Performance Point Server Error - "The Unattended Service Account"...

I’ve been getting into a lot of different technologies recently and one of those was SharePoint 2010 and PerformancePoint Services.

While trying to get a demo up and running for Adam Cogan, I ran into the following error in Dashboard Designer when trying to create a new data source.

The data source cannot be used because PerformancePoint Services is not configured correctly. Additional details have been logged for your administrator

Trying to find the cause of this I ventured into: Central Admin | Manage Service Applications | PerformancePoint Service Application | PerformancePoint Service Application Settings and when trying to specify the unattended service account I got the following error:

The Unattended Service Account cannot be set for the service application. The Secure Store Service key might not have been generated or properly refreshed after the service was provisioned.

What’s happening here is that the Secure Store Service needs the administrator to generate a new key so that it can encrypt data that needs to be stored on SharePoint.

Here’s the fix:

1. Navigate to Central Administration | Manage Service Applications | Secure Store Service
2. Click Generate New Key from the ribbon
   
3. Type in a pass phrase and click OK
4. Navigate to Central Administration | Manage Service Applications | PerformancePoint Service Application | Performance Point Service Application Settings
5. Configure the unattended service account
6. Start using Dashboard Designer

For those curious, what I was trying to do was create some report elements in PerformancePoint Services and publish them to SharePoint. Here’s one of the reports I generated using Dashboard designer connected to the TFS Analysis Services Cube

I can see a few key facts from these stats:

1. Allan Zhou is doing most of the work, followed by Martin Hinshelwood
2. Everyone is coming in under the original estimated time
3. This Network Service guy is a real slacker :)
4. (Mark Hetherington is the scrum master so I won’t hold it against him that he’s got nothing on the graph)