Book Review: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services Unleashed

I finally wrapped up my read of the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services Unleashed book by SAMS publishing.  I was not provided the book to review, so just want to state that up front.  I thought that the authors did a great job going over the product providing an overview, installation information, component breakdown, dashboard development, PerformancePoint 2007 differences and migration, and custom development.  I thought the authors did a very good job explaining the product and they even had a case study in regards to Apples and Oranges which is a broadcast company wanting to evaluate The Green Orange show.  I definitely like the idea of bringing in the case study, just not sure if that theme was pushed throughout the rest of the book showing how the product helps them to be able to monitor and analyze information about the show.

I liked that the book included Notes, Tips, Summary, and Best Practices in each chapter.  Getting some additional insight and tips from the authors was good to help explain and provide some additional guidance and reasoning.  I liked chapters 11 and 12 where the authors showed how you can interact with the API, perform custom development with the SDK, and manage the product leveraging PowerShell scripts.

If you are new to the PerformancePoint product and will be working with the SharePoint 2010 product I would definitely recommend picking up this book as a reference point.  I think it does a good job providing examples and will prepare you for building dashboards with the product.  I think if the case study would have been fully incorporated along with some more dashboarding explanation and advanced PerformancePoint topics that would have really completed the book.  The end chapters that I mentioned above did help though.  I think the book could have been just a tad bit longer.

All-in-all I would give it a 3.5 out of 5 (five being the highest) rating – and the price that you can get it for is definitely reasonable, plus I believe this is the only PerformancePoint 2010 book that is currently available.  There are a couple of items available for download that you can take a look at (an Excel file and SSAS backup) once you register the book on the Informit site.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services Unleashed (9780672330940): Tim Kashani, Ola Ekdahl, Kevin Beto, Rachel Vigier: Books ISBN: 0672330946 ISBN-13: 9780672330940

 

And just an FYI, you can install and use Per User Identity authentication for security on a data source in a single server environment (farm setup).  This does work, you do not need to do a standalone SharePoint install.