Stephen Wynkoop

Demo: Capture perfmon counters to binary logs and at the same time capture SQL Profiler. Then you can load both into profiler and see both at the same time. Great for troubleshooting what might be causing a problem or what is happening at a particular point in time.

Historical only (not real-time)

When things go Wrong

• What changed?
• What were you doing?
• What were you seeing?
• Answer: NOTHING.

Add all the counters you need. Don’t be skimpy. Start broad and then narrow down. If you don’t record it, you can’t see it.

Intro to SSAS 2008

Marc Beacom

• www.MarcBeacom.com
• twitter.com/MarcBeacom

You can import an existing cube into BIDS which will essentially create a copy of the project that was used to create the cube. (Probably only to a certain extent)

PerformancePoint Services 101

Craig Utley

• Craig Utley, Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors
  • Consultant specializing in development with Microsoft technologies and data warehousing
  • Published author of books, whitepapers, articles, and courseware
  • Operator of LearnMicrosoftBI.com

Performance Point Services

Monitoring, Analytics and Planning

Planning being removed in the next version

• Monitoring: Scorecards and dashboards.
• Analytics: Drill up, drill down, slicing, dicing, etc…

Performance Point ships only with MOSS. With MOSS 2010, 64-bit only, no 32-bit.

KPI Sources are usually cubes but can be other sources including SQL Server, Excel and other sources.

No Pie Charts until next version.

Financial analytics with SQL Server Analysis Services

Donald Farmer

@donalddotfarmer

Need to listen to the Scottish Starbucks analogy again. It was a great analogy but want to be sure I didn’t miss something.

Financial Calculations

• Currency Conversions
• Time Intelligence
• Account Intelligence

Resources

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/analysis-services.aspx
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/mosha/default.aspx
http://www.sqlserveranalysisservices.com/default.htm
http://sqlcat.com/Default.aspx

Full SpectrumBusiness Intelligence

Donald Farmer

@donalddotfarmer

These slides are masterful is telling the verbal story Donald is presenting. I am putting up a few of the key slides that will server as good reference to me.

Thanks Donald!

Data quality is “fitness for purpose”. IT cannot tell you is a record is good.

Oh yeah, the sessions. I almost forgot.

If you are interested in knowing what sessions I plan to attend, here is the list.

Day 1

• Scheduled
  • Solving Business Pains with SQL Server Integration Services
  • Avoiding Common Analysis Services Mistakes
  • Live Session – DBA Survivor
  • Live Q&A
• On-Demand
  • Enriching the Design of an Analysis Services Cube
  • Embedding Reporting Into Applications with the ReportViewer Control
  • Add It Up: Analysis Services Aggregations
  • Aggravating Aggregations
  • On Call Duties
  • Configuring the Business Data Catalog

Day 2

• Scheduled
  • DW Dimension Table ETL with SSIS
  • 7 Extraordinary Things To Do With Integration Services
  • DW Fact Table ETL with SSIS
  • SSAS Cube and Dimension Processing with SSIS
  • Q&A
• On Demand
  • DBA Checklist
  • Administrating SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
  • ESB Toolkit 2.0 Overview
  • Database Change Process
  • Loading a Data Warehouse in SSIS
  • Implementing Messaging Solutions Using ESB Toolkit 2.0

Day 3

• Scheduled
  • Intro to SSAS 2008
  • PerformancePoint Services 101
  • Financial analytics with SQL Server Analysis Services
  • Full Spectrum Business Intelligence – aligning IT and Business in the new world of data
  • Q&A
• On Demand
  • Data mining for DBAs
  • Introduction to Sketch flow
  • SQL Statement Tuning with Showplan
  • Live Session- Get jQuery().ready; with Rachel Appel
  • SQL Statement Tuning with Indexing Strategies

So, that’s the plan. Obviously all the on-demands won’t be able to be completed each day but hopefully within the next week I can get a look at each of them. There is always the hope of that one golden nugget out of each session.

Blessings.

Came across this piece of code for ensuring the end date comes after the start date.  Just what I was about to write but a quick Google search saved a bit of time. Yay!

The function below checks for the Start and End date ranges .

