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Beginning this Thursday, October 2nd, SAS and HP will launch a new, unique series of eight, 15-minute video blogs titled Grounds for Conversation: Practical Insights for Customer-Focused Marketing.

Several components of this project are very exciting:

First, There’s no product pitch or sales agenda – just a lot of great ideas about how you can build closer and more productive relationships with your customers.

Second, the project is video based. It’s not a series of lengthy white papers or articles, and it’s not another 60-minute webcast discussing how wonderful a particular company’s products are. These are short, 15-minute conversations between people who know the Customer Intelligence market.

Third, it’s a series that will last at least eight weeks, perhaps longer given your involvement via comments and questions. And I have commitment from each of the subject matter experts to respond to any questions you raise or comments you have. So let us know what you think – about the videos or content, or about the process or concept behind this project. I promise, we’re listening.

Fourth, as a company, we’re learning a lot with this project. Almost everything we’re doing is different. We’re not making anyone register to view the content. We’re publishing the content through our blog to invite audience participation. And although we used a script and a teleprompter for the opening and closing statements, the discussion is free-flowing and conversational. There are no PowerPoint foils. No product pitches. You’ll notice that even the imagery we used is different: it’s minimal, simple and devoid of ostentation, just like the content.

I’m lucky to have found two wonderfully intelligent and personable hosts for this series. Each week Jeff Gilleland, Global Strategist of SAS Customer Intelligence Solutions, and Karen Heath, a Managing Practice Principal with HP, sit down with experts in the customer intelligence field to discuss how organizations can achieve higher value and profit through marketing.

Much of what’s discussed is related to the Three I’s of Marketing: Insight, Interaction and Improvement, which are described in further detail as the videos progress.

Here’s a quick video introduction:

Of course, a big part of this experience is you! I encourage you to contribute to the discussion by sharing your ideas and questions with the speakers and fellow viewers via the comment box below.

There will also be additional resources that we’ll be offering you throughout the weeks. You’ll be able to download related whitepapers, webcasts, case studies and more!

This is undoubtedly going to be a great learning experience for us all, and I’m excited to begin. Meet us back here this Thursday to watch the first episode!

P.S. You can click the “continued reading” link below to view the full video transcript.

Continue reading “Grounds for Conversation: Introduction”

With so much talk about regulation in the news right now, I like this post today by Michael Vizard called, “Time to Form a Business Intelligence Institute.” He asks:

“What’s the point of spending millions of dollars on applications that most to the business community is too ignorant to use?”

His conclusion:

“To rectify this problem we need to create something that is roughly equivalent to a Business Intelligence Institute that end users can attend to learn how to ask penetrating questions using the data available in business intelligence applications. Short of that, all we’re really doing is building complicated applications that only a small percentage of the end user population can ever really derive value from.”

I love it. Vendors have called for “BI for the masses” for years, but what if the so called masses don’t really know what questions they should be asking in the first place? Be sure to share your thoughts on Michael’s blog. There’s also been some interesting discussion about the opportunity for SaaS business intelligence to change this dynamic once and for all. Be sure to join in here.

The SQL Down Under Code Camp for 2008 is on in a couple of weeks. Over the weekend of the 11th and 12th of October 2008 the cream of the Australian SQL Server community will gather at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. This is a free community even, if you can get yourself there it’s not too late to go to the website, have a look at the list of sessions and sign up.

There is a range of sessions covering all things SQL Server, including one from me on SSAS. It’s going to be a great weekend. I’m really looking forward to it.

One issue that confronts me time and again while executing BI projects is "Reusability", actually the lack of it. Let me give an example.

In the many migrations and upgrade projects that Hexaware (my company) has executed, I always find that the number of reports finally migrated/upgraded to a new environment is only 40-50% of the number that is provided to us by the customer initially. Report Rationalization has become such a critical step that we have developed many specific metadata tools that helps rationalize the reporting environment. Coming back to the topic – The reason for such a divergence between the final number of reports and the initial number is lack of ‘reusability’. Business users have their own versions of standardized (?) reports stored in their desktops which are nothing but small variations (usually with a new filter added) of an already existing report.

Another similar example on the data integration side is the creation of ad-hoc ETL routines as and when required. This results in duplication of ETL jobs and also results in a non-standard BI environment.

Lack of re-use causes two major problems:

1) BI environment becomes bloated with the increase in the number of unwanted components that use valuable computing resources, resulting in delays for availability of more important information.

2) Any attempt at upgrading/re-engineering the existing system results in high costs and undesirable heart-burn among business users

The Prescription:

1) Establish a corporate level BI team whose primary responsibility is to ensure that any component addition (ETL, Reports, and Models etc.) is justified based on its purpose. This team has to ensure that existing standards and components are reused to the maximum extent.

