Using PerformancePoint Services - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 214

An overview of PerformancePoint Services components

Before discussing the improvements made in PerformancePoint Services 2013 (in comparison with
PerformancePoint 2010), we want to give you a quick tour of the basic elements: data sources, dash-
boards, scorecards, KPIs, indicators, and reports. Later in the chapter, you'll see more detail about
each element.

PerformancePoint stores these elements as content types in SharePoint document libraries and
lists. PerformancePoint elements stored in lists comprise dashboards, scorecards, reports, filters, KPIs,
and indicators, whereas the elements stored in document libraries are data sources.

The following sections provide a more detailed look at the PerformancePoint elements.

data sources
Data sources are of paramount importance to data-driven applications. In PerformancePoint, data
sources are elements that store the connection information required to access the data that serves
as the underlying source for KPIs, analytic charts, and grids. Data sources can also drive dashboard
filters.

You should know that Analysis Services (multidimensional and PowerPivot) are “preferred data
sources,” because this data source type extends what you can do in a PerformancePoint Services
dashboard. For example, you can slice and drill down to uncover the underlying data that results
in a high-level value. You cannot do this with relational data. However, because this is a dashboard
authoring tool, you have several data-source options available.

Important In Dashboard Designer, when you create a data source for an Excel workbook,
you actually import that workbook as the data source. PerformancePoint stores an internal
copy of the Excel file, so any modifications you make to it are independent of the original
file.

Following are the different data sources that you can use:

Analysis Services-multidimensional (2005, 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012)

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PowerPivot for Excel 2013

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Excel workbook (2007, 2010, or 2013)

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Excel Services (2007, 2010, or 2013)

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SharePoint list (2007, 2010, or 2013)

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SQL Server-relational data (2005, 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012)

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Custom data source

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