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.

Minnesota TechFuse 2013 Technical Conference

Once again this year’s MN TechFuse event will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center.  The event will be on Thursday, March 21.  There are 7 tracks, 27 sessions, and 1 keynote scheduled for the one-day technical conference.  Early bird pricing goes through Friday, February 22 for $349.

• TechFuse 2013 site
• Session Schedule

Topics that will be covered include SQL Server 2012, SharePoint 2013, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Exchange 2013, Excel 2013, and much more.  I even saw that there will be a device bar that will have an assortment of Microsoft tablets and laptops to get hands on experience with the new technologies and ask questions.

I will be speaking at the first session in the SQL/Business Intelligence track.  My topic is focusing on Excel 2013 covering PowerPivot and Power View.  This could be my first presentation ever done just in Excel.

Delivering Self-Service BI with Power
8:15 – 9:45
Dan English, Superior Consulting Services
Session Level: 200–Intermediate
Audience: IT Professionals and Information Workers

In this session, we will discuss the enhancements and new features that are provided with Excel 2013 as Microsoft continues its roadmap with self-service BI. First we will go over the changes that have been made in Excel 2013, covering the new features. From there we will show how PowerPivot models can be used to integrate and load data to be used for analysis. Lastly, we will look at using Power View inside Excel to provide self-service reporting capabilities that are highly interactive.

Brian Larson from Superior Consulting Services will also be speaking closing out this track doing the following session about SSIS and Data Quality:

Sparkling Data: Advanced Data Cleansing in SSIS
2:45 – 4:00
Brian Larson, Superior Consulting Services
Session Level: 300-Advanced
Audience: BI Professionals, Data Analysts, DBAs

The effectiveness of a data warehouse is directly related to the cleanliness of the data it contains. SQL Server Integration Services is an effective tool for moving data from disparate sources to our data warehouse. SSIS also provides several advanced features that allow us to cleanse the data while en route. This session will demonstrate how to use fuzzy logic, data mining and Data Quality Services within an SSIS data flow to identify and, in many cases, correct errors and outliers in the data. This is done using organization-wide standards and information contained within the data itself.