Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group 2013 Q2 Meeting–Jun 4

The next MN Microsoft Business Intelligence User Group is coming up on Tuesday, June 4. This meeting we will have two presentations starting out with a case study by Smead on replacing IBM Cognos BI with Microsoft BI and then a presentation on Excel 2013 with Data Explorer, GeoFlow, and Power View. Please register so that we can have your name badge pre-printed.

Are you planning to attend the PASS 2013 Summit October 15 – 18 in Charlotte, NC? Use the MS BI User Group discount code and receive 10% off!

Your chapter: Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group

Unique Discount Code: SUM156CH

To register for PASS 2013, click here: http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2013/

Here is the remaining schedule for the quarterly meetings this year:

2013 Meeting Schedule

• Tuesday, June 4
• Tuesday, September 10
• Tuesday, December 3

MN Microsoft BI User Group 2013 Q2 Meeting

Sponsored by:

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Check In: 2:30 PM Event Time: 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Technology Center – 3601 76th St W, Suite 600 Edina MN 55435 (in LOW 1, 2, and 3)

Please Register Now (Please register so that we can have your name badge pre-printed)

Agenda:

• 2:30-3:00 : Registration
• 3:00-3:15 : Microsoft BI User Group Updates & Announcements
• 3:15-4:15 : Smead Case Study: Introducing a New BI Toolset
• 4:15-4:30 : Break
• 4:30-5:30 : Take Your Data Global with Microsoft BI Data Explorer, GeoFlow, and Power View Maps
• 5:30-6:00 : Social and Networking

Presentations:

Session 1: Smead Case Study: Introducing a New BI Toolset
Smead Manufacturing Company recently completed a migration project that replaced their IBM Cognos BI Toolset with the Microsoft suite of BI Tools (SharePoint Integrated). In this presentation, they will share their approach, benefits, challenges and insights as they introduced new BI Technologies to 100 users across 12 departments. Many aspects of their journey will be covered, including use of the MS tools, data and architecture considerations, implementations, training, and project management. Whether your role focuses on development, analysis, and/or management, learn from their experiences as they replaced a legacy toolset that was relied upon by many as their source of timely, detailed Business Intelligence information.

Speakers:

Cindy Kummer, Lead EDW/BI Analyst at Smead Manufacturing Company – Cindy has held a number of positions in the IT industry for 14 years, spending the last 4 years in the Business Intelligence arena as the Team Lead for the EDW/BI team at Smead Manufacturing Company in Hastings, MN. She recently led their project to migrate their BI platform from IBM Cognos to the suite of Microsoft BI Tools. Cindy has been involved in projects in the Transportation, Insurance, and Manufacturing industries with a wide variety of roles, including developer, analyst, and project manager.

Will Weber, BI Consultant – Will is currently working as a business intelligence consultant in the Twin Cities. He started his career as a juggler. Almost got a degree in Theatre. Actually got a degree in Chinese. He’s a Board member for the MNPASS user group. He also thinks that the robots probably won’t rise up against their human creators – probably. But we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

Session 2: Take Your Data Global with Microsoft BI Data Explorer, GeoFlow, and Power View Maps
Business Intelligence has now been a global discipline for several years, and with new Microsoft tools you can now bring the globe to Business Intelligence. Microsoft Data Explorer for Excel 2013 enables you to access, harness, transform, and mash-up data like never before. Data that is separated by source type, format, location and more will be reviewed and mashed up in Data Explorer. GeoFlow is a new geospatial Business Intelligence tool which literally adds another dimension to data visualization. The power of GeoFlow to transform inanimate data into a story will be demonstrated. Power View for Excel 2013 has the capability to recognize geospatial data and create reports that integrate with Bing Maps, enabling global data BI report development from a desktop computer. The ease of use, intuitive design, and value of maps with Power View 2013 will be reviewed with some interesting examples leveraging publically available data. Take your data global.literally.

Speaker:

Greg Beaumont, BI Architect at GNet Group – Greg Beaumont is a Business Intelligence Consultant at GNet Group. He joined GNet Group in 2009, and has industry vertical experience including healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, retail, and public/government data. His professional focus is upon building industry standard reporting methodologies into BI solutions. He enjoys staying up-to-date with technology related to his career within the world of Microsoft BI.

New Book – Visual Intelligence: Microsoft Tools and Techniques for Visualizing Data

I just found out this week that the book Visual Intelligence: Microsoft Tools and Techniques for Visualizing Data was available on the Amazon for the Kindle and also in paperback now. 

