Norm's PerformancePoint Server Blog : Business Intelligence

How does your company view business intelligence?

normbi — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:02:21 GMT

Is business intelligence have a different meaning for companies that incorporate any one (or all) of the following list?

ETL (Extraction, Transformation & Load)
Data Management (warehousing, marts)
OLAP
Reporting, Query & Analytics
Performance Management
Self-service BI

Should we add to this list?

Can or should there be products that overlap? -like reporting?

In your mind is Business Intelligence as a Stack with Performance Management as one of the members?

Comments?

Business intelligence is about getting the right information

normbi — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:18:00 GMT

Okay, it's time I take a small break from writing about PerformancePoint Server and share a story that I read that illustrates the importance of how we use the resources that are available to us.

Two men formed a partnership. They built a small shed beside a busy road. They obtained a truck and drove it to a farmer's field, where they purchased a truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. They drove the loaded truck to their shed by the road, where they sold their melons for a dollar a melon. They drove back to the farmer's field and bought another truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. Transporting them to the roadside, they again sold them for a dollar a melon. As they drove back toward the farmer's field to get another load, one partner said to the other, "We're not making much money on this business, are we?" "No, we're not," his partner replied. "Do you think we need a bigger truck?"

While this story is shared to discuss some principles of harvesting cranberries, I want to use it to illustrate principles of harvesting data. Increasing the amount of data we have will not make our decisions better. Understanding the value of the data and delivering it to the right users will help good decisions throughout a company. In the words of Bill Baker, "There is no substitute for getting the design right, getting the data right, training your users and in general providing them the least amount of data and the most amount of guidance."

The amount of data we have will continue grow and Microsoft and other companies will continue to develop better methods for moving, storing, retrieving, and displaying it. I just read a recent example of when a new ETL world record was set. This was a great accomplishment. But our capacity to use useful data that will come from various systems will require some skills. For instance, communication between those that must consume it and those that help bring the data to the surface is a skill. After goals for what data are communicated, getting the right data will require focus and prioritizing. Another skill is establishing best practices for getting relevant information into different forms or visualizations to help provide information that assesses previous behavior. In other words, getting the right Key Performance Indicators.

A key theme of PerformancePoint Server is putting BI in the hands of more decision makers. See Bill Baker's discussion about the return on investment for companies spending millions on data warehouses to only realize 200 users.

---------------

In my first Welcome Blog entry, I said that I would share some things I learn about work life balance. Here is a list of work-life time savers that I try to apply. Kind of like a plane which is 90% of the time off course but makes its destination because it continually makes corrections.

Get clear on what you want in life and write goals down to review often. Focus. Consider reading about hedgehog concept by Jim Collins.
Consider reading about how to grow Quadrant II (not urgent but important) from Covey's book.
Don't let e-mail manage your day. Turn notification off and apply MS Outlook rules.

I'm sure I will think of some others.

Now I look forward to attending the MVP Summit. Kudos to Nick Barclay and Adran Downes (two contributors to PPS publications) for the awarded title of SQL Server MVP.

THE BI BLOG and the next Microsoft BI Conference

normbi — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:00:01 GMT

Much thanks to Ben Tamblyn for posting about the latest BI BLOG which will be written by Microsoft employees. Guy Weismantel, Nic Smith, and other writers will provide some great content. It will be exciting to see what is happening in the larger world of business intelligence at Microsoft. I am expecting good things from the new BI BLOG.

BI Conference ANNOUNCEMENT

The 2nd annual Microsoft BI conference dates are out!!! So get ready to come to Seattle, Washington on October 6-8, 2008. There you will "You’ll gain insight from industry thought leaders, learn about the success of other Microsoft BI customers from your peers, discover best practices and gain valuable product knowledge from Microsoft’s product experts."

Microsoft Business Intelligence Certification

normbi — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:15:13 GMT

Microsoft's Business Intelligence Certifications are geared to test real-world implementation of SQL Server's data management and analytic tools. Microsoft Business Intelligence Certification exams 70-445 & 70-445 will earn you the MCITP: Business Intelligence Developer certification. By preparing for and taking these exams, you will better understand what is beneath PerformancePoint Server 2007.

Because the BI field is still relatively new, there is good reason for gaining certification status. But this post doesn't discuss the purposes, pros, or cons for taking BI certification exams.

Practical tips for preparing for the exam

For starters, become familiar with the tools represented by four-letter acronyms in SQL Server 2005; SSIS, SSAS, SSRS, SSMS, and BIDS. Here is a simple explanation or these.

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) - provides a completely new enterprise extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) platform that comes with the features, tools, and functionality to build both classic and innovative kinds of ETL-based applications.

SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) - SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services provides an integrated view of your business data for reporting, OLAP analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) - provides customers with an enterprise-capable reporting platform with a comprehensive environment for authoring, managing, and delivering reports to the entire organization. Allows for reporting in an ad-hoc fashion.

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) - integrated environment for accessing, configuring, managing, administering, and developing all components of SQL Server. SQL Server Management Studio combines the features of Enterprise Manager, Query Analyzer, and Analysis Manager, included in previous releases of SQL Server, into a single environment. In addition, SQL Server Management Studio works with all components of SQL Server such as Reporting Services, Integration Services, SQL Server Compact Edition, and Notification Services.

Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) - allows for easy creation of data sources and report formatting. As an alternative, if you already use Visual Studio for other development projects, this tool can create Report Service projects as well.

"I would start with a book and some virtual labs, as you mentioned. But beyond that there is no better way to learn than experience. You don't have a DW there? Don't let that stop you... Build a small test one from your company's data, during your downtime. Building a warehouse will give you tremendous insights into your company's data and business. Who knows, maybe they'll even adopt it! If not, at least you will have gone through the motions and you'll have a much better grasp on BI than people who only read the books and did the labs."

Adam Machanic - SQL Server MVP.

More tips...

I just read a pretty good article with tips to prepare for it at SQLServerCentral.com. Click here. In it, Andrew Sears provides a list that breaks down the content to study that he suggests you paste into OneNote 2007. Doing this will help you organize and keep track of what has been reviewed.

I invite you to e-mail me tips and other blog posts that offer good advice for passing the exams.

NEW Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter

normbi — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:22:30 GMT

Microsoft is now offering a business intelligence newsletter aimed at providing up to date Microsoft BI information.

What is in the newsletter?

Each newsletter will contain the following sections:

- Spotlight: This will highlight the main content/focus of the newsletter.

- Product News: The latest product news or highlighted product information.

- Customer Success: Customer success stories will be highlighted in each issue.

- Partners: Partner-focused content will be featured here. We can also potentially highlight a different BI partner in each issue, as well as information for customers about finding a Microsoft BI partner to meet their needs.

- Events: The latest schedule in upcoming Webcasts, Microsoft BI events and industry trade shows.

- Resources: Links to customer and partner-focused resources.

When is the newsletter available?

The next issue will be in February and every 1st Tuesday of every other month. If you're interested in this December's issue, send me a message.

How to sign up?

Subscribing is easy! You can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking on the ‘Subscribe Now’ button on the home page of the www.microsoft.com/bi site (on the lower, left-hand side).

Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence,Microsoft BI,PerformancePoint Server