Scenario: You use the DQS Cleansing Transformation in an SSIS package to integrate data cleansing with DQS. Once you are done developing, you export the DQS KB and then create a new DQS KB by importing and publishing the KB to another server. Or, you might have deleted and recreated the KB with the same name. When you open the DQS Cleansing Transformation Editor, although…
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As you've probably heard the news, Power BI went live yesterday. Among the many new features, Power BI Desktop (previously known as Power BI Designer) now supports live connections to Tabular. This is conceptually similar to connecting Excel to Tabular or Power View to Tabular to create ad hoc reports. However, Power BI Desktop is a standalone and freely available tool that is independent of…
Read articleCome and join us for our next information-packed meeting on Monday, July 27th. Stacey Jones from UPS will present "Big Data as part of your Data Strategy" and Patrick LeBlanc from Microsoft will do a quick demo of Power BI Desktop now that Power BI has gone officially live. Our sponsor will be Prestige Staffing. Presentation:Big Data as part of your Data Strategy Level: IntermediateDate:Monday, July…
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Developers spend plenty of time coding for exceptions. The customer SSN must be 9 characters. The organization code must be four characters and it must be constrained to specific values. The happy path is easy, coding for exceptions is tedious. Some exceptions are easy to catch, others might require more complicated logic than implementing the happy path. And, it gets more difficult if the rules…
Read articleAs I mentioned in a previous blog, Microsoft added Datazen to its arsenal of data visualization tools. Datazen, of course, comes with its own pros and cons. In this blog, you'll see how you can get around a Datazen limitation when connected to an SSAS data model. Scenario: You create a Datazen dashboard that sources data from an SSAS MD or Tabular model. As usual,…
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Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Power BI on July 24th meaning that Power BI goes live on that date. Among the many new features mentioned in the blog, the one that piqued my interest is custom visuals. Developers might recall that SSRS has provided custom report items since version 2005, which I wrote about in the October 2006 issue of the MSDN Magazine.…
Read articleMicrosoft just announced the public preview of Azure Data Catalog, previously known as "Project Tokyo". I had a chance to take an early review of Azure Data Catalog to help a big organization which was interested in simplifying discoverability and access to data across the enterprise. As I mentioned in my "QUO VADIS DATA WAREHOUSE?" newsletter, logical data warehousing (LDW) has gained some traction and…
Read articleWhile you might be trying to convince management to upgrade to Office 2013, the next version of Microsoft Office (Office 2016) is on the horizon and scheduled to be released sometime in the Fall. Meanwhile, you can download and test the Public Preview. Naturally, you might wonder what's new for BI given that Excel is the Microsoft premium BI desktop tool. In my newsletter, I'm…
Read articleOver the last couple of weeks, I learned a thing or two about disaster recovery. My server crashed and it had to be replaced. While we were able to get Prologika.com up and running quickly, the community site was down for a while. I am happy to report that while there are some kinks remaining, for the most part the community site has been restored.
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