When I got home from work last night there was a package waiting for me and it was my own personal copy of the book:)

I had the pleasure of being one of the technical editors on the book

As well as a contributor where I got to work on one of the chapters, so you get to see some of my handy work as well, guess which chapter;)

And I greatly appreciate Mark’s acknowledgment and allowing me to work on the book

The authors of the book are from Pragmatic Works – Mark Stacey, Joe Salvatore, and Adam Jorgensen.

Here is the description of the book from Amazon:

Go beyond design concepts and learn to build state-of-the-art visualizations

The visualization experts at Microsoft’s Pragmatic Works have created a full-color, step-by-step guide to building specific types of visualizations. The book thoroughly covers the Microsoft toolset for data analysis and visualization, including Excel, and explores best practices for choosing a data visualization design, selecting tools from the Microsoft stack, and building a dynamic data visualization from start to finish. You’ll examine different types of visualizations, their strengths and weaknesses, and when to use each one.

• Data visualization tools unlock the stories within the data, enabling you to present it in a way that is useful for making business decisions
• This full-color guide introduces data visualization design concepts, then explains the various Microsoft tools used to store and display data
• Features a detailed discussion of various classes of visualizations, their uses, and the appropriate tools for each
• Includes practical implementations of various visualizations and best practices for using them
• Covers out-of-the-box Microsoft tools, custom-developed illustrations and implementations, and code examples

Visual Intelligence: Microsoft Tools and Techniques for Visualizing Data arms you with best practices and the knowledge to choose and build dynamic data visualizations.

I would highly recommend getting your copy in either paperback or electronic format and checking it out.  Both versions are in full color, very nice:)

Visual Intelligence: Microsoft Tools and Techniques for Visualizing Data

PASSMN April 2013 Meeting

The next Minnesota SQL Server User Group meeting is tomorrow Tuesday, April 16. This month the two presentations will be on (1) HortonWorks sandbox demo and (2) NoSQL.  Be sure to register so that your name badge will be available for you at the Microsoft Technology Center when you arrive.

The sponsor for this month’s meeting is Robert Half Technology.

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437

Live Meeting:

• URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=SRR9DN&role=attend&pw=zd%3F9c.2KJ
• Meeting ID: SRR9DN
• Entry Code: zd?9c.2KJ

Agenda:

• 4:00-4:15 : Announcements / Registration / hospitality / networking
• 4:15-4:30 : HortonWorks Sandbox Demo, by Bill Preachuk
• 4:30-5:45 : Rules of Engagement: NoSQL is SQL Server’s Ally, by Rick Krueger and Dave Valentine
• 5:45-6:00 : Prize giveaways

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP for the event

Presentations

HortonWorks Sandbox Demo (by Bill Preachuk, Emergent Networks)

HortonWorks provides a free downloadable Virtual Machine image that promises you “Go from Zero to BIG DATA in 15 minutes!“ In this short presentation we’ll discuss What the Sandbox is, Where to get it, How to install it, and How to get it up & running. Then we’ll fire up our trusty rusty VMware environment, step through the web-based GUI and run a few of the included tutorials.

Bill Preachuk serves on the Board of the PASSMN User Group and is responsible for SQL Saturday Minnesota 2013. He is a SQL Server 2008 MCTS, and is employed as a DBA/Data Warehouse Designer at Emergent Networks. Bill has been in IT since 1991 and has presented at Analytics conferences, PASS User Group meetings and SQL Saturday events in the Twin Cities and Iowa.

Rules of Engagement: NoSQL is SQL Server’s Ally (by Rick Krueger and Dave Valentine)

When should you favor a NoSQL store over SQL Server, or consider polyglot persistence? In military and police operations, the rules of engagement determine when, where, and how force shall be used. As the “data police”, we are responsible for determining when, where, and how data is stored. As SQL Server professionals, it tends to be our first choice, even when there are other data storage options that are a ‘more natural’ fit. In this session, Rick and Dave will start with the NoSQL basics, and then dive into the different categories of NoSQL stores while explaining what each type is well suited for.

Rick Krueger is the President of Premier Applications, Inc., and a SQL Server indie based in the Twin Cities with 18 years of software and database development experience, working with SQL Server since 1998 (6.5). Don’t let his developer credentials (MCPD) and background fool you, he knows a thing or two about SQL, and is currently focusing on data architecture and database development.

Dave Valentine is a Development DBA with over 10 years of experience with SQL Server and Development technologies, specializing in Business Intelligence and ingenious solutions. Dave has also been an Adjunct Professor at Metropolitan State University for the past 10 years educating students in Database Management, Web Development, and Java Programming.

Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group 2013 Q1 Meeting Follow Up

Just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know that the presentations and demos from the last MN Microsoft BI User Group meeting are available for download.  This includes the opening announcement materials for the meeting, Brian Larson’s Reporting Services demos, and Ross McNeely’s top down data modeling presentation.

You can access the material from the user group site in the past events and presentations location.

Effective Reporting through SSRS and Top Down Data Modeling for BI

Thanks to everyone that attended, it was a great turnout and special thanks to C2 for the post-event happy hour.

Next month we will be sending out the invite for our next meeting that will be on Tuesday, June 4th, so stay tuned.

Minnesota TechFuse 2013 Technical Conference Follow Up

This past Thursday was the MN TechFuse technical conference down at the Minneapolis Convention Center – Minnesota TechFuse 2013 Technical Conference.  The event was sold out with around 450 people registered.  The conference had seven tracks with four sessions in each track.

I was the first presentation in the SQL/BI track and the attendance was great with people even sitting in the front row.  There were lots of really good questions as well and for me that is the best part of the presentation (along with all of the demos working).  The core focus on my presentation was covering Microsoft Excel 2013 which included new features, PowerPivot, and Power View.  This presentation alone could have easily been a half-day by itself.  Overall I think it went very well and I hope everyone that attended was able to walk away with a few new nuggets of information.

In my demos I covered Quick Analysis, Recommended Charts, Flash Fill, Quick Explore, Timeline, Office Apps, PowerPivot – native and advanced support, and Power View.

Presentation

 

I was hoping to have a little time at the end to cover a few additional add-ins available with Excel such as Data Explorer and GeoFlow, but time did not permit for that.

For people that are interested in those two topics I do have a blog post on Data Explorer here – Installing Data Explorer Preview & Demo with IMDB Data – and I will work on putting together one on GeoFlow.

Installing Data Explorer Preview & Demo with IMDB Data

I can’t believe it has been over a year since I posted about Data Explorer in my post Installing Data Explorer Desktop Client.  That was covering the initial release of the client plugin that used the cloud based service from SQL Azure Labs.  Now there has been a considerable amount of work done and there is a public preview of the new COM Add-In you can download and use in Excel. 

Let’s take a look at the requirements:

Systems Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008

• requires .NET 3.5 SP1 or greater
• Office 2013 or Office 2010 SP1

You can download the 32 or 65-bit version of this from the Microsoft Office area – Download “Data Explorer”.

  

 

  

Here you can see the download loading in Excel 2010.

 

Here is the add-in being displayed in the ribbon along with the options that are available.

Version: 1.0.3207.2 (published 2/25/2013)

Now I am going to switch over to Office 2013 because once I get the data loaded into Excel I want to use Power View:)

Every time I tried to install the .NET 3.5 framework feature on my Windows 8 machine as well as download and install it from the URL specified I kept receiving the message that it was not able to install and returned the error code 0x800F0906.  I did a little searching and came across this KB article from Microsoft:

Error codes when you try to install the .NET Framework 3.5 in Windows 8 or in Windows Server 2012

I mounted my Windows 8 software and ran the following command to install this feature:

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:d:\sources\sxs

(where the ‘:d:’ is the drive letter for the Windows 8 media)

Here are the results of running this to get the framework installed from the command prompt:

Once that was finally setup I was able to install the add-in and it was available to load in Excel 2013 (and I am using Office Professional Plus 2013).

A little different experience for me with Excel 2013 instead of Excel 2010, I had to go into my COM Add-Ins and enable “Data Explorer”. Where as previously in Excel 2010 it was installed and enabled.

Here is the ribbon layout in Excel 2013, same as in Excel 2010.

For this example I am going to use the Get External Data->From Web option and tap into some information on the IMDB web site.

IMDB Charts: IMDb Top 250 – http://www.imdb.com/chart/top?ref_=nb_mv_3_chttp

Here is what the web page looks like that I am going to extract data from:

After I click apply the Query window opens and I can see what is available for me to access, in this case I am interested in Table 0.

NOTE: it would have been super cool if the hyperlink URL reference that was on the web site for the movie titles was included in this table, unfortunately it was not, so that forced me to do a little more additional work later on to enrich my data for Power View.

I am going to right-click on the Title column and split the column into two since the year the movie was released is included.

To split the column I am going to use a custom delimiter of a space and left parenthesis.

