What is the best book for learning PerformancePoint?

Question

I'm tasked with providing data from my company's application to be used by PerformancePoint, so I wanted to find out as much as I could on how to use it effectively (so I can prepare my data accordingly). I've done some nosing around on der Intarweb, but wanted to find a book I could get that I can eventually use as a reference. Anyone have a favorite and a reason why (it's better than others or the documentation on der Intarweb)?

Answer 1

How about:

1. Doing a google search and scan over everything that is already published for free so far. Usually that should be sufficient.

2. Doing a search on amazon./com/co.uk/de/fr/??/whatever.

Putting the keywords into google got me roughly 19 thousands hits. Seems like you should do your homework on your own.

Answer 2

@Nils, you didn't answer the question or, it seems, read it thoroughly.

I've looked around online (e.g. "nosing around on der Intarweb"). I wasn't asking for directions on how to look around or where. I specifically came to SO because I want to use this community. I wanted the thoughtful opinions of developers here, not on Google or Amazon (even though they may overlap).

I'm not looking for a list of popular resources. I'm looking for resources people have actually found useful and are willing to recommend...here. Anyone can buy a top selling book.

So, Nils, as a developer who's professional opinion I'm trying to solicit, what book would you recommend to me from your experiences with PerformancePoint and why?

Answer 3

Haven't used PP as such, but it's heavily based on Analysis Services. If you're building data sets for cubes, it pays to spoon-feed the cubes as much as possible. Pre-calculate any base metrics you can, either in the database itself or in the DSV underlying the cubes. The less the cubes have to do on the fly the simpler the design and the faster the cubes will run.

If you're not familiar with Analysis Services or MDX you should get to grips with this tooling, as it underpins PerformancePoint. In response to another question I've written up a list of SSAS resources here.

Answer 4

I learned PerformancePoint mostly by trial & error.

Microsoft has extensive documentation along with a technical forum to help you troubleshoot:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/performancepoint/default.aspx

Best of luck.

Answer 5

As PP is relatively new, I too had the same search not too long ago. Many of the current titles deal with Planning, which mercifully will be at end of lifecycle in SP3.

However Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes' title "Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007" has been very useful. It is concise, focused and well-written from a getting up to speed and getting things done point of view.

Answer 6

I have not found a good book covering just PerformancePoint. However, while searching for one I came across an excellent book for getting an overview of how all the SSAS pieces fit together. It's "Pro PerformancePoint Server 2007," by Philo Janus.

The title of the book is extremely misleading, however. When I saw the book I thought, "exactly what I need to nail PerformancePoint!" But then I read the back cover and the contents and realized it was more of an overview of the whole BI stack. Once I was able to ignore the title of the book I realized I personally needed this book more than one focusing just on PP -- I'm self taught in all things SSAS/BI and this kind of overview is excellent for "putting all the pieces together." Microsoft's solution stack can be very confusing sometimes.

To quote the author: "My goal with this book is to lay out the Microsoft BI 'stack' in a way that makes it possible to learn and understand how every part applies to the overall goal of deriving value from large amounts of data."

It's not the book you're looking for, I know, but it was useful for me. YMMV.