Pirate Code: They're more like guidelines really... The last few weeks we've watched the drama unfold in regards to the PASS BOD elections. We've seen people attack criticize the NomCom, the board, PASS itself, the process and the decision of feeding of Gremlins after midnight. Thankfully the fireworks have died down and we can take a look at everything that has happened and make strides to move forward in a positive (and more importantly) constructive manner. Given that, I've been asked by my g...
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Let me start by saying: No, I do not work for Pragmatic Works ( http://www.pragmaticworks.com/ ). However, I know a lot of the contributors and supports here do. I'm not a well-known "SQL Guy" ( or chicken ) I'm just your every day DBA - I like to get things done and I like challenges / learning. I also try to share what I learn. In my experience with DBAs this seems "normal". Also please note that my sharing this experience was not requested and I'm not being compensated or anything. I just thi...
Just a while ago I was watching a video on sqlshare Creating a Plan Guide for a Parameterized Statement By Andy Warren . Only then I heard about plan guides. I didn't know what plan guides were. Here is my find from googling In SQL Server 2005, there is a new feature called Plan Guides that can help out in some cases where you discover poorly performing queries that you don't have direct control over. Essentially, a Plan Guide allows you to add or modify query hints to queries on the fly, just b...
Unfortunately, I don't have one big topic to write about in this post, so I decided to share some observations from the past few weeks - little things that might be of interest in the next report you create. DID YOU KNOW... ..that you can format entire rows in a table by right-clicking the row and choosing Properties? ..that you can determine the final row in a table (for formatting or other purposes) with a statement like the following? =iif(RowNumber("ds") = CountRows(), [a true condition], [a...
At some point or another, you've probably run into the road block that is the lack of an ISNUMERIC() equivalent within the SSIS expression language. While you can't use ISNUMERIC() in an SSIS transform, such as a Conditional Split Transform or a Derived Column Transform, that doesn't mean you can't check to see if a field is numeric using the SSIS expression language (If you feel so inclined, you can use a Script Task to check if a field is numeric. Tim Murphy covers that in his blog here ). As ...
In a previous post I wrote about getting started with PerformancePoint 2010. In that post you learned about what PerformancePoint is and where to open in in SharePoint 2010. Your next steps are to configure PerformancePoint which you can find a good guide on TechNet for. Some of these steps listed may have already been configured if you ran the configuration wizard following the installation of SharePoint. Many installation guides recommend not using the configuration wizard, like when following...
Hey folks, It’s white paper Wednesday again and this week Data-tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2 by Alan Brewer, Roger Doherty, Prashant Choudhari, Shireesh Thota, Charlie Carson, and Omri Bahat. You can find it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381683(SQL.100).aspx There has been a lot of controversy about the latest addition to SQL 2008 R2 as to how to use these new Data Tier applications or DACPACs. This white paper will help you make sense of it all. This article walks...
So today at the office I was faced with one of the more common and important questions that come up regularly and that was ‘Where are we going for lunch?’ This usually in tells a few minor arguments and what not especially if this involves a large number of people. A about a year or so ago a former colleague of mine showed me this neat trick to help make the situation a little easier. In Microsoft Outlook there’s a feature that you can set up in any email that will allow the recipients of the em...
I attended the 2010 Jacksonville Code Camp Sataurday and really was impressed with Pragmatic Works. The entire Business Intelligence stack was covered by speakers from PW including Brian Knight, Adam Jorgenson, Mike Davis, Devin Knight, Dustin Ryan, Brad Schacht and Brian McDonald . You can regularly check out each of their blogs here on BIDN. Even though it was a .NET Camp the BI meeting rooms were filled and had standing room only for some of the sessions. Give kudos to the organizers of the C...
Problem: Everyone that's programmed a system that users will interact with has run across a statement like this one in the fact-finding stage. "I want to be able to search on phone number. I can't imaging needing to search on anything else.. Well, ok maybe last name. First name would be useful too. What I really mean is - whatever I pass it, it should just find that combination.. You know?" For this example, I'm going to do an "exact" ( based on my collation ) match. I'm not going to be doing a ...
Lately, I've been enjoying various shows on the Science channel about Time and Space. No one yet understands exactly what time is yet - still, everyone wants to save some. I'd like to show how one might save a little time in the long run using " Template Parameters " ( see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189396(v=SQL.90).aspx ). Template parameters are just a simple way of doing a find and replace before a query is run. Problem: Consider an example like this one - you have 2 SQL server...
If you only get a chance to read one book this year, it should be Drive , The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us. This book has made me rethink how I am motivated and how I can motivate others. It is all based on scientific studies and business studies. Some of the most successful companies use these methods and that is a big part of why they are successful. If you don't think you have time to read it, get the audio book from your library and listen to it in the car on the way to a from wo...
