The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing With Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a good book if you want to get quick up to speed in PPS2007. It explains all you need to know in a easy way (ne deep technical language used). There are also some very useful tips and tricks notes. I recommend it to start with PPS MA. This book contains no content for more advanced instructions on dashboard or component design.

I have been involved in architecting and designing Microsoft based business intelligence solutions for the past 8 years. I was very excited when PerformancePoint was launched because it filled a very real need in the Microsoft BI platform. It is always a challenge to find training material when a new product is launched so Adrian and Nick's books have been released at just the right time.
I enjoyed both books(The Rational Guide To Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides),The Rational Guide To Planning with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides)) for the following reasons:
They are clear and simple to understand
They highlight the most important techinical and functional considerations without being too high level
They are practical and not theoretical even though the first few chapters set the scene
You don't need to be a subject matter expert to understand them
They are short so you can read them very quickly

They are great books that will allow you to get up to speed very quickly on PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics as well as Planning.

Highly recommended! Barclay and Downs have written a fine and very accessible book, which fulfills the Rational Guide promise - not of being technical bibles, but of being straightforward learning guides - in this case, to a user-friendly yet sophisticated business intelligence / performance management front-end development platform. Although the book does not intend to teach any BI back-end development, it provides just enough context so that readers without those skills will move forward without difficulty. On that note, the book also does a reasonable job of mapping PPS's not-completely-consistent terminology with that of its ideal back-end, SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.

Part I -- Introduction: The authors begin by convincingly introducing Performance Management as a strategic business challenge and an emerging discipline. They describe how PerformancePoint Server (PPS) 2007 delivers on that challenge and then correctly emphasize that multi-dimensional (business intelligence) underlying data architecture is an optimum foundation upon which to fully leverage PPS and build a Performance Dashboard that satisfies users.

Part II -- Elements: Separate chapters are dedicated respectively to Data Sources, Indicators (visual icons), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Scorecards, Reports, and Dashboards. Each chapter effectively combines a series of clear, succinct explanations of concepts and best practices followed by thoughtful step-by-step practice. Chapter 5 on Data Sources is an illuminating start, introducing how easily data from multiple sources can be integrated, with subsequent chapters reinforce it. Chapter 7 on KPI's is strong, with careful attention to theory and configuration of KPI target metrics, leaf, non-leaf and objective-KPIs, and thresholds. It also offers a simple workaround to a known glitch with multiple targets per KPI. Chapter 8 on Scorecards demonstrates the ease of Scorecard creation from solid KPI's and illustrates the payoff from good KPI naming. Chapter 9 on Reports adequately introduces, among other items, Analytic Charts and Grids (think next-gen pivot tables and pivot charts), Trend Analysis Charts (handy data mining time-series analyses), and what looks like a revolution in performance process-visualization, Visio Strategy Maps. Although I would have enjoyed an intro to Excel Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007 as an alternative BI front-end, it is, admittedly, a separate product. For help with ProClarity, which is included in PPS licensing, you need to buy a ProClarity book. Chapter 10 on Dashboard elements themselves is also effective, and the following sections -- on pages, zones, filters, display condition links, filter links, time intelligence and simply time-period specification (STPS) language -- are notably effective because, as elsewhere, the authors inform the reader just enough, then moving adeptly through a step-by-step practice sections that, as elsewhere, drive home the knowledge. Although the book provides adequate references to where multidimensional expressions (MDX) will afford more sophisticated features (eg. custom KPI data-mapping, custom reports and grids, filter link formulae), it, of course, does not presume to try to build readers' MDX skills.

Part III - Implementation and Mgmt: Chapters 11 and 12, respectively on Deploying to SharePoint and Security, briefly cover just the basics. Importantly, as a welcome enhancement from "Business Scorecard Manager" (predecessor product), PPS Dashboards are deployed to SharePoint (or other portals) as already integrated solutions needing little additional configuration.

Bonus -- The bonus materials, available via web to registered readers, are all worth downloading. Bonus Chapter Two - Designing an Effective Performance Management Solution, should be required reading for most or all project stakeholders. Bonus Chapter Three - (KPI) Scoring, addresses, importantly, how child KPI's rollup to parent KPI's, especially in the context of the preferred threshold banding method, "Band by normalized value of Actual/Target".

Prepare your PC -- Perhaps the best way to deploy the entire platform to readers' PC's for learning and even light-development purposes is -- in light of the sheer amount of required software -- to download the following items from Microsoft.com: (1) Virtual PC 2007; and (2) BI-VPC 5.1, which includes PPS, MOSS, SQL Server 2005 Dev and much more. Lastly and importantly, I discourage readers' from attempting to use BI-VPC on a PC with under 2GB RAM. 2GB is slow but works. 4GB works well.

When I first started trying to work with Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) I found a terrific little book (Rational Guide) by Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes which saved me a ton of time.

Happily the PerformancePoint Monitoring product is intrinsically better than BSM and hence a little easier to understand on its own terms, but none the less this new Rational Guide is a very valuable resource for anybody tasked with working with this product.

I don't know if I should credit the authors or their editor at Rational Press, but their books seem to always hit sweet spot of providing all of the important information you need without being burdened with a bunch of filler that obscures the gems (which I think is the case with many technical books).

Bottom line: If you need to work with this product get this book.

When I first started trying to work with Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) I found a terrific little book (Rational Guide) by Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes which saved me a ton of time.

Happily the PerformancePoint Monitoring product is intrinsically better than BSM and hence a little easier to understand on its own terms, but none the less this new Rational Guide is a very valuable resource for anybody tasked with working with this product.

I don't know if I should credit the authors or their editor at Rational Press, but their books seem to always hit sweet spot of providing all of the important information you need without being burdened with a bunch of filler that obscures the gems (which I think is the case with many technical books).

Bottom line: If you need to work with this product get this book.

Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes have authored their second book in the Rational Guide series entitled The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. Their first book was The Rational Guide to Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, which I've also read and found to be very useful.

The book begins with a description of what Performance Management is and the role it plays in business organizations. They also introduce PerformancePoint Monitoring's component architecture with easy-to-follow illustrations, discuss key terminology and cover the BI stack of Microsoft products that support and interact with PerformancePoint Server 2007. All of this is done in the first 45 pages.

The authors use the remaining 200 pages to walk you through installation and configuration (both stand-alone and distributed installs) as well as the primary elements: data sources, KPIs, indicators, scorecards, reports, and dashboards. Following that is a section on implementing and managing dashboards, and a final chapter which addresses security settings and management.

What I like best about this book is that Nick and Adrian respect the reader's time. There is no excess verbiage. Each word carries its own bags and pays its own way. Chapters average about 30 pages each and are filled with illustrations, tips, and step-by-step procedures to do everything from setting Threshold Boundaries on KPIs to writing MDX code for a Time Intelligence filter.

As one of the Microsoft technical writers who worked on PerformancePoint Monitoring since its inception, I'm happy to say that I've found Barclay and Downes book to be comprehensive without being overwhelming, with clear directions and a firm grasp of the products' capabilities.