Passed 70-556

Today I passed the 70-556 cert exam, PerformancePoint, Applications. The test was pretty similar to the beta one I took back in November. A good portion of the test was on business rules and how to configure them. Now that I passed both of these tests, I will be back to posting about SharePoint and some of the most recent things I have been finding in the projects I am working on.

PerformancePoint 70-556 Exam

Tomorrow morning I am going to take the PerformancePoint Applications exam, 70-556. I took the exam back in November when it was in beta and since then have attended a week long class on the product, worked hands on with it, and read and studied books and online documentation. For those of you who are interested in PPS and the 70-556 exam I have provided a list of the materials that I have studied.

Microsoft 70-556 Preparation Guide

Books:

Rational Guide to Planning with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analytics with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

Online Documentation:

PerformancePoint Training

PerformancePoint Operations Guide

PerformancePoint Deployment Guide

PerformancePoint Architecture Guide

Results of the PPS Beta Exam

So this past Friday I received the results of my PPS (PerformancePoint Server) beta exam in the mail. I was quite surprised to find that I only missed passing it by 43 points. What surprised me about this was that I took the beta exam back in early November before I had taken any training or really used the product in any depth. Before I took the exam, the only things I had studied were the training pages on the Microsoft site. Now that I have take a training course and worked with the product more closely, I feel confident in my ability to pass the exam when it is released. No news yet as to when that will be but I will keep everyone posted.

PerformancePoint Server Training

Currently I am taking the PerformancePoint Server - Applications training in preparation for retaking the beta exam for PPS. The training has been very comprehensive and was able to answer some of my questions as to how PerformancePoint and SharePoint are integrated.

As for SharePoint stuff, the next few posts will include more detail about Features and building out Content Types as I am back into the mire that can be Features. I have found some new tools that also help in the creation of Features and Solutions that make the development of them much easier.

Additional upcoming topics include creating a custom field type and rendering it, using Feature Receivers, and some clarification of how content type inheritance really works.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 - Applications (Beta) Certification Exam

Tomorrow morning I go to take the Microsoft Technology Specialist 71-556 Microsoft(R) Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007, Applications certification exam. This exam is in beta right now and should be available in December. I have been using PerformancePoint off and on for about a month now and there are a lot of things you can do with it. Following are the areas that will be included in the exam (from an email from the Microsoft BI team):

Configuring Dimensions

Configure properties of predefined dimensions

Configure the time dimension

Configure a member property

Populate dimensions and member sets

Update dimension members and member set, and member properties

Configuring Models

Create a PPS model

Configure the current period

Configure model and dimension usage within sites

Transfer data between models

Configuring Business Roles and Process Management

Configure business roles

Configure security for users

Configure assignments

Configure an approval structure

Developing Business Rules

Develop an assignment rule

Develop a definition rule

Develop an allocation rule

Configure template rules

Configure rule execution

Building Excel Add-In Forms and Reports

Build an Excel Add-In report

Configure an Excel Add-In report as a form

Configure report filters

Format an Excel Add-In report

Developing Dashboards

Create a report by using the Dashboard Designer

Add a data source connection

Add a new Web page report

Configure a KPI by using Dashboard Designer

Create a scorecard

Build a dashboard

Installing PerformancePoint Server

Install the monitoring and planning services

Configure a PerformancePoint application

Configure the PerformancePoint server

Assign users to administrator roles

I will be including posts on PerformancePoint as I lean more about it.