71-556 PerformancePoint 2007 Beta Exam – We only bl**dy did it !

Back on November 9th, the, I think, last available day it could be taken, Tim Kent and I took the Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Application Development Beta Exam (71-556) at the Prometric Testing facility hosted by Global Knowledge Training in Wokingham.

Soon after, we were both invited to Seattle to attend the PPS Exam Preparation workshop to review the exam in readiness for the official release.  Disappointingly I couldn’t make it due to other PPS related commitments, however, much to my disgust ? Tim went without me, and by all accounts had a blast on the slopes of Whistler meeting a like-minded bunch of people.

Today we both found out we actually passed!  This means we don’t have to re-take the officially released exam as we get an automatic credit for passing the beta version – nice !

I have not seen any official release information for the exam proper but it must be imminent now that we’ve received our results.  I’m not sure if this is fact but I have been told that Microsoft use the ’71’ prefix for Beta exams so we should expect the official exam to be numbered 70-556.  Anyone know if this numbering convention is true?

Obviously my hands are tied by the exam NDA so I can’t reveal any details about the content of the exam.  Already publicly available is the list of topics that the exam covers, this list, repeated below, does match my experience of the beta exam.  I’ll stop there as I’ve probably already said too much !  Good luck if you go for it.  Oh yeah, happy new year !

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Application Development Exam Topics

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