Introduction

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) represent a widely used performance measurement technique used by organizations to monitor business performance and evaluate the effectiveness of their business strategies. The introduction of the Balanced Scorecard methodology further popularizes the usage of KPIs as an effective tool for measuring an organization’s progress toward achieving its defined business goals. Microsoft entered the scorecarding space in late 2003 by introducing Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Accelerator (MOBSA). Since then, Microsoft has gather feedback on the usage and implementation of MOBSA by customers and partners around the world. Based on that feedback, Microsoft has revamped the product and introduced Business Scorecard Manager 2005 (BSM 2005). Business Scorecard Manager is a server based application that provides a platform for organizations to create Scorecards and KPIs and publish them to a secure, web based environment. It provides a rich graphical user interface to allow you to monitor KPIs from multiple data sources, or to compare KPIs to your defined goals and across time, or view supporting reports and documents that provide background information about the KPIs, or you can perform interactive analysis to drill down into the root cause of any problems identified, collaborate with other KPI stakeholders, and get notified when a KPI value falls or exceeds certain thresholds. BSM can also cascade the scorecards and KPIs across the entire organization.

In this article I’ll give a brief overview of BSM architecture and then work through a sample BSM corporate scorecard based on the AdventureWorks database. I’ll show you how to create the scorecard from a fresh BSM install, or if you prefer you can simply download the completed scorecard as a BSM workspace – it forms the sample download that accompanies this article. The workspace contains two KPIs and one pivot table report. The KPIs monitor monthly sales through a reseller channel and an Internet channel.

In more detail: the sample comprises a Corporate Scorecard that monitors monthly sales of AdventureWorks through a reseller channel and an Internet channel. The Scorecard compares the current sales to the sales target defined by AdventureWorks for both channels – and for the purposes of the sample, the sales target is a 15% increment of previous sales. An indicator is used to show the status of monthly sales – in particular whether the sales target is achieved. To perform in-depth analysis on products or regions that contribute most of the sales, you can use the Pivot Table feature of Office Web Components to analyze the sales by products or regions and over the time. Figure 1 shows the completed corporate scorecard.

NOT VALID: ImageTooWide: The completed page with scorecard, KPI and report
This figure has been reduced in size to fit in the text. To view the full image Click here

BSM Architecture

BSM uses Sharepoint – either Sharepoint Portal Server or Windows Sharepoint Services as a platform to display the scorecards and KPIs and for the user to interact with them. Architecture.gif shows the architecture of BSM.

Figure 2. Business Scorecard Manager Architecture

Business Scorecard Manager consists of core components and supporting components. The core components are

• Business Scorecard Builder is a window based client application used to create scorecards, indicators, KPIs and data sources, and to associate a scorecard and KPI with reports and to publish the metadata to BSM Server.


• Business Scorecard Manager Server is the heart of BSM: It provides the application core functionality, connecting to data sources and Web parts and storing metadata and user permissions associated with scorecard elements.


• Business Scorecard Manager Web Part is a Sharepoint based Web Part that is used to display a scorecard and report using Sharepoint. There are two types of Web Part: The Scorecard View can display a scorecard, while the Reports View can display a report.

Functionality and services provided by Business Scorecard Manager Server are handled by Scorecard Web Services and the metadata database.

The supporting components in BSM are SQL Server 2000/2005, Notification Services 2000/2005, Reporting Services 2000/2005, Sharepoint (either Portal Server or Windows Sharepoint Services) and Office Web Components 2003. Of these, you must install SQL Server 2000/2005 and Sharepoint (either Portal Server or Windows Sharepoint Services) for BSM to work, but the other components are optional – although if you choose not to install an optional component you won’t be able to access the relevent feature of BSM).

Briefly, the purposes of the supporting components are:

• SQL Server 2000/2005 is used to store the metadata for the scorecard elements.


• Notification Services is used to send an alert when KPI value falls below or exceeds a defined threshold. Out of the box, notification services sends alerts using email, but it also gives you the option to define additional delivery channels – for example to send the alerts to a mobile phone or to use Windows Messenger.


• SQL Reporting Services allows you to produce a static KPI Report. This incidentally might provide an alternative to using notification services to obtain alerts about important events.


• Office Web Components (OWC) is used to display pivot tables and pivot charts. One point to note is BSM only works with OWC 2003, not OWC from Office 2000 or XP.


