SharePoint Designer and the PerformancePoint Stack Selector’s CurrentSelection Property Error

For a project I'm currently working on, I needed some functionality that isn't (easily) supported by the dashboards that you can create with PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer. This includes adding non-PerformancePoint (custom and OOTB) web parts to the dashboards and making connections between PerformancePoint and non-PerformancePoint web parts. It is certainly  possible to add web parts and create connections after you save a dashboard in Dashboard Designer, but you would have to repeat the process anytime you needed to republish (i.e. save) your dashboard from PerformancePoint. The alternative is to use a web part page to create your dashboard, adding web parts and creating your connections through the browser.

Unfortunately, however, if you have to use SharePoint Designer 2010 for any of your dashboard customizations, you will run into some of the lack of support that it has for PerformancePoint. This posting has to do with one of the more minor annoyances.

When working with a web part page utilizing PerformancePoint web parts in SharePoint Designer 2010, you may notice the following error in the Design Page View after saving a page that contains a PerformancePoint Stack Selector:

Cannot create an object of type 'System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair`2[[System.String, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089],[System.String, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]]' from its string representation '[, ]' for the 'CurrentSelection' property.

A similar error message is displayed in place of each Stack Selector on the page when it is viewed in a web browser.

A workaround is to remove the following attribute from each of the StackWebPart tags on the page and save again.

CurrentSelection="[, ]"

Unfortunately, as this is merely a stopgap fix, this has to be done every time you open, edit and save a web part page containing PerformancePoint Stack Selectors. Hopefully this is addressed in some future cumulative update (as a note, I am currently developing using the Feb 2012 CU (v14.0.6117.5002)).