Now you can see the new column that was created and I have two columns, Title.1 and Title.2

Now I am going to cleanup the Title.2 column and replace the right parenthesis.

I will replace the right parenthesis with nothing and apply that change.

Now you can see the Title.2 column is cleaned up.

I am going to quick browse the values just to verify this and wouldn’t you know, I found one more item that needs to be evaluated.

I filtered for just the records with the 2011/I values and one record is displayed for “The Artist”.

I take a quick look at that move on IMDB and I see that after the title there is that additional (I), so that must be causing the issue.

So I will add another replace condition on the Title.2 column to cleanup that record and replace /I with nothing.

The next thing I need to do is take a look at the Steps pane on the right-hand side and you can see the trail of steps that I have performed so far.  You can review them and in this case I am going to go back to the FilteredRows step and delete that step to remove the filter.

I get a warning about deleting a step in my process letting me know that it could impact subsequent steps, but I am okay with that.

Now we have my final dataset that I want to work with and this gets added into a new worksheet in Excel once I click Done in the Query window.

Now with a little of additional work with help from some calls out to the Internet and VBA we can get some additional information about these movies and make a Power View report like this (I made some additional adjustments to the model in PowerPivot as well, but this is more about Data Explorer, so we will skip that side of things):

The Rated ‘R’ movies have the most votes and you can see they have the top ranked moves as well by looking at the card layout.

By clicking on PG-13 in the bar chart in the middle we can filter the entire report – cards, summary data at top of report, as well as the column chart.

Based on the top 250 ranked movies from IMDB we can see that the average PG-13 movie has a rating of 8.2 and “The Dark Knight” has the highest rating of 8.9 with over 900 thousand votes.

I tracked down one of my favorite movies, “The Matrix”, and it was ranked 19 with an overall 8.7 rating.

We can also see down below that starting in the 60’s, the ‘R’ rated movies started to gain some traction and as the years go on those are the more favored movies, quite the difference compared with earlier decades where it was dominated by the ‘Approved’ rating, but maybe ‘R’ was not even a classification back then.  More than likely if we had some demographic information on the voters we would probably see some correlation with that as well.

That is it for now, a quick preview of the install process as well as tapping into some data from a web URL, which in this example was IMDB.

You can check out some Getting Started, Tutorials, and How-to information here – Data Explorer Help.

TDWI Minneapolis Chapter Event: Open Source BI Considerations – March 12

The next TDWI Minneapolis Chapter meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 12 and it will take place in Saint Paul at The Travelers. The meeting will feature author Lyndsay Wise and she will be talking about Open Source BI Considerations and Implications.
 
http://tdwichapters.org/Minneapolis (or http://www.tdwimpls.org/)

Here are all of the details:

When: Tuesday, March 12, 2012, 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Where:  The Travelers, 385 Washington St., Saint Paul, MN 55102

The meeting will be held in the Jackson Room of the South Building.

Parking in the Travelers Visitors Parking ramp is NOT available to attendees.  Two other parking options are:
1. Smith Ave. Ramp – 145 Smith Avenue between 5th street and Kellogg.
2. Seven Corners Lot (surface lot) just opposite the Smith Ave Ramp.

Click here to register for the next upcoming event

Agenda:

8:00 – 8:30 a.m. – Networking and Registration
8:30 – 8:45 a.m. – Introduction and Chapter Business
8:45 – 9:30 a.m. – Open Source BI Considerations and Implications – Checklist and Guide – Lyndsay Wise
9:30 – 10:00 a.m. – Break and Networking
10:00 – 11:00 a.m. – Open Source BI Considerations and Implications – Checklist and Guide – Lyndsay Wise (Part II)
11:00 – 11:30 p.m. – Q&A and Collaboration
11:30 – 12:45 p.m. – Closing Comments & Wrap-Up

Click here to register for the next upcoming event

Abstract:

Many considerations exist when looking at whether to adopt open source BI as your BI platform or as a supplementary solution within a broader BI infrastructure. By taking a step back and looking at infrastructure, business, and technical requirements, your organization will be better armed to make the right BI choices – whether open source or not.

The checklist is from her book, with an excerpt found on the Information-Management web site.

Lyndsay Wise is the president and founder of WiseAnalytics. Lyndsay has ten years of IT experience in business systems analysis, software selection, and implementation of enterprise applications. She provides consulting services for small and mid-sized companies and conducts research into leading technologies, market trends, BI products and vendors, mid-market needs, and data visualization.