• Sharepoint is used to display information to the user, including reports generated by reporting services as well as the pivot tables and charts generated by OWC.

System Requirements

As noted earlier this article is accompanied with a sample Scorecard and KPI. To run the sample, you need to have an environment setup with the following software.

• Windows Server 2003 With Service Pack 1. (Note: Windows XP is not sufficient for the sample, although it will work to run Business Scorecard Builder).


• The .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 (1.1 to run BSM and 2.0 to run SQL Server 2005).


• Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0


• Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 With Service Pack 2


• Microsoft XML 4.0 with Service Pack 2


• ADOMD.NET 8.0


• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services and Pivot Table Services Lite Service Pack 4.0


• OLE DB Provider For OLAP 8.0


• Business Scorecard Manager 2005 Client & Server. 180 days trial version is available for download.


• SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition


• The AdventureWorksDW Sample Database

You also need to familiar with T-SQL language as the KPI calculation is defined using T-SQL.

Installing and Compiling the Sample Code

To run the sample code, you should double click on the Sales.bsw file. This is the Business Scorecard workspace file that contains information about the data Source, indicator, scorecard and KPIs. The workspace file is opened using Business Scorecard Builder.

In the Business Scorecard Builder, you should click on Workspace menu, and select Publish All option. Then click on the Tools menu, select Deploy Scorecard and To Sharepoint option. In the Deploy Scorecard in Sharepoint window, click on the Specify Scorecard on Server button to select the scorecard – this is shown in Figure 3.

NOT VALID: ImageTooWide: Selecting a scorecard in Business Scorecard Server
This figure has been reduced in size to fit in the text. To view the full image Click here

Then select AdventureWorks Scorecard and click the OK button. Click the Next button. Select Default View in the Scorecard view name list box and click the Next button. For the Page Name field, enter Sales and accept the default layout setting. Click the Next button. You should see something likewhat is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Entering the Sharepoint URL and document library

In the Create Web Part Page dialog, enter http://localhost in the Sharepoint Site URL field and select Document Library from Document Library list box. Then click on the Finish button. A web page is opened with the scorecard and report Web part.

Creating Scorecard, KPI & Report

I’ll now show you how to create the sample scorecard from a fresh BSM installation, if you prefer to do that.

Creating a scorecard, KPI and report is a multi-step process. The first step is to create a workspace in Business Scorecard Builder. To open Business Scorecard Builder, navigate to the Program menu in Windows, select Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager and click on Microsoft Business Scorecard Builder. In the Business Scorecard Builder, click on the Create a new workspace option in the Workspace Browser pane. Figure 5 shows the Business Scorecard Builder environment.

Figure 5. Business Scorecard Builder Environment

The workspace is like a project file where you create all the scorecard elements – the definitions and settings for the scorecard elements are stored in the workspace in XML form. As you may notice in the left pane in Figure 5, there are four main elements you normally need to create: Data sources, indicators, scorecards and KPIs.

• A data source is an element that contains properties and a connection string to connect to an actual back-end data source.


• An indicator represents the KPI status in a graphical and textual manner.


• A scorecard is used to contain all KPIs required for analysis in a single view. For example a corporate scorecard could contain high level KPIs for sales, finance and operations while finance scorecard contain just all KPIs related to finance.


• A KPI is a business metric to measure a specific subject, like product sales or store profitability.

You can create the elements in any order, except for the KPI elements. The reason is when you create a KPI, you need to select the indicator for the KPI target and the data source for the KPI calculation.

In this article, you will create a workspace called Sales. This workspace will contain one Scorecard called AdventureWorks with two KPIs, each tracking the product sales through reseller and Internet channel. Both KPIs will use the AdventureWorksDW database as the data source. The AdventureWorks scorecard also will contain a Pivot Table report for user to perform interactive analysis on the product sales.

Creating the Data Sources

To create a data source, right click on the Data Sources folder in the left pane, and select the Create option. In the Create data source window, select New Definition and click the Next button. For the data source, you can select ADOMD.NET when your data source is an Analysis Services cube. Select ODBC when your data source is relational database, or an Excel spreadsheet or text file. In this sample, you will use the AdventureWorksDW database, which is a relational database. So select the ODBC option and click Next. In the Data source name field, enter AdventureWorksDW and click on the Finish button. Now the Data Source Editor will open as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. The Data Source Editor

In the Connection tab, enter the connection string required by your system to get to the AdventureWorks database. In my case it’s Driver={SQL Server};Server=localhost;Database=AdventureWorksDW;Trusted_Connection=yes;. Then click on theTest Connection button to verify the connection. You should receive a message box informing you the connection to the data source has been successfully created. Click the OK button twice to close the message box and the Data Source Editor.