Function:

Function CheckDateParameters(StartDate as Date, EndDate as Date) as Integer
Dim msg as String
     msg = ""
     If (StartDate > EndDate)  Then
        msg="Start Date should not be later than End Date"
     End If
     If msg <> "" Then
        MsgBox(msg, 16, "Report Validation")
        Err.Raise(6,Report)                    'Raise an overflow
     End If
End Function

Steps:

1.) Go the Report Parameters and add a parameter with the datatype is string.

2.) Check the Hidden checkbox and Allow blank value ckeckbox.

3.) From Default Values choose Non-Queried radio button and then press the FX button and paste this code.

=CODE.CheckDateParameters(<parameterStartdate>.Value,<parameterEnddate>.Value)

Then press OK.

Blessings.

This use case is unique since the typical approach is to create a report with criteria parameters and then use a daily/weekly/etc timed subscription to run the report and email to the users. This methodology sends the report to the users even if no records match the actual report run-time criteria. Also, this may allow the report to keep a particular record in a report for as long as the record meets the criteria, and thus doe not fulfill the “one-time” only notification desired above.

To address this use case we are investigating the use of data driven subscriptions for a solution. The concept is to use a subscription history table that records all records for which notifications are sent to users. Additionally, the query driving the report will look at this table to determine if any new records match the other reporting criteria. If not, the email distribution will be nulled, to keep users from being notified of no matching records.

I would love to hear other suggestions on how to create this type of report notification/alerting. Again we want to send notification one-time per matching record, regardless if the record shows up multiple times in the raw report criteria results. And, we want nothing to be sent to the users if no matching records exist.

Blessings

Are you a SQL Server DBA, Developer, Report Writer?
Do you align with a desire to spread God’s Word?
Do you love working in an evolving/energetic environment?

Yes? Well here’s  a neat opportunity.  The Seed Company is a Christian non-profit focused on Bible Translation. Based in Arlington, Texas in the heart of the D/FW metroplex they are seeking a multi-talented individual to fill a big need.

“The Seed Company is a faith-based, 501(c)3 organization committed to the vision of creatively networking God’s people around the world to translate the Bible into every language for His glory”

Here’s the info on the position.

Brief Description: Preserve and extend TSC staff capabilities through database development, administration, and reporting.

Responsibilities:

General:

1. Has servant heart, and a desire to make others more effective in their work.
2. Good interpersonal skills.
3. Strong written and verbal communication skills.
4. Ability to understand user needs and to design database solutions appropriate to those needs.
5. Familiarity with computer networking and security issues.
6. Familiarity with server administration and backup/restore techniques.
7. Ability to document routine tasks.
8. Working knowledge of Microsoft Access, Windows Server and Microsoft Office products.
9. Working knowledge of web technologies.

Specific:

1. Ability to develop and maintain data dictionaries and data models/ schemas.
2. Ability to design and maintain reports and reporting environments.
3. Ability to design and implement user interfaces for data entry and reporting.
4. Ability to design and maintain integration (ETL, SSIS) with other database systems.
5. Knowledge of tools for database design, performance monitoring and user interface development.
6. Thorough understanding of SQL Server and reporting tools.

The position is full-time and will be out of the Arlington, Texas office. There are a number of neat initiatives going on including moving to an SSRS reporting environment (SSRS 2008), the potential to start into Data Warehousing, data integration and automation with a number of internal and external information systems.

Interested parties should contact:

Dave Mutchler
dave_mutchler@tsco.org
(817)-557-2121

Corporate Headquarters

The Seed Company
3030 Matlock Rd. Suite 104
Arlington TX 76015
USA
view map
Phone (817) 557-2121
Toll Free (877)593-7333

Contact Info: Email resumes with cover letter to: dave_mutchler@tsco.org

Business Type: Bible Translation

Comments: The Seed Company is an affiliate of Wycliffe Bible Translators and seeks to make employment decisions in accordance with applicable federal and state employment discrimination laws and regulations. As a religious organization, The Seed Company is entitled to make employment decisions on the basis of religious beliefs and practices of the applicant or employee. All positions require a personal commitment to Christ, evidenced by personal testimony and identification with a local church.

Presenter: Ted Malone
http://portal.sqltrainer.com

Gotta love Ted. He’s been with SQL Server since Beta v1.0 on OS/2.