Book information – http://wiseanalytics.com/book/book.php

Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group 2013 Q1 Meeting–Mar 28

UPDATE (3/22/2013): Because of the snow storm on March 5 the meeting was rescheduled and is on March 28.

The next MN Microsoft Business Intelligence User Group is coming up on Thursday, March 28. This meeting we will have two presentations starting out with a talk on Reporting Services (SSRS) and then a presentation about Data Modeling. Please register so that we can have your name badge pre-printed.

Here is the schedule for the quarterly meetings this year:

2013 Meeting Schedule

• Thursday, March 28
• Tuesday, June 4
• Tuesday, September 10
• Tuesday, December 3

MN Microsoft BI User Group 2013 Q1 Meeting

Sponsored by:

Date: Thursday, March 28, 2013

Check In: 2:30 PM Event Time: 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Technology Center – 3601 76th St W, Suite 600 Edina MN 55435 (in LOW 1, 2, and 3)

Please Register Now (Please register so that we can have your name badge pre-printed)

Agenda:

• 2:30-3:00 : Registration
• 3:00-3:15 : Microsoft BI User Group Updates & Announcements
• 3:15-4:15 : Effective Reporting through SSRS Advanced Authoring Features (Brian Larson)
• 4:15-4:30 : Break
• 4:30-5:30 : Top-Down Data Modeling for BI (Ross McNeely)
• 5:30-6:00 : Social and Networking
• 6:00: Happy Hour Sponsored by C2 at Macaroni Grill! 7651 France Ave S, Edina, MN 55435

Presentations:

Effective Reporting through SSRS Advanced Authoring Features – Effective reporting is not simply the output of data, but the meaningful presentation of that data in a manner that informs the user. SQL Server Reporting Services provides a myriad of features to create a clear, instructive, and interactive experience. This session will demonstrate techniques to utilize SSRS advanced authoring features to facilitate more informative communication. These features include: nesting data regions, leveraging scope, geographic/geometric reporting, complex charting, rich formatting, incorporating managed code assemblies, intuitive drilldown, data from multiple datasets in a single data region, datasets that update source data, and more.

Brian Larson, Vice President of Technology, Superior Consulting Services. As a consultant to Microsoft, Brian contributed to the original code base of Reporting Services. Brian is the Vice President of Technology for Superior Consulting Services and has presented at national conferences including SQL Server Connections, the PASS Summit, and the Microsoft BI Conference. Brian is a former columnist for SQL Server Magazine and is the author of “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Service: 4th Edition” and “Delivering Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2012: 3rd Edition” as well as co-author of “Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power View,” all from McGraw-Hill Professional.

Top-Down Data Modeling for BI – Business Intelligence platforms are offering capabilities, such as, in-memory analytics, ad hoc reporting, and self-serve report development. These capabilities allow for rapid development and do not require a Data Warehouse. A Business Intelligence platform without a Data Warehouse works well during the pilot phase, but tends to fail when deployed to the enterprise. Join as I lay out how to implement a Top-Down Data Model that will allow Business Intelligence to be created before or in parallel with the Data Warehouse. This will allow for rapid BI development while reducing the DW development cycle.

Ross McNeely, BI Practice Manager,  C2 IT Solutions. Ross has presented at several SQL Saturday events in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Recently, Ross presented at ERWorld2012 on data modeling. Ross adds real-world examples from the Financial Services, Logistics, and Retail industries in his presentations. Regardless if you have a beginner, intermediate, or advanced skill set, Ross will provide a solid foundation for each topic he presents. Please join Ross McNeely for a fun and informative meeting.

This is our first meeting of the year and our first meeting as an official chapter of PASS, looking forward to a great meeting, hope to see you there!

PASSMN February 2013 Meeting

The next Minnesota SQL Server User Group meeting is next Tuesday on February 19.  This month the two presentations will be on (1) rules-based backup and index maintenance and (2) database corruption.  Be sure to register so that your name badge will be available for you at the Microsoft Technology Center when you arrive.

The sponsor for this month’s meeting is Emergent Networks.

