the farm. It is used for accessing data that is not considered sensitive or where you do not want to restrict access to a certain group of users.

III. Consume PerformancePoint service

To use PerformancePoint Services, we must create a new Business Intelligence Center site.

Go to your root site collection, then Site Action -> New Site:

With the Site Template page opened, select the Business Intelligence Center site template:

Enter your site name and URL, then click Create to create a new Business Intelligence Center site.

Note: If you can’t find the Business Intelligence Center site template, it means your PerformancePoint Services Site Collection Features has not yet been activated. Go to Site collections features at your root site level and activate the features.

Activate PerformancePoint Services Site Collection Features and SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure:

The Business Intelligence Center site will look like the image below:

Click on the Start using PerformancePoint Services link to start using the service.

Because using Dashboard Designer is outside the scope of this post, we aren’t discussing it. To learn more about how to use Dashboard Designer, click on the Learn more online link. Then, in the dropdown list in the top row of the page, select PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer 2010 Help and How-to:

Here you can find articles that can help you to use Dashboard Designer to design a PerformancePoint Dashboard to show your organizational performance:

And that’s the basics of PerformancePoint Services: how to create, configure, and consume it. I hope that you can found this post to be helpful.

 

See Also:

• Configure the unattended service account for PerformancePoint Services [TechNet]
• Plan, design, and implement a PerformancePoint dashboard to show organizational performance [TechNet]
• Designing Dashboards and Scorecards using SharePoint PerformancePoint Services 2010 and SSAS [DotNetCurry]
• New Features in PerformancePoint Services 2010 [BlogsMSDN]

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