Sometimes you may need to restart your instance of SQL Server. You should rarely do this on Production boxes, but in development or on your local desktop instance I restart my SQL Server instance fairly often. Here is the easiest way for those who like to use the GUI (graphical user interface). NOTE: Do not test with this on your PRODUCTION server. J What you’ll need to do is RIGHT CLICK on the instance of SQL Server. If you want to do the stop and start all together, you can choose the RESTART ...
Recently one of my clients would like to see their Revenue figures represented some of the time as a positive (+VE) value and some time as a negative (-VE) value. They would like to have the ability to select between the two at run time in the Analyses Services Cube. The users are using Excel 2007 as the client tool for reporting. They do not want to change the figures inside the source database but would instead like to apply a mask at runtime. There are some specific post codes which are dedic...
So if you missed JaxCodeCamp 2010, you missed one heck of a free training event! Each session I attended was incredible and I learned all kinds of new things even in some of the areas that I consider myself strong in. Any ways, my session Introduction to MDX went pretty well. I had about 40 people in my session and they asked lots of good questions. I promised I would post my example code from my session so here it is . Also, here is my slide deck from the session if you'd like to review my note...
Join me for Lunch - SQL Lunch #33 (Indicators, Sparklines and Databars) #33-SSRS 2008 R2 - Indicators, Sparklines and Databars Speaker: Patrick LeBlanc Add To Outlook: Add To Calendar Live Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=RZW5HJ&role=attend Date and Time: 9/1/2010 11:30:00 AM CST BIO: Patrick LeBlanc, SQL Server MVP, is currently a Business Intelligence Architect for Pragmatic Works. He has worked as a SQL Server DBA for the past 9 years. His experience includes...
Next week on Aug 24th 2010 at 11AM EST I will be doing a free webinar in which I will take a crystal report and recreate that report in SSRS. In this session you'll learn how your Crystal knowledge will port to SQL Server Reporting Services and what your overall project will look like as you prepare for the migration. This is the link if you would like to register for the webinar. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/511673321 This link will take you to the recording, sorry for the delay. http:...
Goor Morning folks ! It's time for another motivational Monday. Today I want to remind you to be careful about biting off more than you can chew, especially if you've had more to drink than you should have. In many cases we find ourselves needing to get ramped up quickly to take on a new project or responsibility. This is important since it's how we in the field push ourselves to always be better. What you want to avoid though is biting off more than you can chew. Try and find a mentor or comuni...
One of the hardest things about starting a new project is getting to know the database with which you are working. Here is a quick way to make a list of the all columns along with the name of the corresponding table within the database. Copy and Paste the code in a query window and try it. SELECT COLUMN_NAME , TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA . COLUMNS ORDER BY 1 Sorting by 1 (COLUMN_NAME) allows you quickly see which columns are common to tables in the database and might be the ones you will ...
I have presented you with a couple of easy puzzles in the last few posts. So, let's step it up a little with one that is a little more challenging. I have to be honest, this puzzle was sent to me by one of my co-workers at Pragmatic Works. Here are the requirements: Columns: Reseller Sales Amount and using the Source Currency Code add a column to the result that displays US if the currency code is USD and International for all other currency codes. Rows: Country and State-Province Filters: None ...
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who attended my presentation today. It got off to a late start due to the prior presentation running over and a little setup issues set me back a little bit more, but I was able to cram in all of the content that I wanted to cover. I hope those who attended liked the details and demos. As promised in the presentation, here is a zip file containing all of the reports that I created and the windows application that used the ReportViewer control to integ...
The other day I was creating a report and it needed some sorting capabilities. I said to myself, "Self, there may not be a lot of begginers that know how to add sorting capability". What I would like to show you is how to add Interactive Active sorting to your report. After you have added columns to your table, you will want to Right click on your column name and select Text Box Properties: Once in the properties, select Interactive Sorting then click Enable interactive sorting on this text box:...
Puzzle #6 should not have presented too much of a challenge, it's intentions were to introduction you to the ORDER function that is available in MDX. Ok, so this is what I started with: This is a very simple statement that satisfies most of the puzzle requirements. The only one that is does not satisfy is the ordering of the results. To do this I used the ORDER function. The function accepts two arguments. The first is a valid expression that returns a set. In this example it is the set of Produ...
Did you ever set a goal and then sort of … demolish it without realizing it? That has happened this year. I set some goals to speak more regularly, as in once a month. That has translated into some rather interesting stats. This year my speaking engagement history looks like this.. 45 out of the last 52 weeks with a speaking engagement 45 sessions to over 3000 people in the last 12 months 45 Sessions over 21 different cities and 20 Virtual Events Averaging more than 5 sessions per month over the...
With the release of the SSRS 2008 R2 reporting developers now have a new tool that they can use when creating reports. The new tool I am talking about is the new map wizard. With this you can easily show totals by state to track whatever information your company is trying to track. When using the wizard there’re a few options that you can use when setting up the visual appeal of the report. By default you can use one of three options. 1. USA by State 2. USA by State Exploded 3. USA by State Inse...
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