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437

Date/Time: Tuesday, February 19 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Live Meeting:
• URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=SRR9DN&role=attend&pw=zd%3F9c.2KJ
• Meeting ID: SRR9DN
• Entry Code: zd?9c.2KJ

Agenda

• 4:00 – 4:10 : Registration / hospitality / networking
• 4:15 – 5:15 : Presentation: Shoveling Frogs into a Wheelbarrow
• 5:15 – 5:45 : Presentation: An Overview of Database Corruption
• 5:45 – 6:00 : Announcements and prize giveaways

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP for the event

Presentations

Shoveling Frogs into a Wheelbarrow (by Merrill Aldrich)

If you face managing over a hundred, or perhaps thousands of databases, automation, standards and a “policy-based” mindset are critical. In this session we’ll do a walk-through of a rules-based backup and index maintenance solution suitable for zillions of smaller databases, and talk at a high level about features and techniques for multi-server management including monitoring, performance data collection, jobs automation, PowerShell and PBM. (The core of it will be a walkthrough of the solution athttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/merrill_aldrich/archive/2012/08/01/rules-driven-maintenance.aspx and the update published athttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/merrill_aldrich/archive/2013/01/16/update-to-rules-driven-maintenance.aspx)

Merrill Aldrich is a SQL Server DBA with one of the largest credit unions in the US, located in the Seattle area. He’s currently responsible for corralling a sprawling and very diverse collection of ISV-provided SQL Server databases that together serve the organization’s 800,000 members. In a past life he was trained in Architecture, designed buildings, and taught three-dimensional modeling and building information modeling.

Blog: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/merrill_aldrich/default.aspx

Twitter: @onupdatecascade

An Overview of Database Corruption (by James Larson, United Health Group)

An Overview of Database Corruption that will include warning signs, causes and scenarios with repair options

James Larson is a Database Consultant\ Team Lead at United Health Group. Has over 15 years of experience with SQL Server. James also has 4 years of experience developing applications with Visual Basic 6.0. James has been working in the Health Care field for over 8 years and currently holds a Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance Certification.

PerformancePoint Filter – Save as my defaults permissions

It has been a while since I did some blogs, so time to get going again.  What better way to start than with a PerformancePoint one, right?  This is a post that I have been meaning to do, particularly after I responded to a post about it in the PPS M & A forums here – PerformancePoint Filter – Save as default permissions.  I had come across this particular issue at a few client sites as well.  The ‘Save as my defaults’ option for filters was a new capability that was added with SharePoint 2010 SP1 and I posted a blog on the new features added to PerformancePoint with SP1 here PerformancePoint 2010 Cascading & Apply Filters – SP1 Features.

So, for those of you not familiar with the ‘Save as my defaults’ option here is what it looks like:

And it is part of the Apply Filters settings in the ‘Save options’ towards the bottom, you can either show or hide the check box to save the filter choices.

First off, the Apply Filters button allows users to make changes to the filters without the changes immediately refreshing the content they are connected to (similar to the View Report or Apply button for Reporting Services reports).

The ‘Save as my defaults’ check box pretty much does as it says, a user can make a selection, check the box, and then click the Apply Filters button.  This when then store the parameters for this particular dashboard page so that when the user returns to this page the selections will be restored.  So even if the user makes different selections from the list, PerformancePoint will remember the values that were saved when the check box was enabled.

In the image below I make the selections ‘Accessories’ and ‘North Amer’ and check the box to save the defaults.

I then click the Apply Filters button and the dashboard items refresh and you will notice that the check box is disabled.

If I make a change to the geography filter and select Europe and click Apply Filters the dashboard items connected to the filters will refresh.

Now if I refresh the entire page (click F5) I see that my original filters that I selected and applied when using the ‘Save as my defaults’ check box are restored.

So this is pretty cool, but how does this work for a typical user that has view-only permissions to the dashboard.

Well, it doesn’t because the option to ‘Save as my defaults’ is disabled.  Hmmm… well that doesn’t help.  So what is the secret SharePoint permission that needs to be added so that this is enabled without making the user a dashboard admin?  Good question.  Well I wasn’t able to find any documentation on this and even when these new features came out there wasn’t that much documentation.  Basically after a little trial-and-error (or guessing-and-testing) I came across the additional permission that is needed.  The permission that is needed is in the Personal Permissions section and is ‘Update Personal Web Parts – Update Web Parts to display personalized information.’

Once that is added then the check box is enabled for the user and can be used.

Pretty simple. 

NOTE: one thing I noticed with this, and I would say that it is a bug in my opinion (don’t believe this has been fixed in a CU), is that if the same filters are used on other pages and changed and you come back to the original page where you used the Apply Filters and ‘Save as my defaults’ option, the values will be overridden based on the selections on the other page.  The original defaults will not be used, so seems to be a scoping thing in my opinion as to how the filter values are saved, not working as I would expect, they are saved at the filter level versus the page.  So the defaults can actually be wiped out if the same filters are used on other pages without the Apply Filters button.  If the Apply Filters button is used on all pages then it appears you are okay.