Why use Business Intelligence Studio?

BIS enhances your investment in PerformancePoint Server, to better serve your user community with user-friendly financial applications.

A few examples of how BIS can help your organization:

BIS enables you to combine data from several cubes (for example, employee salary per year in the user model with the salary increase percentage from the assumption model). This ensures an easy to use end-user environment, rather than having to juggle with multiple workbooks.

Let end-users add members on the fly (For example, if a department manager needs to add a new employee, this can be done easily and securely directly in the Excel budget model versus having to go to the PPS console (Biz Modeler).

For Line Item detail (such as detailed travel expenses below the GL account level) you do not have to first add each line item as a dimension member in the data warehouse. Instead BIS will handle this automatically directly in Microsoft Excel, enabling dynamic input forms.

Business Intelligence Studio Features and Benefits for your business:

Excel Form Designer/Report Writer: A powerful Excel-based form designer to create complex forms and reports. The advanced MDX designer will create complex MDX queries for your form without having to know MDX.

Multi-Model Forms: Custom template-based controls can be assigned multiple times to one form and can be controlled from the slicer. It can submit to multiple models and scenarios without having to change from one Excel form to the other. In other words, multiple cubes can be linked to the same slicers.

Multi-Model Matrix:The Multi-Model Matrix control allow the designer to integrate more than one PPS Model into 1 matrix control. Now it's possible to integrate one more assumption model with with another model and treat the data as if its from the same model.

Excel Calculations within the Matrix and Line Item Control: The ability to add multiple Excel calculation formulas within the Matrix or Line Item. Useful when wanting to fix instant feedback on totals, variances etc without having to create a new Rule to calculate the results.

Blank Row and Columns within the Matrix Control: Need the ability to create a blank row or column between different groups of information in the Matrix control? No problem!

Parameterized Rules: BIS can dramatically improve speed and scalability in the budget model because it can parameterize PPS business rules with the benefit of only having to recalculate the relevant section of the cube. PPS Rules can be run directly within the form.

Line Item Detail: Update/create/ remove records from the transaction table, reference multiple measures within one model, read multiple models within a line item.

Simplified Dimension Maintenance (Member set editor control): Create new members at runtime with the use of the member set editor control. New members can automatically be added to existing member sets without having to redeploy the cube! Editor allows for editing and deleting of existing members as well!

Rules Configuration Tool: Configure the rules that you want to run and when they should run. Allows you to fire off a specific rule and then run other rule when it has completed. Vital for rules that depend on the results of another rule.

Custom Form Controls: Drop down boxes, check boxes, short and long text boxes, and linked drop downs enable data entry with checks and controls, to ensure better data quality, smoother budgeting and forecasting processes which provide better business performance management in your organization.

Dimension Slicer: Can control one or more dynamic matrix controls, a slicer can have multiple dimension members and member set groups that can reference to each other to allow for filtering.

Built in use of Excel Styles: Use the built-in styles provided by Excel 2007 within your Matrix and Line Item Controls.