2) Strengthen the “Business Metadata” architecture within the organization. In one of my earlier posts, I had explained my view of BI metadata and that is very relevant to the task of improving reusability.

Basically, the “Reusability gene” seems to be a little muted in its functioning among BI practitioners. It is time that BI teams within organizations and system integrators like Hexaware look at reusability as a critical parameter while developing and deploying BI solutions.

Thanks for reading. Please do share your thoughts!

A

Yep — it’s true. I took the summer off from blogging but now I’m baaaack! And what a time to come back. Dow down 777 points today. Banks and other financial institutions going under right and left. And the one area where there is huge growth turns out to be in the online fraud business. And sadly, these online fraud perpetrators are turning to software as a service (SaaS) to commit their fraud. What is the world coming to?

Read on to see how SaaS is being used to commit acts of fraud.

As I’ve mentioned, my recent thoughts on client tools (see here and here) have prompted a lot of interest around the Analysis Services community. One result is that Panorama have asked me to host a webinar for them where I get to sound off about the state of the client tool market before they show you their latest stuff. Yes, I’ll be paid for it but I’m not going to be promoting their products directly (I feel like I need to justify myself!), just repeating my standard line that if you want to do anything serious with Analysis Services you should at least check out the range of third-party client tools available rather than stick blindly with what MS gives you - and given that Panorama are the largest vendor of third-party client tools for Analysis Services, they deserve to be on the list of tools to check out. Here’s the link to sign up for the webinar:

http://www.panorama.com/webcasts/archives/2008/webinar-with-cwebb-oct-21.html

So the SQL marketing people have put together a website to plug SQL2008 share the SQL Server 2008 experience:
http://www.sqlserverexperience.com/

Actually, there are some quite interesting (in a Channel 9 sort of way) videos up there in the ‘For Developers’ section, including a few interviews with members of the AS dev team. Worth a look.

Se ha organizado un evento muy interesante sobre Business Intelligence y Data Warehouse, en el que tenemos la suerte de participar.

Algunos buenos conocidos como Jorge Fernandez y Carlos Luis, mas el apoyo de BARC y B-eye Network han decidido montar un evento de lo más interesante para todos los que se quieran iniciar en el campo del Business Intelligence.

En el evento también participan otros viejos conocidos y expertos internacionales como: Shawn Rogers excelente blogger y creador de BeyeNETWORK y el Dr Carsten Bange fundador de BARC y editor del prestigioso BI Survey. También están Josep Curto, Emilio Arias, Pau Blasi, Chema Arce (que quizás se pierda el evento) y Oscar Alonso.

Si queréis saber un poco más en detalle, nada mejor que consultar la AGENDA.

Os dejamos una breve muestra del Curso Introductorio que ofrecerá Emilio Arias de TodoBI:

Desde luego que se trata de una gran oportunidad para tratar con especialistas en el tema directamente en sesiones con temarios muy interesantes.

Something that we’ve been working on in the background recently, and are now able to announce, are the first of our Oracle BI Training Days running in London from October 22nd to the 24th, 2008. If you’re a developer using Oracle’s latest BI tools and you’re looking to take a step up in terms of your technical knowledge, plus get the chance to meet our team and other advanced developers using Oracle’s BI tools, this is an opportunity you can’t afford to miss.

The event is running over three days with a different focus on each day. The way we are pricing it is that you can attend for just one day, or attend all three for the price of two. We’re organizing a meal (ticket price included) at the end of the first day, and we’re keeping the numbers attending restricted so that those that attend can get the maximum possible out of the session. The format of the three days will be a seminar/workshop style, with either myself or one of the team leading each session, doing demos, and providing you with the demo and sample files so that you can follow along if you wish. The expectation for each session is that you have some level of basic knowledge, we will take you beyond this and also introduce you to some potentially new topics such as the Oracle BI Applications and some of the new features in Essbase 11.1 and Oracle Database 11g.

Day 1 - Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition In-Depth

• A Future Oracle BI Architecture

• OBIEE overview
• OBIEE architecture
• The Oracle BI&DW Tech Stack
• Key features and new possibilities
• A proposed architecture and development approach

• The Common Enterprise Information Model
• Creating the Business Model and Mapping Layer
• Mapping 3NF data models into the Business Model
• Integrating Multiple data sources into the business model
• Fragmentation and Real-Time Integration

• Clustering and other physical implementation optimizations
• Optimizing the Business Model
• Caching
• Aggregate Persistence Wizard

• The OBIEE Web Services Interface
• The EasyBI SOA Bridge
• Integrating OBIEE with SOA and BPEL
• Integrating OBIEE with web-based applications using GO URL

