Mastering Reporting Services Expressions, March 26

As part of SQL Server Pro eLearning series, I’ll be presenting three 75 minute sessions on March 26th on using Expressions to enhance report capabilities.  The sessions are online with live chat from 11:00 to 4:30 Eastern Time.

Register today to get in on the early-bird discount. 

Visual Studio 2012/SSDT Addition for BI Project Version Compatibility & Themes

We can now use Visual Studio 2012 to create and edit SQL Server BI projects!  Woo Hoo.

In the past, if you wanted to develop and maintain BI projects in the same development environment as other Visual Studio projects, you had to install multiple versions of Visual Studio.  This may no longer be necessary if you install the new Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (SSDT BI). 

SQL Server Community World Tour with GeoFlow

When I started playing with GeoFlow, I just had to find a way to do something interesting with it.  This is a short world tour with visits to a few SQL Server community members and leaders around the globe talking about their SQL Server communities.  GeoFlow is a new BI tool currently in development at Microsoft.  It’s an add-in for Excel 2013 using the SQL Server Analysis Services tabular in-memory aggregation that plots and visualizes data points on the globe using imagery from Bing Maps.  After visualizing data on a map, you can create a 3D tour with full zoom and navigation in 3D geographical space.

Thanks to my friends and associates who have contributed to this effort thus far.  This is the first draft so please check back and I’ll add more stops on the tour along with more sophisticated data points.  The dataset in my current GeoFlow workbook is very light and with more contributions, I’ll can add creative ways to visualize the global SQL Server world community.  Enjoy!

SQL Server World Tour

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GeoFlow is still in development and not yet generally available.  It’s too soon to foresee when it will be complete enough for a public preview and then for release but I’ll let you know what I know when I know it.

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.

Speaking at the Business Analytics Conference, April 1-12 in Chicago

The email message earlier today said “Please note that the official schedule will be released tomorrow, February 6^th, so please do not share your schedule until that time.”  Well, what does that mean, exactly?  It means that it’s midnight right now and time to tell the world….  We are going public, people!  The PASS Business Analytics 2013 session schedule has been completed, the speakers are working on their presentations, feverously practicing their demo material and rehearsing  in the mirror, to no one in the car, to the kids and to the dog who already knew you were crazy before all this mad ness began.  Yep, we take this stuff pretty seriously.

Database Lifecycle Management for Azure SQL Database

DLM 1.0 Released Today

When “SQL Azure” first became available a couple of years ago, I played with it, created a few databases and then quickly left it behind but in the last few months I’ve found some really good uses for “Microsoft Windows Azure SQL Database”. 

Debugging Parameter Dependencies in Reporting Services

Creating a report with two datasets that reference the same pair of parameters, I’m seeing the following error:

The Value expression for the query parameter ‘DatesYear’ contains an error: The expression references the parameter ‘DatesYear’, which does not exist in the Parameters collection. Letters in the names of parameters must use the correct case. (rsRuntimeErrorInExpression)
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An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)

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.

BI Sessions and Report Dashboard Demos at the PASS Global Summit

Literally, minutes after I began posting my running notes from the keynote presentations and the first session I attended, I received a request to fill a last minute opening on the schedule and prepare a second session.  I’m working on preparing a new version of “Visual Report Design – Bringing Sexy Back”.  I will be presenting that session tomorrow.