PerformancePoint Dashboards in SharePoint 2010 VHD

The SharePoint 2010 IW Demo VM (RTM) contains a great set of sample PerformancePoint Server (PPS) dashboards using Digital Camera sales data. I wanted to extract the dashboards and the supporting data from the VHD and deploy them in my own SharePoint 2010 sandbox environment to understand the dashboard designer and other components of PerformancePoint Service Application integrated in SharePoint 2010.

 

The post outlines the steps I had to take to get this to work and the pitfalls during the process. The demo VHD contains all the site (.dat) and database backups (SQL Server – .bak files and Analysis Server – .abf files) that you would need to restore this in your own environment. These files are located in the root of the VHD in the demo files folder.

I am not going to cover how to restore site backups (I used Powershell to do so!) and database backups but once done you will need to do the following in your SharePoint 2010 environment. Following is a screenshot of Management Studio after the databases used by the dashboards were restored:

My SharePoint 2010 Sandbox environment is a single server virtual environment running on Sun VirtualBox. Windows 2008 R2 Server, SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition.

1. Start the PerformancePoint Service on the server if not already started
2. Start the Excel Calculation Service on the server if not already started

   

3. Install SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services – make sure your SQL Server 2008 is either Developer or Enterprise edition because the cubes use Enterprise features not available in the Standard Edition. I learned this the hard way, yes, I had to upgrade from SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard to Enterprise to support these Analysis Services features.
4. Start and configure the Secure Store Service Application. This is necessary to store the credentials of the unattended account that PPS will use execute queries and render the dashboards.
5. 
   1. Create a key
   2. Create an application id under “Manage” Secure Store Service application:

      

       

       

      

       

 

After all this is said and done you should be able to bring up the pillarsbi site.

The following combined screenshot shows the available (out of the box) list of indicators in the impressive PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer:

HAPPY DASHBOARDING!

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