Creating the Indicators

When you install Business Scorecard Manager, you are provided with three sample workspaces. One of the workspaces is Indicators.bsw, which by default is located in C:Program FilesMicrosoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005BuilderSamplesWorkspaces. This workspace contains a list of existing indicators, which you can publish to BSM Server and use in your other scorecard projects. This will save your time creating a new indicator. But in this article you will still go through the process of creating an indicator so you can understand the steps required in creating one.

To create an Indicator, right click on the Indicators folder in the left pane, and select the Create option. In the Create Indicator window, select New Definition and click the Next button. You’ll see a window called Specify the type and number of levels for your new indicator. In this you can create two types of indicator, Standard and Centered. A standard indicator is suitable for a KPI that tracks increasing or decreasing value, like Product Sales or Product Defect Rate. A centered indicator is suitable for a KPI where you are trying to keep close to some target. An example might be Percentage of Chargeable Days per Consultant. If a consultant has a chargeable rate of 80%, then optimum value of this indicator will be 80%. Much diffferent from that would imply the consultant is either under- or over-utilized.

For this article, you will create KPI that tracks Product Sales. Therefore, you need to select the Standard option. You’ll also see an option asking you to specify the number of levels: Levels are used to set when the KPI status will change. The higher the number of levels, the more frequently the KPI status will change – this is useful when you want to track the KPI in finer detail. By default, the number of level selected is 3, and the highest you can set is 10. For this sample, you will create a 3-level indicator. So accept the default selection in the Number of levels list box and click the Next button. This gives you the Indicator Editor – shown in Figure 7 In the Indicator name field of this dialog, enter Sales Status and click the Finish button.

Figure 7. The Indicator Editor

Now right click on the Sales Status indicator in the left pane, and select the Edit option. In the Indicator Editor, click on Level 1(Worst) in the left pane so you can edit the properties of this indicator. For Background color, click the Specify Color button and select Red. Then click OK. For Image, click the Browse button and navigate to C:Program FilesMicrosoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005BuilderSamplesImages. Then select the Indicator3DefaultBand1.gif and click OK. Now click on Level 2. For Background color, select Yellow and select Indicator3DefaultBand2.gif for the Indicator Image. Then click on Level 3(Best) and select Green and Indicator3DefaultBand3.gif for both Background color and Image respectively. With three levels, you can track whether a measure e.g. sales performance is bad, average or good. The actual level usage is defined when you create a KPI that use the Indicator. Click the OK button to close the Indicator Editor. The Sales Status indicator is created successfully.

Creating a Scorecard and KPI

You have now created both the data source and indicator elements, the prerequisite elements for a KPI. Now you can proceed to create the scorecard and KPI. To create the scorecard, right click on the Scorecards folder in the left pane and select the Create option. In the Create Scorecard window, select New Definition and click Next. In the Scorecard name field, enter AdventureWorks Scorecard and click the Finish button. Now right click on the KPIs folder in the left pane and select the Create option. In the Create KPI window, select the New Definition option and click the Next button. In the KPI name field, enter Sales By Reseller and click the Finish button. In the right pane below Actual and Targets, right click on Actual. This opens the Actual Editor, which is used to define the actual value for a measure e.g. current sales, current product defects or current revenues. The actual value can be a fixed value or value derived from query. In the General Properties tab, enter Actual Sales in the Name field. Then click on the Detailed Properties tab. For Unit of measure, select Currency and for Frequency, select Monthly. Other supported frequencies are Daily, Weekly, Quarterly and Yearly. This KPI will track the sales amount on monthly basis. Now click on the Data Mappings tab. This section is where you enter the calculation logic for the KPI. In the Data source name list box, select AdventureWorksDW. In the ODBC Query text box, enter this query.

