Thursday, December 17, 2009

Introduction to SSAS 2008 Video

I've been looking a lot at the MSDN SSAS forums lately and noticed a lot of questions about processing, partitioning, and perspectives. I discuss some of these topics at the end of the my 90 minute presentation Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 OLAP that I gave back in July to the OKC SQL Server Developers Group. These topics begin at minute 64:30.

I have given this presentation several times since, however, this is the only presentation that was video-taped. In addition, with many presentation slots being only 60-75 minutes, the July meeting was the only time where I had time to discuss the aforementioned topics.

I hope you find this video helpful in getting up to speed with the basics of SSAS 2008 OLAP. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment here or go to the aforementioned MSDN SSAS forums.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Microsoft BI Introduction Videos

We've been very fortunate to have a great start to the OKC SQL Server Developers Group this year. We started in April and have been averaging 25 attendees per monthly meeting.

With family obligations and other time constraits, some developers just don't have the time opportunity to attend developer groups and/or technical conferences. I've found great benefit to attending meetings in person, but am aware that many can't take advantage of these opportunities.

Fortunately, we have been meeting a the OKC Coworking Collaborative that has been video taping our meetings. I personally, find the videos to be of pretty good quality with respect to both sound and video. Below are links to two presentations given by Mike Hotek the 18th SQL Server MVP. Currently, additional videos are available via links on the OKC SQL Server Developers Group website.


  • Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services 2008 by Mike Hotek (May 2009)

  • Introduction to SQL Server 2008 Data Mining by Mike Hotek (June 2009)
  • Tulsa SQL Server Group

    Back in September I had the opportunity to speak at the Tulsa SQL Server Group. I presented a shortened version of the Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 OLAP presentation that I did for the OKC SQL Server Developers Group back in July. Thanks to the 20+ people who came out in sheets of rain. On the way up, I was wondering just how many people would brave the downpour.

    I enjoyed catching up with old friends and colleagues and meeting new ones.

    Speaking at Tulsa Techfest 2009

    I'll be presenting Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 OLAP at Tulsa Techfest 2009. The event is taking place at OSU/Tulsa on Friday, November 6th. More details are available here.

    Tuesday, July 21, 2009

    SSAS 2008 Presentation Slides

    Thanks to everyone who came out to the July meeting of the OKC SQL Server Developers Group to see me present on Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services OLAP. We had about 25 people come out, including some former colleagues of mine. For those who missed the presentation or saw the presentation and would like the slides, a slightly modified version is available here at Google Docs. (Update: In some cases 2 tries has been necessary for the Google Docs link to work)


    For anyone interested in joining the group, check our website out at http://www.okcsql.org.

    Sunday, July 12, 2009

    Speaking this Week

    For those interested in learning more about SQL Server Analysis Services, I'll be doing a 90 minute presentation called "Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 OLAP" at the July meeting of the Oklahoma City SQL Server Developers Group. The meeting is from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the Oklahoma City CoCo. More details are available at http://www.okcsql.org. I hope to see you there.

    Sunday, February 22, 2009

    Oklahoma City SQL Server Developers Group

    There's been talk in recent years of getting an Oklahoma City SQL Server Developers user group started in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. If you live in the area and are interested in more information about the group, please, e-mail sqlokc at gmail dot com. I'm working with some others to get this group started.

    ProClarity Dashboard 6.2 and Firefox, Cube could not be found error

    I've still got users that are quite happy using either ProClarity Desktop Professional or ProClarity Dashboard Server 6.2 as their reporting tool for SSAS 2005 cubes. For those still using ProClarity Desktop and ProClarity Dashboard as reporting tools, I thought I'd post a few things that I've learned over the past few months.

    One item I learned, is that ProClarity Dashboard 6.2 does not work with some if not all versions of Firefox.

    I was on the phone with a user who was getting the below message in their web browser:

    "The selected page could not be opened because the cube could not be found. Please choose a different page."

    The error message suggested that the cube was either not available to anyone or that the user's security was not setup properly. Thus, I checked both the user's cube and ProClarity Dashboard security. The user's security appeared to be setup properly in both cases.

    I then checked the ProClarity Event Log on the server holding the ProClarity Dashboard. There was an error with a description like the one below:

    "Information. Accessing page NameOfPage ....
    from book NameOfBook ..."

    Since, the Dashboard page was accessible to others, this message wasn't, especially, useful.

    After all this research, I went down to the user's pod to see how she was accessing the ProClarity Dashboard and saw that she was using Firefox. I had her switch to IE, and then the ProClarity Dashboard started working for her.

    I have been unable to find official documentation as to whether or not Firefox is supported with ProClarity Dashboard Server 6.2, however, from my experience Firefox does not work well with this product.

    FYI...There are a variety of other possible causes for a "Cube could not be found" error in the ProClarity Dashboard. Many are documented at the ProClarity Team Blog.