Microsoft SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services : Examining Dashboard Designer (part 1)

• A ribbon with three tabs: Home, Edit, and Create (see Figure 1)

  Figure 1. This is a view of the main Dashboard Designer screen with items deployed to SharePoint.

  

• Workspace Browser pane on the left

• SharePoint tab that displays a view of the items that have been deployed to SharePoint

• Workspace tab that displays a view of the items that exist in the local workspace

When you select an item from the Workspace Browser on the left, the screen changes to include a view of the item in the workspace and a Details pane on the right, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Details pane changes depending on the item you select from the Workspace Browser.

The Details pane appears when you select a workspace item such as a KPI, scorecard, or data source. In the example shown in Figure 2, you see the settings for The Green Orange Data Connection in the center of the screen. On the right, the Details pane provides information on The Green Orange item.

Examining First Class Objects

Dashboard Designer allows you to work with first class objects. First class objects are items that you can manage in Dashboard Designer and reuse in different dashboards. The following items are considered first class objects:

• Dashboards: A compilation of KPIs, scorecards, reports, and filters. A dashboard is deployed to SharePoint.

• Scorecards: A compilation of KPIs.

• KPIs: KPIs enable you to measure the success of your organization, project, employees, and products. This is done by defining a goal or target value that is compared to an actual value.

• Filters: Filters enable you to filter dashboard items so that you can view only select items. The filter values can be almost anything. For example, you can filter by time, region, employee, or product.

• Indicators: Visual element associated with your KPIs that enables you to determine the status of a KPI. A classic example of an indicator is the red, yellow, and green traffic light indicator.

• Data Sources: PPS enables you to connect to the following data sources: Analysis Services, Excel Services, Excel Workbook, SharePoint List, and SQL Server Table/View.

• Reports: Reports enable you to visualize data using charts such as bar and line charts. Types of reports include analytic grid, analytic chart, strategy map, KPI details, and Reporting Services. Other reports include Excel Services, ProClarity Analytics server page, and web page.

Examining the Home Tab

The Home tab is made up of the following sections:

• Clipboard

• Workspace

• Item

• Changes

• Import

The Home tab is context sensitive, which means the options available will vary depending on the item you select. This section covers only the most important options in the Home tab.

Workspace Section

The Workspace section of the Home tab offers the following options, among others (see Figure 3):

• Add Items: Enables you to add an item and its related items to the local workspace. If you add a scorecard, the KPIs, data sources, and indicators that the scorecard uses will also be added. This option, which is context sensitive, will activate when you have objects highlighted in the SharePoint tab.

• Add Lists: Enables you to add a SharePoint list to the workspace. You cannot create a new list. Instead, the list has to exist in SharePoint.

• Refresh: Enables you to refresh the contents of a list. Use this option to update the contents of your local workspace to include items that have been added to a SharePoint list.

Figure 3. The Home tab contains the Workspace section.

Item Section

The Item section of the Home tab offers the following options among others:

• Properties: This option enables you to open the item’s properties page in SharePoint.
  

• Permissions: Opens the item’s permissions page in SharePoint. Because all Dashboard Designer items are SharePoint list items, the permissions from its parent, which is a site in this case, will apply. If necessary, you can break the inheritance.

• Delete: Enables you to delete an item from either the local or SharePoint workspace.

Changes Section

The Changes section of the Home tab offers the following options:

• Compare Item: Compare an item in the workspace with the latest saved version in SharePoint. This will produce a detailed report of property value differences between the workspace item and the SharePoint item.

• Validate Item: Checks that all data sources are valid and available for the item you select. For example, you can use this option to verify that data is available for all the KPIs on a scorecard.

• Mark Differences: Enables you to mark items in the local workspace that have a different property value compared to the SharePoint item.

Import Section

The Import section of the Home tab offers the following option:

• You can import content from different SharePoint lists on the same site, from different site collections on the same server, from a different SharePoint farm, or from a custom created DDWX file.

• The DDWX file format is created by serializing PPS objects from the SharePoint content database into a simple XML structure. It is possible to do custom editing of DDWX files before importing them. This proves useful if you want to do bulk editing of content and are comfortable working with XML.