Ted’s presentation is about Agile development method using Visual Studio Team System. Hoping some methodologies can apply using other tools.

Ted on Why Team System: The tools are as important as the process. Tools should make the process invisible.

Typically in a project you are moving from a Product vision into a final Product.

Principles of Team System

• Value Up. Build bottom up, not top down
• Process per project. One size does not fit all
• Iteration. Plan to learn and grow
• Quality early and often. Automate quality development and testing (Like to know more on this for SQL BI projects)
• People first. Trust your people (or in my case, me. Haha) – Empower them with project transparency.

“Know that you’re not going to know something.” – I love that quote.

I like the consolidated work items (tasks) in the VS interface.

Need to learn more about the Scenario functionality of VS Team System. Interesting for automated testing?

Hmmm….ties into Sharepoint as a project status portal. Cool. Too bad we don’t have Team System nor Sharepoint. All of it gets way too expensive for a non-profit. Anyone doing automated testing or continuous integrated for SQL Server, SSAS, SSRS, SSIS using open source tools?

Funny…Ted’s desktop background is a dog. I presume his?

ConfigureSoft Software Development and Lifecycle Management Portal. Provides detailed recommendations for doing Agile/Lifecycle in VS Team System but also includes methodology etc… Is this a product or something that is downloaded and added to Sharepoint?

The Accidental Business Intelligence Administrator

This session is designed for SQL Server DBAs who find themselves having to support SQL Server Business Intelligence projects using Reporting Services, Integration Services or Analysis Services. We’ll talk about the lifecycle of projects using these tools, how they impact your SQL Server infrastructure, and what adaptations you might need to make as a production DBA in order to maintain and secure them. Along the way, you might just learn what all those “other” services do that are listed in the SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Presenter: Chris Randall (crandall@ameriteach.com)

http://blogs.ameriteach.com/chris-randall

What is SQL Server Business Intelligence? “a method of storing and presenting your key enterprise data so that anyone in your company can quickly and easily ask questions of accurate and timely data.”

Microsoft end-to-end BI offering slide.

Components of SQL BI

• Integration Services
• Analysis Services
• Reporting Services
• Sharepoint?

SQL BI Administrative Tasks

• Install
• Configure
• Deploy and Store
• Secure
• Backup
• Monitor

Administering Integration Services

• Lifecycle
• Installation
• Configuration
• Security
• Backup
• Monitor

What is Integration Services

• Platform to extract, transform, load (ETL) applications
• Unit of  deployment is a .DTSX text file (XML)
• Contains Control Flow (execution sequence) and Data Flow (pump rows from source to destination) engines
• Allows for vast assortment of operations to be performed within a package.

As an administrator, anytime you here a developer say “I’m going to pull data from…” you need to immediately think if the tools for the source are installed on the server, not just the developer desktop.

Integration Services Lifecycle

• Develop Packages
  • Import/export wizard
  • Visual Studio/BIDS
• Deploy and Store
  • File System
  • MSDB
• Execute
  • SQL Agent Job, DTEXEC.EXE

For file system deployment there is a managed “magic” folder. But you can deploy to anywhere in the file system.

C:\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Packages\

Installing SSIS

• Optional Component of SQL Server install
• Only one instance per server
• Windows Service – management, not execution
• Roles added to MSDB
• Managed folder in SQL installation path
• Runtime, development files

Configuring SSIS

• Set it and forget it…up to a pint!
• Most configuration is package specific
• Develop best practices for storage, security, logging
  • For file system package storage, ser up NTFS permissions
  • For MSDB storage, determine access, growth needed

Securing SSIS

• Security at runtime is most common problem in production
• SQL Agent may not have appropriate rights
  • “It works on my machine!”
• Work with BI devs to standardize package encryption, storage locations
• For MSDB storage, roles provide access controls.

Backing Up SSIS

• Things to Backup:
• Developer source
• File and folders in the fs deployment
• scripts, configuration files
• MSDB for SQL Server deployment
• don’t forget that MSDB only stores packages
• supporting files are in the file system

Monitoring SSIS

• Logging Logging logging
• Limited utility of running Packages node in SSMS
• Logging Logging logging
• Some perfmon counters

Work with developer for multiple logging modes (debugging versus production run)

Easily manage file system package folders and packages via SSMS.

dbo.sysssispackages table stores the package info. Remember, the old name for DTS was dbo.sysdtspackages. Use the new one!