Day 2 - New Features in Oracle OBIEE 10gR3 and Oracle 11g Data Warehousing

• Essbase 9.3.1 and 11.1 Integration with OBIEE

• Overview of Essbase
• Building an Essbase Cube using EIS and Essbase Studio
• Integrating an Essbase Cube into OBIEE
• Loading Essbase Cubes from the Common Enterprise Information Model
• Integrating OBIEE dashboards into the Hyperion Workspace

• The need for automated business decisions
• Introduction to Oracle Real-Time Decisions
• Steps to Create a Real-Time Decisions Project
• Integration of Real-Time Decisions with ApEx and ADF

• Aspects of OBIEE/ Discoverer Integration
• Using the Discoverer EUL Migration Utility
• Post-migration steps
• Migrating Discoverer Workbooks
• Integration of Discoverer with Oracle BI Publisher

• Overview of Oracle Database 11g DW Features
• New Partitioning Features
• The Relationship between the DW and OBIEE
• Cube Organized Materialized Views

Day 3 - OBI Apps In-Depth

• Oracle BI Applications 7.9.5 Introduction and Architecture

• Overview of Oracle BI Applications
• Oracle BI Applications Architecture
• The Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse data model
• Exploring the BI Apps data model and pre-built dashboards

• Introduction to the DAC
• Basic DAC Administration
• Performing an initial EBS 11.5.10 data load using the DAC

• Overview of Informatica PowerCenter 8.1.1
• Creating a simple mapping and running end-to-end

• Overview of the Oracle BI Apps customization methodology
• Understanding SIL and SDE mappings
• Customizing an Existing Type 1 mapping to customize a dimension
• Creating a new Type 2 mapping to add new facts and dimensions

The idea of the event is to take you beyond what’s available on other public courses, address the requirements of more advanced and experienced developers, and provide a “state of the nation” view of Oracle’s latest BI & DW offerings, including what’s been announced and showcased at Oracle Open World 2008. The cost of the event is £900 + VAT for one day, or £1800 + VAT for all three days, with a 10% early bird discount available until October 3rd. As I said, places are limited and so far we’ve received a lot of interest and bookings, so register now to avoid disappointment. If you want any more details, drop me an email or check out the web page, and hopefully we’ll see you at the event in October.

Sunday 21 September 2008 at Oracle Open World, I had the opportunity to present my method "GAPP" once more (HOTSOS 2008 and Planboard may 2008). This time I also mentioned how the method can be used with Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). For people not knowing what "GAPP" is all about I give a […]

Wouldn’t you know it. Follow BI around long enough and you come across family—if only the kind of family you see at funerals and weddings. Oracle finally brought us together again with its sustainability theme at last week’s OpenWorld.

The Sierra Club and I used to be close. My mother led San Francisco Bay Chapter hikes, and much later I found myself deep in greenhood as an editor and organizer. So imagine my surprise, having left “home” so long ago, to witness one-time Sierra Club president Adam Werbach on a panel of environmentalists on a stage. They debated “the economy or the environment?”

The three of them—Werbach plus natural-capitalism advocate Hunter Lovins and Rainforest Action Network founder Randy Hayes—faced off with four business people, representing the supposed monolith once known at my house as the enemy.

I’d never noticed Werbach’s wide mouth. I noticed it as he smiled, which he did often up there hunched over at the table, making little jokes with Hayes and Lovins as the event began. All three seem accustomed to the stage. After all, public speaking is their lifeblood, their source. Their bodies and faces, all graying now, also signal certitude. They can joke because they are forgiven, like reconciled Catholics. Science is on their side, and so are most audiences, and they love it all.

I had to wonder, then, about the way Werbach blasted the guy from Fiji Water, purveyors of bottled water shipped to North America by tanker. Rob Six, VP of corporate communications, had dared to tout Fiji’s reduced carbon footprint as part of the solution. Werbach called that a “lie” because he felt it was actually a small reduction of extravagant waste.

Werbach is of the David Brower school of shooting for the stars. Brower, of course, was the great Sierra Club leader. As the club’s first executive director, he launched the book publishing operation. Make people see the natural wonders, he argued, and they’ll fight for them. So—the story goes—he grabbed a vast “fire fund” accrued over decades by Clair Tappaan Lodge leaders and used it for capital. The club never restored the fund, but business is business when you’re shooting for the stars.

If Werbach’s “lie” charge reminds you of Dick Cheney’s pooh-poohing of individual Californian’s ability to reduce power consumption significantly during the 2001 crisis, you’d be wrong. Cheney was just cynical. Werbach is just out to promote himself with noise.

Business is finally catching on. Green is going secular. You can thank Al Gore, Hunter Lovins, her ex Amory Lovins, Katrina or more likely writer Paul Hawken and others. You can turn away from Werbach and his fellow Dark Green leaders.

