Glossary
| Term/Technology | Description |
|---|---|
| ACWP (actual cost of work performed) | The actual cost required to complete all or some portion of the tasks up to the status date. ACWP is one of the primary measures used in earned value analysis. |
| Analysis Manager | The application for managing the user access permissions and OLAP cubes that are stored in Microsoft® SQL Server™ Analysis Services. |
| Analysis Server | A computer that contains the database and software components installed with SQL Server Analysis Services. |
| BCWP (budgeted cost of work performed) | Indicates how much of a task's budget should have been spent, given the actual duration of the task. BCWP is calculated for each task but analyzed at an aggregate level, such as for one project or for a project portfolio. BCWP is one of the primary measures used in earned value analysis and can be thought of as the actual earned value. |
| BCWS (budgeted cost of work scheduled) | The budgeted cost of individual tasks as they are scheduled in the project plan, based on the costs of resources assigned to those tasks plus any fixed costs associated with the tasks. BCWS is the baseline cost up to the status date you choose; it is one of the primary measures used in earned value analysis. |
| breakout function | The public functions UserStagingTablesUpdate and UserOLAPUpdate that provide programming entry points ("hooks") into the Project Server Portfolio Analyzer. The breakout functions enable OLAP extensions. |
| cube | A set of data generated by OLAP that is organized into a multidimensional structure that contains dimension and summary data. |
| dimension | A structural attribute of a cube, which is an organized hierarchy of categories (levels) that describe data in the fact table. These categories typically describe a similar set of members upon which the user wants to base an analysis. For example, a Calendar dimension might include levels for Year, Quarter, and Month. |
| dimension table | A table in a data warehouse whose entries describe data in a fact table. Dimension tables contain the data from which dimensions are created. |
| DSO (Decision Support Objects) | The API for SQL Server Analysis Services. DSO enables programmatic creation and manipulation of OLAP cubes in Analysis Services. |
| earned value analysis | A method for measuring project performance, earned value measures the cost of work performed up to any specified status date in one or more projects. Earned value uses your original cost estimates saved with a baseline and your actual work to date to show whether the actual costs incurred are on budget.
BCWS, ACWP, and BCWP are the primary values used in the calculation of earned value. For more information, see Applying earned value analysis to your project on Microsoft® Office Online. |
| fact table | A central table in a data warehouse schema that contains numerical measures and keys relating facts to dimension tables. Fact tables contain data that describes specific items, such as project IDs and names within a project's dimension or BCWP for a specified date in a task. |
| level | Levels are defined within a dimension to specify the contents and structure of the dimension's hierarchy. For example, a Calendar dimension contains the levels Year, Quarter, and Month. |
| member | An item of data in a dimension, that can either be unique or nonunique. For example, 1997 and 1998 are unique members in the Year level of a Calendar dimension, whereas January represents nonunique members in the Month level because there can be more than one January if the Calendar dimension contains more than one year. |
| measure | In a cube, a set of values that are based on a column in the cube's fact table and are usually numeric. Measures are the central values that are aggregated and analyzed. |
| OLAP (online analytical processing) | A technology that uses multidimensional structures to provide rapid access to data for analysis. OLAP data sets for Project Server are stored in SQL Server tables and managed with Project Web Access and SQL Server Analysis Services.
See also: cube |
| port | A named location in a URL address. For Project Server, a port is defined by the location of a specific set of view pages on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services for administration of the SharePoint Services site, such as port 5500 in the address http://ServerName/WSSProjectSite:5500. |
| Portfolio Analyzer | Components of Project Server that manage the calculation and display of an OLAP cube from data stored in the Project Server database. |
| schema | The definition of the structure of an XML file or database. A schema contains property information as it pertains to the records and fields within the structure. |
| shared dimension | A dimension created within a database that can be used by any cube in the database. |
| status date | A date that you set (rather than the current date) for reporting the time, cost, or performance condition of a project. |