Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group 2014 Q2 Meeting Follow Up

This past Tuesday we had our Q2 meeting.  This was our 3rd meeting of the year.  We had a great turnout and the room was full with over 80 people in attendance. Needless to say the night did not go off with a hitch, technical difficulties including one projector not working so a temp replacement was used, speakers not working in all of the rooms, and then we lost power during the middle of the second presentation.  Microsoft did a fabulous job working on getting these issues resolved, it was just not our night.  I want to thank everyone for their patience, including the speakers.

The content from the meeting should be posted in our Archive area soon – Past Events and Presentations.

In the meantime you can view the opening announcement slide deck here and checkout the upcoming events including TDWI Minneapolis Chapter, PASSMN June Meeting (Lightning Talks this month), and PASS BA VC session.

We had two great presentations – Don covered the 5 Principles for Creating Effective Data Visualizations (outstanding content and examples)

The one resource link that was excluded was the Interactive Demo, Katz Dialect Survey Maps, http://spark.rstudio.com/jkatz/SurveyMaps/.

Here are a couple of other resources that you might find helpful that are posted on the Microsoft downloads done by Stephen Few:

• Common Pitfalls in Dashboard Design
• Effectively Communicating Numbers: Selecting the Best Means and Manner of Display

And then Polaris did a case study on how they ended up replacing QlikView with the Microsoft BI stack and demoed their dashboards using PerformancePoint and SSRS.

Here are a few links that Michael Wissink mentioned with regards to using perspectives in PerformancePoint and also security for the Save As My Defaults for the Apply Filters functionality

• Using Perspectives with PerformancePoint Services
• PerformancePoint Filter Save as My Defaults Permissions

I also want to mention that we have now received our discount code for the PASS Summit 2014 Conference for the user group.  If you are planning on attending make sure you use the following code and you will save $150 and this will also help benefit our user group as well!

Event – PASS Summit 2014 Conference (Nov 3-7)

Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group
Discount Code: USNCS27

Thanks to everyone that attended our meeting and don’t forget there is a Special Training Event this month on Thursday, June 27 from 3 to 5 (seating is limited, so register now):

Deep Dive into ETL Implementation with SQL Server Integration Services

Registration Link

This session will focus on demonstrations and implementation details covering:

– Leveraging common ETL patterns/options to handle change data capture and covering new capabilities of SQL Server 2014

– Leveraging scripting in Data Flow and tips/tricks to improve performance

– Best practices in ETL Implementation with SSIS

– Executing projects with SSIS catalog; design considerations, best practices and performance monitoring.

At the end of the session, sample code and examples will be provided to all attendees. Complimentary refreshments will be provided during breaks.

About Our Speaker: Anton Rozenson is a Solutions Architect with GNet Group. He has in-depth experience in developing architectures, and leading business productivity projects that span the entire Microsoft Business Intelligence platform. Anton has worked on several successful solution development projects to build end-to-end Data Warehouses with Microsoft SQL Server.

PASS BA & BI Virtual Chapter June 2014 Sessions

Just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know about the upcoming presentations this month for both the PASS Business Analytics and Business Intelligence Virtual Chapters.

June 10 – Administering and Managing the Power BI Environment (presented by Melissa Coates, BlueGranite)

Power BI for Office 365 is Microsoft’s new self-service BI offering. Just because it emphasizes self-service doesn’t mean a system administrator isn’t an important role! In this session we will discuss the overall system components and how a Power BI site in SharePoint Online differs from an on-premises SharePoint BI site. We will walk through how to best handle setting up connectivity to data sources, when a gateway is needed, and what data refresh capabilities exist. We will also consider how and when to create OData feeds from your corporate on-premises data sources and how those OData feeds affect Enterprise Data Search functionality.

June 19 – The Accidental Report Designer: Data Visualization Best Practices in SSRS (presented by Meagan Longoria, Valorem Consulting)

Whether you are a DBA, a developer, or an analyst, there is a good chance that you will have to create reports for coworkers, company executives, or clients. As with any UI design, careful consideration should be given to your data visualization design to ensure you are effectively communicating the intended message and providing a good user experience. While the principles are applicable across reporting platforms and tools, this session will contain demos and examples implemented in Reporting Services using SQL Server Data Tools. Learn how to make information (not just data) the focus of your report and provide your audience with something better than just shiny!

June 23 – Common Analysis Services Multidimensional cube design mistakes and how to avoid them (presented by Chris Webb, Crossjoin Consulting)

When you’re starting out on your first Analysis Services cube project it’s very easy to make design mistakes that can cause problems for you later on. In this session you’ll learn about the mostly frequently make Analysis Services design mistakes, what the consequences of making them are, and how to fix them.

Lots of great content to check out this month.  Make sure you visit the Virtual Chapter sites and you can also login to your myPASS account on the PASS site and join these chapters so you can be notified about upcoming sessions.