PerformancePoint Services 2010 (part 3) - Upgrading PerformancePoint Server 2007 & Migrating Content to Another SharePoint 2010 Location

4. Upgrading PerformancePoint Server 2007

This section discusses how to import data from PerformancePoint Server 2007 into SharePoint 2010.

First, it’s important to know that you don’t have to use a Business Intelligence Center site as the destination site when upgrading PerformancePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint 2010. You can migrate PerformancePoint data to any site created with any site template, as long as the appropriate content types are associated to the destination lists and document libraries in that site. The following list provides an overview of these content types.

• PerformancePoint KPI

• PerformancePoint scorecard

• PerformancePoint indicator

• PerformancePoint report

• PerformancePoint filter

• PerformancePoint dashboard

When you have taken care of choosing destination lists and document libraries, migrating data with the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool will work.

Furthermore, you will find that there are no longer any site number restrictions. You can move content to any number of sites in the same or different Web applications. Using the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool, you can point at source content you want to migrate and then select to which lists or document libraries you want to migrate this content.

This also means you can move data that is from multiple PerformancePoint Server 2007 installations. Run the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool for every installation and the tool will retrieve content from the source PerformancePoint Server 2007 application database to a SharePoint 2010 destination list or document library.

The PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool doesn’t recreate existing PerformancePoint Server 2007 site structures, so you need to make sure that you set up a new site structure (it doesn’t have to match the old site structure) in SharePoint 2010 before you start migrating content.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 roles and permissions do not exist in SharePoint 2010, but the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool will create equivalent sets of permissions in SharePoint 2010. Please note that the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool doesn’t use predefined SharePoint 2010 roles because the permission sets associated to these roles may have been altered during the course of its existence. Windows group memberships are not migrated to a new server. This means that users that existed in the local administrators group on a PerformancePoint 2007 server will not be added automatically to the local administrators group on the PerformancePoint 2010 server.

Before migrating content, you need to ensure two other things. First, you need to make sure that you’re migrating content to a destination location that is set up to be a trusted location. You can do that using the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration website. Second, you need to configure an unattended service account for PerformancePoint Services 2010.

During content migration, you should understand that there is an important distinction between dashboard definitions and exported dashboards. Both are migrated to the new environment, but there is a problem with exported dashboards. The actual .aspx files that make up the exported dashboard have references to the old PerformancePoint 2007 server that will immediately (if the new server can’t access the old one) or eventually (if the old server ceases to exist) become broken references when you migrate them. Therefore, you should open the dashboard definition and export it again so that those .aspx files will be recreated with re-established links that point to the new location.

When migrating content, you also may need to update data source references after migrating to a new location. For instance, the old environment may have referred to an instance of Analysis Services 2005, and now you want to use an instance of Analysis Services 2008. It’s also possible that the unattended service account that you are using in the new environment won’t have access to the various data sources you are using.

The following procedure shows you how to migrate PerformancePoint Server 2007 content to a PerformancePoint Services 2010 location.

This opens the Import PerformancePoint Server 2007 Content Wizard, which helps you to upgrade PerformancePoint Server 2007 content to PerformancePoint Services 2010.

Please note that the following items will not be migrated to the new environment.

• Spreadsheets

• Trend analysis charts

• Pivot tables

• Pivot charts

The reason that these items won’t be migrated is simple: They are not supported in PerformancePoint Services 2010 because their functionality overlaps with other Microsoft technology. You will need to recreate these types of items completely.

After you have chosen which items you want to migrate, the wizard checks the security configuration in the Web.config file of PerformancePoint Server 2007. It uses this information and applies it to all data sources that are being moved. Possible security configurations are as follows.

• A single shared user account is used to access all data sources.

• A single shared user account is used to access all data sources and its user name is stored in the Web.config file.

• The user’s own account is used to access all data sources.

In the next step, you need to log on to a PerformancePoint Server 2007 instance, which requires you to specify a server name and appropriate credentials. Please note that the information you provide here is not going to be used again and isn’t stored anywhere. It is only used once to log on to the SQL Server that houses the PerformancePoint Server 2007 application database (also known as the PerformancePoint Server 2007 content database).

Then the wizard asks you to select a PerformancePoint 2007 content database. If you want to move multiple installations of PerformancePoint 2007, you must run this wizard multiple times.

On the next page of the wizard, you enter the site collection, site, and name of the list where you want to move the content. You need to do the same thing for the data source and point it to a destination document library. It is a best practice to always use an empty list or document library as the destination. Otherwise, if there are list items in an existing list that have the same name as PerformancePoint content, content will be upgraded erroneously. To prevent loss of data, it is best to always use an empty list or document library.

The final page of the wizard shows the status of the import and what kind of content, such as scorecards or dashboards, is being moved. If all goes well, you will see a reassuring list of green check marks on the status page.

5. Migrating Content to Another SharePoint 2010 Location

This section explains how to move content from one SharePoint 2010 site into a set of lists or document libraries located in another SharePoint 2010 site. This is a very common scenario that you will encounter, for instance, when you are moving data from a test server to a production server.

Before you start moving content, you need to complete a small checklist of tasks.

• Make sure you have set up and configured a PerformancePoint Service Application that will be used by the destination Web application.

• Recreate the current site and list structure in the destination Web application.

• Think about a security structure and implement it.

The first point in the checklist is self-evident; without a destination Web application that is connected to a PerformancePoint Service Application, migration won’t work. The second point is that the PerformancePoint Services 2010 content migration tool doesn’t recreate existing site structures (this is identical to migrations from PerformancePoint Server 2007 instances). You need to recreate the exact same site structure in the destination Web application. Failing to do so results in broken PerformancePoint references. Lastly, you need to implement a security structure, because existing permissions from a SharePoint 2010 source will not be migrated to a SharePoint 2010 destination. Instead, the existing destination security structure will be used.

You use the PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer to migrate content from a SharePoint 2010 source to a SharePoint 2010 location. PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer is a ClickOnce application that needs to be downloaded and installed once from a Business Intelligence Center. You can do this by creating a new site collection using the Business Intelligence Center template. After you have created the BI center, you need to click the Start Using PerformancePoint Services link and click the Run Dashboard Designer button, which starts the download and installation of the client (note that a client requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1). The following procedure explains how to migrate content from a SharePoint 2010 source to a SharePoint 2010 location.

This action will cause the Import Items To SharePoint Wizard to start copying PerformancePoint content to the new location. The final screen in the wizard displays a summary that allows you to open the migration log files if you want to see more details.

There are a couple of issues you need to be aware of when it comes to moving PerformancePoint 2010 content. The first one is that when you select an object in Dashboard Designer, it loads all of the dependencies of that object. For example, opening a dashboard definition in SharePoint Designer will cause all of its dependencies to be loaded. This means that you should always choose objects that are high in the hierarchy when moving content (a top-down approach) to save time.

Dashboard Designer allows you to skip existing data sources during content migration. Typically, you will migrate them once, update data source references in the destination location (which is often needed in a new environment), and after that leave them as they are. This way, you will have to update those references only once.

You might wonder if you can use existing SharePoint site migration and backup and restore capabilities with PerformancePoint content. That is not a good idea—you should always use Dashboard Designer to migrate that content, because PerformancePoint keeps all of its site collection references between the objects as part of the objects themselves. Dashboard Designer ensures those references will also be updated, whereas SharePoint migration tooling just migrates the content and leaves those references as is. However, you can use the SharePoint backup and restore tools as long as you restore content to the same site structure. In that case, the references don’t need to be updated.