PerformancePoint Health Check Enables Broader Rollout of Collaboration System
Project at a Glance
RDA completed a comprehensive PerformancePoint health check for this company, enabling them to move forward with a smooth rollout of MOSS 2007 for collaboration and communication.
About Our Client
RDA’s client provides project design and construction as well as property and project management services. The company has nearly 100 offices worldwide.
Background
This client requested that RDA review and assess their current reporting infrastructure, focusing on their Microsoft PerformancePoint Server implementation. Various areas within the architecture were reviewed and assessed.
Solution Detail
RDA completed a PerformancePoint health check that included a review of the company’s PerformancePoint security policies, 64-bit options, back-up policies, topology, architecture, and application installation and configuration. RDA also looked at the company’s SharePoint and SQL Server set-ups as they relate to PerformancePoint.
RDA’s review included the following:
- PerformancePoint security policies and effectiveness
- 64-Bit options regarding PerformancePoint
- Back-up policies of the PerformancePoint servers
- Topology and architecture
- Application installation and configuration
- Hardware and O/S configuration
Upon the conclusion of this engagement, RDA provided a document of recommendations to our client that highlighted the results of the assessment, focusing on industry standard best practices.
Benefits
The company was able to move forward with their rollout of MOSS 2007 with PerformancePoint Server in place. The health check ensured that the PerformancePoint architecture would be in line with MOSS 2007 and that everything would run smoothly during roll-out.
Technically Speaking
This project involved a thorough review of the company’s PerformancePoint implementation and included the company’s SQL Server and SharePoint set-ups as well. The specific areas of assessment were as follows:
- Use of PerformancePoint Server
- PerformancePoint Server Security
- PerformancePoint Server Installation
- SharePoint / PerformancePoint Integration
- PerformancePoint Server – Server
- SQL Server 2005 – Database Server
- SQL Server Reporting Services
- SQL Server Analysis Services
- Reporting Architecture – Server Topology
- PerformancePoint Server Backup Policies
The recommended deployment was indeed being followed:
Technical Findings
Currently, PPS is primarily used as a container for Reporting Services reports and custom applications. There are two scorecards in use with 17 available KPIs defined. PPS is not being used, however, to its full capacity.
The primary data source is a SQL Server Analysis Services cube (BLL MRP). Since a multidimensional structure is available, the capability of generating SQL Server Analytical Reports (Analytical Chart and Analytical Grid objects) is available. These objects, however, do not exist.
There is an underlying issue within the Analysis Services database which is actually preventing the creation of these Analytical Reports. Although there are time-based dimensions (date, forecast period, reporting period, etc.) within the dimensional model, these are not defined as Time types. Therefore, the Analysis Services cube that was generated does not contain the “Time Intelligence” capabilities.
As a result, in configuring the Multidimensional data source within DashBoard Designer, a time component cannot be selected and thus is preventing the analytical capabilities of PPS Monitoring. After analysis, RDA assisted the client with identifying corrections in the underlying SASS data model which they were able to implement to restore time-based reporting.