Data Visualization Choices SQL Saturday Presentation

Today in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the SQL Saturday #198; I presented a session titled “Data Visualization Choices”.  As promised, my slide deck is available for download here. 

This is the first draft of the session I’m preparing for the PASS Business Analytics Conference coming up on April 11-12 in Chicago.  I’ll have another update for that conference.

Power View and Reporting Services

There has been an active discussion thread on Chris Webb’s blog about the similarities & differences between various Microsoft BI & reporting tools.  This is becoming a very popular topic and I thought I’d post my reply to that thread here.  I encourage you to  read the entire post on Chris’s blog here: Some thoughts on what Office 2013 means for Microsoft BI

…These are some very interesting thoughts about the differences in capabilities between SSRS and Power View. 

Power View Now Works with Cubes!

This is a very significant day in the progression of the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform.  Earlier this year, Power View was released with SQL Server 2012; a remarkable step forward in data visualization. It wasn’t all bad news that Power View only worked with the new tabular semantic models and PowerPivot worksheets published in SharePoint but it did limit our options.  We’ve quietly lived with the fact that this great new reporting tool couldn’t be used with Microsoft’s flagship analytical data (OLAP) engine without building new semantic models.  Well, now it does, and that’s very good news.

An Unusual Book–on DAX Formulas

One of the characteristics of a really good, classic movie is that it has a lot of memorable dialog.  I could go on for hours quoting one-liners from The Blues Brothers or Princess Bride.  Likewise, I think a good book leaves the reader with gems to ponder and to stimulate ideas.  Such has been my recent experience reading Rob Collie’s “DAX Formulas for PowerPivot, The Excel Pro’s Guide to Mastering DAX”. 

Is PowerPivot the Next Access?

I’m impressed with the current generation of semantic modeling technology from Microsoft.  I’ve had the opportunity to use both PowerPivot and SSAS Tabular Models on a handful of client projects and have had very good results so far.  The xVelocity in-memory aggregation and data compression engine seems to be everything that was promised. 

Office 2013 BI and Mobility

I had a really good experience presenting a session at the SQL Saturday BI Edition in Dallas this weekend about Power View and PowerPivot.  I’ve posted the presentation online and it’s ready for viewing here:

The State of Microsoft Self-Service Reporting

(article published on the MVP Award Program Blog)

I really enjoy this topic.  One of the reasons, I suppose, it’s such a hot topic is that a lot of people believe that there is a perfect ad hoc reporting solution out there, just barely beyond the current set of capabilities in all of the available tools.