Overview of PerformancePoint Planning

  • Article

The Planning Server, Planning Business Modeler, and PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel suite of applications enables you to build a foundation of useful, actionable business information that pertains to finance, management, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and human resources. The Planning Server components let you monitor and analyze business data and critical assumptions and, most important, to reveal key business drivers and potential projections. This enables business managers to be proactive instead of reactive.

Planning Server provides the infrastructure between the PerformancePoint client tier, the Microsoft SQL Server databases, and the SQL Server Analysis Services cubes. Planning Server supplies a run-time environment for business analysts who design and create business applications by using Planning Business Modeler and for their end users, who are the consumers of those applications.

PerformancePoint Planning Server

Planning Server has the following features:

  • It is built on a SQL Server database system.

  • It uses Microsoft Office Excel for line-of-business (LOB) reporting and analysis. This makes learning faster and easier for both information technology (IT) professionals and end users.

  • It provides a consistent and timely view into a business by using data from multiple existing systems, without changing those systems.

  • It centrally manages business logic and business metadata.

  • It Allows business analysts, through Planning Business Modeler, to access Planning Server data views and create model sites, data mappings, and applications. End users can access all these elements through PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel.

PerformancePoint Planning Business Modeler

Planning Business Modeler is the primary interface for creating and managing business models, which are the basic units of data storage in Planning Server, and their associated model metadata. The models that are created by using Planning Business Modeler integrate relevant information about a company. You can use the integrated information to measure performance, or to plan, budget, and forecast. By using these Planning Server models and the predefined and user-defined business dimensions, you can build powerful applications that perform complex planning, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. In addition, you can manage security for the applications and data. Planning Business Modeler runs locally on each user's computer, but all the models and schemas are based on Planning Server.

PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel

PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel takes as input your Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) and LOB data that was collected by using Planning Server models. It enables you to present that data in meaningful and insightful ways. PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel, together with Planning Business Modeler, provides form and report authoring, data entry and submission, and workflow capabilities. For portability, users can work with PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel either when they are connected to Planning Server or when offline.

PerformancePoint Planning Server Applications

A Planning Server application is the container for the following:

  • A company’s Planning Server-based business model definitions

  • Predefined and user-defined dimensions

  • Mappings that connect business model definitions with the company’s data source

  • Planning Server metadata like views, permissions, and workflow information

See Also

Other Resources

Applications and models in Planning Business Modeler
Dimensions and members in Planning Business Modeler
Business rules in Planning Business Modeler
Technical library for PerformancePoint Server
Office Online Help and How-to site for PerformancePoint Server