//Variable To Store Current Month & Time Key

DECLARE CurrMonth INT
DECLARE StartDateKey INT

DECLARE EndDateKey INT
//Get Current Month
SET CurrMonth = DATEPART)

//Retrieve Time Key From DimTime Table For Start Date Of The Month

SELECT StartDateKey = TimeKey FROM dbo.DimTime 
  WHERE FullDateAlternateKey = CAST(CurrMonth AS CHAR) + ‘/1/2004’

//Calculate End Date Of The Month

SET EndDateKey = 
  StartDateKey + CHAR(2">DATEDIFF) + ‘/1/2004’) – 1

//Calculate Monthly Sales Of The Month

SELECT CASTAS DECIMAL) AS MonthlySales 
  FROM dbo.FactResellerSales 
  WHERE OrderDateKey BETWEEN StartDateKey AND EndDateKey

This query will retrieve the Dimension key for the start and end dates of the current month. Then the query will return the total sales amount for current month for sales transactions through the reseller channel. You need to hardcode the year to 2004 as the AdventureWorksDW database doesn t contain sales data for 2005 and 2006. The month value will always reflect the current month. If your database contains sales data up to the current date, you can use the DATEPART function to generate the current month and year. The above query also retrieves the Time Key from the DimTime table as the date stored in the FactResellerSales table is in key form (that is to say, it simply contains a key which must be joined to the date dimension table to retrieve the actual date). Click the OK button to close the editor. Now right click on Default Target and select the Edit option. In the General Properties tab, enter Target Sales in the Target name field. Then click on the Detailed Properties tab. Select Currency for Unit of measure and Monthly for Frequency. Now click on the Data Mappings tab. Select AdventureWorksDW in the Data source name field. In the ODBC Query text box, enter this query.

//Variable To Store Previous Month & Time Key

DECLARE PrevMonth INT
DECLARE PrevStartDateKey INT

DECLARE PrevEndDateKey INT
//Get Previous Month
SET PrevMonth = DATEPART) – 1

//Retrieve Time Key From DimTime Table For Start Date Of The Previous Month

SELECT PrevStartDateKey = TimeKey FROM dbo.DimTime 
  WHERE FullDateAlternateKey = CAST(PrevMonth AS CHAR) + ‘/1/2004’

//Calculate End Date Of The Previous Month

SET PrevEndDateKey = 
  PrevStartDateKey + CHAR(2">DATEDIFF) + ‘/1/2004’) – 1

// Calculate Monthly Sales Of Previous Month And Add 15 Percent As Target

SELECT CAST * 1.15 AS DECIMAL) 
  AS MonthlySalesTarget FROM dbo.FactResellerSales 
  WHERE OrderDateKey BETWEEN PrevStartDateKey AND PrevEndDateKey

This query is similar to query for the actual value, except you retrieve the previous month’s sales and multiply by 115% to get the sales target for current month (In the real world, this target would more likely come from some forecasting engine). The last thing you need to define for the target is the threshold. The threshold is used to define the range of value for each level in the Indicator. Click on the Thresholds tab. Figure 8 shows what you should see at this point.

NOT VALID: ImageTooWide: The thresholds tab in the Target Editor
This figure has been reduced in size to fit in the text. To view the full image Click here

Select the Sales Status indicator in the Indicator name list box. You can adjust the value between the indicator boundaries to determine when a level is used for a KPI status. For an indicator with 3 levels, level 1 is determined using value from 0 to boundary 1. Level 2 is determined using value between boundary 1 and boundary 2 while level 3 is determined using value higher than boundary 2. For this sample, accept the default settings. Click OK to close the Target Editor. The Sales by Reseller KPI is complete. Now you need to create another KPI to monitor sales through the Internet channel. Right click on the KPIs folder and select Create. Accept the default selection of New Definition and click the Next button. In the KPI name field, enter Sales By Internet and click Finish. Right click on Actual to open the Actual Editor. In the Name field, enter Target Sales. Then click on the Detailed Properties tab. Select Currency in the Unit of measure list box and Monthly in the Frequency list box. Now click on the Data Mappings tab. Select AdventureWorksDW from Data source name list box. In the ODBC Query text box, enter this query

//Variable To Store Current Month & Time Key

DECLARE CurrMonth INT
DECLARE StartDateKey INT

DECLARE EndDateKey INT
//Get Current Month
SET CurrMonth = DATEPART)

//Retrieve Time Key From DimTime Table For Start Date Of The Month

SELECT StartDateKey = TimeKey 
  FROM dbo.DimTime 
  WHERE FullDateAlternateKey = CAST(CurrMonth AS CHAR) + ‘/1/2004’

