• Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 – Bestseller on Amazon!

    January 23, 2006 / No Comments »

    My book “Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005” book is a bestseller on Amazon! It is currently ranked No 94 for Computers and Internet (as of Jan 23). The book is now in its second printing (it's been available on Amazon since 12/15/2005). Thank you, thank you, thank you!   

  • Implementing Smart Reports with the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform

    January 17, 2006 / 1 Comment »

    This article presents an excerpt from Teo's book Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005. Learn how to author “smart” reports using Reporting Services (SSRS), Analysis Services (SSAS), and SQL Server CLR stored procedures. Get the reports demonstrated in this article by downloading the sample code.

  • Implementing Smart Reports Article Available

    January 17, 2006 / No Comments »

    Microsoft has just published an excerpt from my book "Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005" on TechNet. Learn how to integrate SSRS and SSAS to build smart reports using data mining and CLR stored procedures.

  • When Security and Developers Collide

    January 13, 2006 / No Comments »

    One of the most outstanding SQL Server 2005 feature is CLR stored procedures. A CLR stored procedure can encapsulate complex .NET code, process data, and pipe the results back to your report. The advantage of using CRL stored procedures is that from a reporting perspective things are very simple. The report just needs to call the CLR stored procedure, as it would call a regular SQL Server stored procedure. One of my reporting requirements called for passing some XML metadata in the form of a serialized-to-XML object. The stored procedure had to deserialize the object before it can use it. In my case, the object used a custom XML serialization/deserialization by implementing IXmlSerializable interface. My first attempt to deserialize the object from the CLR stored procedure failed abysmally with the following exception: Cannot load dynamically generated serialization assembly. In some hosting environments assembly load functionality is restricted, consider using pre-generated serializer. Please...

  • Reporting from XML documents in RS 2005

    January 11, 2006 / No Comments »

    Recently, I’ve come across a question on the RS public newsgroup about how to use the new RS 2005 XML extension to report off relative nodes in an XML document. The attached sample demonstrates this scenario. For example, given this document: <bookstore xmlns="http://example.books.com">  <book genre="autobiography" publicationdate="1981" ISBN="1-861003-11-0">    <title>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</title>    <author>      <first-name>Benjamin</first-name>      <last-name>Franklin</last-name>    </author>    <date>09-06-1956</date>    <samplechapters>1 3 4</samplechapters>    <price alternative="discount">5.99</price>    <price>8.99</price>  </book>  <book genre="autobiography" publicationdate="1972" ISBN="0399105573">    <title>The Moon's a Balloon</title>    <author>      <first-name>David</first-name>      <last-name>Niven</last-name>    </author>    <date>09-06-1974</date>    <samplechapters>4 5</samplechapters>    <price alternative="discount">1.94</price>    <price>2.57</price>  </book></bookstore> The following query fetches the book/title, book/author/first-name, and book/date elements, as well as book/@publication date. bookstore/book {title, author{first-name}, @publicationdate, date} In my opinion, it could have been nice if you were able to use XPATHs to bring the elements needed instead of this pseudo syntax that relies on curly brackets. Another potential area of improvement is supporting XML schemas to cast the column types automatically according to...

  • Excel-based Reporting Services, anyone?

    January 4, 2006 / No Comments »

    Perhaps, you’ve heard that Excel 12 will support publishing and executing Excel spreadsheets on the server through a server-based technology (currently dubbed Excel Services). My first reaction when I’ve heard about this was “who on earth would ever want to do this?” However, after reading the David Gainer’s excellent blog (will anyone compile these great notes into a book?) I got my "Eureka" and I have to report a mind shift. David is a Group Program Manager for Microsoft Excel. It is always great to see Microsoft engineers actively sharing first-hand knowledge so we can get the news straight from the horse’s mouth. Here is what I think about Excel Services based on the David’s notes (I still have to try out my hypothesis). I find the Excel Services model very similar to the Reporting Services architecture. The Excel user authors the spreadsheet using Excel. Then, she can publish the...

  • Configuring HTTP access with SSAS 2005

    January 3, 2006 / No Comments »

    SSAS 2005 can be configured for HTTP access, e.g. for Internet reporting. Here are two whitepapers with step-by-step instructions for configuring Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP for HTTP access with SSAS 2005.

  • WMF Exploit

    December 30, 2005 / No Comments »

    There is an extremely nasty new exploit that targets a vulnerability in Windows Fax and Picture viewers (WMF). Usually, I don't pay much attention to the latest on spyware since IE always asks you to confirm download. But this one is really bad. No IE warnings or security toolbar. If you havigate to a rogue website that uses the exploit, it will bypass the IE security settings. By the time resident anti-spyware and virus shields catch it, it is too late and your machine will be infected, as shown here. For the time being, the workaound is to disable the viewers: regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll Also, do yourself a favor and, if you are not doing this on a regular basis, enable Windows XP System Restore and create a restore point. Microsoft has isued the following advisory about the new threat. Microsoft Security Advisory (912840) Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote...

  • Excel to the Rescue

    December 28, 2005 / No Comments »

    Thanks for Marco Russo’s blog, I’ve learned that Microsoft has released an updated version (version 1.5) of the Excel 2002/2003 Add-in for SQL Server Analysis Services. I discussed in details how version 1.0 could be used to generate ad hoc reports from SSAS cubes in my book Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005. Although version 1.0 was compatible with SSAS 2005, it was unaware of the new UDM features. For example, it couldn’t differntiate between attribute and multi-level hierarchies. The updated bits target both UDM and SSAS 2000 although not all of the new UDM features (e.g. drillthrough actions) are supported. Easily overlooked, the version 1.5 of the Excel Add-in represents the first Microsoft OLAP browser that targets UDM. It is not perfect, but it is better than nothing. We can only expect the Excel/UDM integration to improve in Excel 12. So, I feel good about Excel analytics. Unfortunately, I don’t share...

  • Into the Multi-dimensional Space

    December 21, 2005 / 1 Comment »

    Lately, I’ve run into a few “multi-dimensional” posts in the public SSRS newsgroup. It seems like more and more people target SSAS 2005 cubes as a reporting source. It looks like I am not the only one who have noticed this trend. Brian Welcker has recently commented about the SSRS-SSAS integration in his Fingerpops blog. Here are some notes based on my experiments with the MDX Query Designer. LimitationsThe promise of the MDX Query Designer (implemented by the SSAS team) is giving the report author a tool to produce easily SSAS-based reports without requiring MDX knowledge. Unfortunately, the MDX Query Designer and SSRS integration has left a substantial ground for improvement. For example, it should allow dropping levels of a parent-child dimension on rows to produce the report similar to this one. I can produce this report in the SSAS cube browser (or another OLAP browser) in seconds. However, the...

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