Fiji Water is not a poster child for sustainability, I know. But let’s appreciate what they’ve done. What else do you suppose they’re going to do, shut it all down? Sure, have the PR people draft one last letter to shareholders: “Here’s your money. Go invest in Green.”

We shoot for the stars because it’s inspiring. But while we’re at it, we wander among the street lights and shoot for the targets we can hit. So, Adam, don’t look down from your mountain and piss on those who try.

Thanks to the Tim Tow and the other good folks over at Applied OLAP, the two most popular OLAP Underground Essbase utilities are back and they’ve been updated to work with Essbase versions 6-11 (and they’re free!).  For those of you who haven’t been around Essbase for too many years to count and have never heard of them, OLAP Underground was a group of anonymous Essbase programmers who built utilities to handle the things they did a lot that Essbase didn’t do at all (or very well).  OLAP Underground was then nice enough to give them away.

Creating visual representations of your data can sometimes be a challenge and you might get stuck in a rut using the same chart types over and over.  Why can’t you just select your data and let the tool generate the charts for you?  Well now you can.  Out on Office Labs there is a new product that is under development called Chart Advisor.  Once you have installed the product you will select the data in your Excel worksheet, click on the Insert portion of the Ribbon, and select the Chart Advisor in the Ribbon.  It will analyze your data (can experience performance issues with large amounts of data right now) and then present you with a good variety of chart options for you.  It currently doesn’t set the data types in the axis based on the data type in the spreadsheet (like currency and percentages), but other than that I think it is a great start.

What to find out more check out this video on Soapbox:

Video: Chart Advisor Overview

And also check out the blog posting here on the Excel Team blog.

What are the requirements / limitations?
Operating System needs to be either XP or Vista. You’ll need a copy of Excel 2007. Also, because this is a prototype, we’re limited to 8,000 cells for analysis.

Check out more FAQ here.

Last year I logged an issue on the connect site around deploying from BIDS and renamed databases. https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=281595

I got a couple of messages relating to this issue, one saying that it was being closed as it was a duplicate issue and then another one recently where it was updated to indicate that the issue has been fixed in SQL Server 2008. I think it is really great to get this sort of feedback that something is being done, unfortunately it does not appear to be accurate as I recently tested this issue on SQL Server 2008 RTM and it still appears to be there.

So what exactly is this issue? Well, try out the following steps on a dev machine.

1. Deploy the Adventure Works DW 2008 database.
2. Open up Management Studio and rename
   “Adventure Works DW 2008″ to “Adventure Works DW 2008 v2″
3. Change the deployment properties of the Adventure Works DW 2008 project in BIDS
   to deploy to “Adventure Works DW 2008 v2″
4. Now try to deploy the project.

It did not work did it?

So what is the expected behaviour here? Personally I expect that I would get a message about the database not being in synch or already existing and being asked if I was sure that I wanted to overwrite it. Instead all you get is the following:

And you cannot deploy at all.

This is happening because all objects in SSAS have a name property and an ID property and when you deploy a database from BIDS it sets the ID to the same value as the name. The product team created these two properties so that internally everything could be linked using the ID property and then users could be free to change the names of objects without breaking anything. This is a great goal, but as you can see we are not quite there yet.

I have another one for you - Consider the following scenario.

You are working on some changes to a database, you want to keep the current version around for benchmarking, but you expect that the new version will soon supercede the old one. So you open up SSMS and rename the database from “Adventure Works DW” to “Adventure Works DW - old”. Now you deploy the updated Adventure Works DW project ready to do your side by side testing.

What you will get is a dialog like the following:

Which is unfortunately similar to this dialog:

Which is what you get when you tell BIDS to process an object when there are changes in the project which have not yet been deployed.

If you read the first dialog carefully and if have an appreciation for the fact that there are distinct ID and Name properties you will see what is going on and that what BIDS is telling you is that you are about to overwrite your renamed database on the server with the one in BIDS - probably not what you want. But, if you don’t read it carefully, it does not look like a critical warning and if you skip to the last line you probably just see “Would you like to continue?” which you obviously do and then you will curse BIDS for “deleting” your renamed database.

I think the deployment of a database from BIDS should use the following logic.

I could be wrong, but I am guessing that this is probably not something that is likely to be changed in BIDS any time soon. And honestly, if you are aware of what is going on I don’t really see it as being too much of an issue.

We already have some requests for additional deployment functionality in BIDS Helper, maybe I will see if I can address this issue too as part of that piece of work.

What is probably more of an issue is that the problems with renamed databases seem to extend to the Synchronize functionality as detailed in this newsgroup thread