//Calculate End Date Of The Month

SET EndDateKey =
  StartDateKey + CHAR(2">DATEDIFF) + ‘/1/2004’) – 1

//Calculate Monthly Sales Of The Month

SELECT CASTAS DECIMAL) AS MonthlySales 
  FROM dbo.FactInternetSales 
  WHERE OrderDateKey BETWEEN StartDateKey AND EndDateKey

This query is similar to the query used to calculate the actual value for the Sales By Reseller KPI, except it uses FactInternetSales as the source table. Click the OK button to close the Actual Editor. Now right click on Default Target and select the Edit option. In the General Properties tab, enter Target Sales in the Target name field. Click on the Detailed Properties tab to change the Unit of measure to Currency and the Frequency to Monthly. In the Data Mapping tabs, select AdventureWorksDW from the Data source name list box. Then enter this query in the ODBC Query text box.

//Variable To Store Previous Month & Time Key

DECLARE PrevMonth INT
DECLARE PrevStartDateKey INT

DECLARE PrevEndDateKey INT
//Get Previous Month
SET PrevMonth = DATEPART) – 1

//Retrieve Time Key From DimTime Table For Start Date Of The Previous Month

SELECT PrevStartDateKey = TimeKey FROM dbo.DimTime
  WHERE FullDateAlternateKey = CAST(PrevMonth AS CHAR) + ‘/1/2004’

//Calculate End Date Of The Previous Month

SET PrevEndDateKey =
  PrevStartDateKey + CHAR(2">DATEDIFF) + ‘/1/2004’) – 1

// Calculate Monthly Sales Of Previous Month And Add 15 Percent As Target

SELECT CAST * 1.15 AS DECIMAL) AS MonthlySalesTarget
  FROM dbo.FactInternetSales 
  WHERE OrderDateKey BETWEEN PrevStartDateKey AND PrevEndDateKey

The above query is similar to the query used to calculate the target value for the Sales By Reseller KPI, except once again it uses FactInternetSales as the source table. Now click on Thresholds tab. Select Sales Status in the Indicator Name list box and accept the default setting. Click the OK button to close the Target Editor. After creating the KPIs, you need to create the Pivot Table report for the user to perform interactive analysis on the product sales. This report will be shown when the scorecard and KPIs are displayed. Click on AdventureWorks Scorecard and click on the Report Views tab. Click the Add button to open the Report View window. Accept the default option of New Definition and click the Next button. In the Report view name text box, enter Product Sales and select Pivot table in the Report view type list box. Then click on the Continue button. The Pivot Table window is shown. Enter 400 in the Height text box and 600 in the Width text box. Accept the default selection of 1 for Report Area. Then click on the Commands and Options button in the toolbar. In the Commands and Options window, select Connection option. Then click on the Edit button. Create a connection to the AdventureWorksDW database. Then click Open button. If you prompt to select a table, just select any table from the list. You will change the source to the query in the Command and Options window. Select Command text or SQL option and enter this query in the text box.

/*Combine Records From FactInternetSales and FactResellerSales 
  Using Union All Operator. Join To DimProduct, DimTime 
  And DimSalesTerritory Table To Retrieve Full Date, 
  Product Name & Sales Territory Name*/

SELECT ‘Internet’ AS Channel,
  b.EnglishProductName,c.FullDateAlternateKey,
  d.SalesTerritoryRegion,a.SalesAmount 
  FROM dbo.FactInternetSales a 
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimProduct b ON a.ProductKey = b.ProductKey
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimTime c on a.OrderDateKey = c.TimeKey 
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimSalesTerritory d
    ON a.SalesTerritoryKey = d.SalesTerritoryKey
  UNION ALL

SELECT ‘Reseller’ AS Channel,
  b.EnglishProductName,c.FullDateAlternateKey,
  d.SalesTerritoryRegion,a.SalesAmount 
  FROM dbo.FactResellerSales a 
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimProduct b ON a.ProductKey = b.ProductKey
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimTime c on a.OrderDateKey = c.TimeKey
    INNER JOIN dbo.DimSalesTerritory d
    ON a.SalesTerritoryKey = d.SalesTerritoryKey

Close the Command and Options window and click the OK button to close the Report View Editor. With this report, the user can analyze product sales by channel, individual product, sales territory and across the time. You have created all the required Scorecard elements. Now click on AdventureWorks Scorecard. In the Definition tab, click Add a KPI button in the toolbar to add Sales By Reseller and Sales By Internet to the Scorecard. Then you can proceed to publish the Scorecard elements to the Sharepoint portal.

Displaying the Scorecards, KPIs & Reports

Now let’s work through how you configure the project to display the data to the user.

Configuring the Scorecard Views

As I mentioned in the Introduction to this article, the scorecards and KPIs are displayed using Sharepoint; this is always done by means of Scorecard Views, a Sharepoint based Web Part. As such, you need to create the Scorecard Views to display the Sales By Reseller and Sales By Internet KPI. Depending on the data source type, you also can define page filtering, display the KPI value using a specific Dimensions member, show the actual and target value from KPI, and perform formatting on the column and row header. Now click on Scorecard Views tab, select Default View and click the Edit button. For this sample, I will skip the formatting and only focus on showing the values from the KPI. Click on the Actual and Targets tab in the left pane and click the Add button. In the Specify Actual and Targets window, change the text in the Specify column label text box to Actual Sales. Then uncheck the Show previous check box and click the OK button. Click on the Add button again. Accept the default selection and click the OK button. Click the OK button again to close the Scorecard View Editor window. Before the scorecards & KPIs can be displayed in Sharepoint, you need to publish the Scorecard elements to the Business Scorecard Manager Server. In the Scorecard Builder, click on the Workspace menu and select the Publish All option.

Deploying the Scorecard & KPI to Sharepoint

You have two options to display the Scorecards and KPIs in the Sharepoint portal. You can use the Deployment option in the Scorecard Builder or manually add the Web Part in the Sharepoint portal. The steps to using the Deployment option are already presented in the Installing and Compiling the Sample Code section. As such, you will try the process of manually adding the Scorecard Views Web Part to the Sharepoint Portal. Open the Sharepoint portal main page. In the left pane below Actions section, click on the Edit Page option. Then click on Modify Shared Page and select Design this Page. Remove all other Web Parts in the main page. Click on Modify Shared Page again, select Add Web Parts and select Browse. In the Add Web Parts pane, select Virtual Server Gallery. Under Web Part List, drag and drop the Scorecard Manager View to the Top Zone. In the Scorecard Manager View, select AdventureWorks Scorecard from the Select a Scorecard list box. Then click the OK button. Now drag and drop the Scorecard Manager Report View into Bottom Zone. In the Scorecard Manager Report View, select AdventureWorks Scorecard from the Select a Scorecard list box. Then click the OK button. Now click on the arrow at the right corner of the Scorecard Manager Report View. Select Modify Shared Web Part. In the Report View Areas, select 1 in the first list box. This is to instruct the Report View to display all reports in Report Area 1. Click the OK button to apply the changes. Click on View Page to set the portal to view only mode. The completed page was shown earlier in Figure 1.

Other BSM Features

Before finishing this article, it’s worth pointing out that BSM contains many more features than I’ve had space to discuss here. In particular, you can integrate other Microsoft applications like Visio and Map Point to show the supporting information about the Scorecard and KPIs. You can also embed the scorecard and KPIs into your Line of Business (LOB) applications using Business Scorecard Manager Web Services. BSM Web Services exposes a number of methods which you can use to retrieve the list of scorecards and KPIs from the server to display in your application. You also have the flexibility to display KPIs from different subjects or departments in a single scorecard – this is notable since each KPI might use different data source.

For the current version of Business Scorecard Manager, there are a few problems that are worth mentioning.

• The first limitation is the lowest frequency allowed for a KPI is at the day level. For more mission critical monitoring or measurement e.g. plant monitoring, the requirement may go down to hours or minutes.


• The installation process is not user friendly, as you need to install several components e.g. OLE DB Provider for OLAP 8.0 before you can install BSM itself.


• BSM also depends on OWC to display pivot tables and pivot charts. Users without Office 2003 can view only static images of tables and charts. These users can t perform interactive analysis on the data and drill down to the actual problem.

Conclusion

In this article you have learned about the features provided by Business Scorecard Manager, as well as about BSM architecture, which comprises both core and supporting components. You’ve worked through the steps required to create the main scorecard elements, namely data sources, indicators, scorecards and KPIs. You also learned to create a report and to show detailed data about the KPI and the steps required to display the scorecards and reports using Sharepoint. I’ve also briefly mentioned some of the other areas to explore in BSM. The possibility of integration and customization is huge, and it s up to you to make full use of the features and functionalities provided by BSM.