Administering Analysis Services

• Platform for creating multidimensional data repositories for querying
• Pre-calculates and stores aggregated data
• Presents to client application in format for flexible modeling and analysis (Excel Pivot Tables, for exmaple)
• Also includes Data Mining Engine and tools for predictive analysis

Analysis Services Lifecycle

• Develop in BIDS
  • SSAS “Database” is a unit of deployment
  • Not a relational database – Think of it as a project
• Deploy via BIDS, Deployment wizard or XMLA script
• Data can be stored in File system, Relational DMBS, or some combination
• Hosted, reprocessed, served up by SSAS engine

Installing SSAS

• Optional component of SQL Server install
• Supports multiple instances
• Windows service handles management and execution
• Data files may be in SQL Server file path

Configuring SSAS

• New install is empty. Needs databases deployed, user accounts created for use
• Like SQL, no access to no-administrators by efault
• Wealth of tuning options within the management tools

Securing SSAS

• Role based security
• Need permissions to connect. Permissions set at database,  per cube, and further down the object hierarchy
• Windows Authentication only
• Built-in RunAs functionality in BIDS, SSMS for testing.

Backing up SSAS

• What to Backup
  • Deployed database metdata (designs)
  • Security roles
  • Server configuration files
  • Logs?

Data stored mostly in the following folder:
C:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10.MSSQLSERVER\OLAP\Data

Whew! Slow down. You can tell he’s starting to run out of time. How do I keep up taking notes and listening well.

What is SQL Reporting Services

• Provides traditional and interactive reporting
• Web hosting engine
• Provides reports in a number of output rendering formats
• Native mode with own web portal for viewing and management
• Sharepoint integrated mode

SSRS LifeCycle

• Develop
  • BIDS, Report Designer, Report builder
  • RDL, RDS, SMDL XML text files are produced
• Deploy and store
  • Stored in content database hosted in SQL Server
• Deploy via BIDS, rs.exe, Report manager/Sharepoint
• Manage and secure
• Consume via portal, web pages, embedded controls

Installing SSRS

• Optional feature in SQL Server setpu
  • Files only install or install and configure setup
• Multiple instance support
• Mix of Windows and Web Services in 2009

Configuring SSRS 2008

• Configuration tool.
• 2008 simplified configuration from 2005

Securing SSRS

• Role based security (if native mode)
  • Default roles installed
• Groups/Users
  • Windows/Active Directory
• Sharepoint Integrated
• SSL
• Auditing Report Access
• Data sources

Backing Up SSRS

• Report Server Database (two of them)
• Encryption Keys
• Sharepoint DB
• Custom Extensions
• Configuration files
• RSTempDB
• IIS Settings for RS 2005
• RDLs
• SSL Certificates

Whew! That was a whirl wind of a session. Tough to take all the notes but a good overview. Presenter was good a getting the information to us.

So just to set the foundation for this scenario, we are using SSRS 2008. The chart is being created via Dundas Chart for Reporting Services, not the included Microsoft Chart control. Our Y value expression is:

=RunningValue(Fields!Total.Value,sum,
"DundasChartControl1_DRG_PMTFiscalYear_agg")

As you can see in the chart to the left,  for the current fiscal year we are currently in March. There are still a number of months left in the fiscal year and in our dataset, there are no values for those future months. Unfortunately, using the RunningValues() function means the Y value just remains where it was for March through the rest of the fiscal year. Not the behavior we want.

What we are looking for is that if there is no value we do not want to show a line or marker. In the Dundas Chart properties you have the option to set how empty data points should be handled. We ensured that this was set to the “zero” setting rather than “average”. Of course this did not resolve our issue because the Y value is not empty as it contains the running value.  So how can we ensure that the empty datapoints are seen by the Dundas custom chart control in order to be properly handled? Custom code is the answer.

First we changed the Y value expression to simply be:

=Sum(Fields!Total.Value)

This sets each datapoint to the individual year/month income value rather than the RunningValue expression we were using. Next in the Advanced –> View Code area we found and selected the PostApplySeriesData event. Finally we added custom code that modifies the Y value for the chart to essentially be the running total.

' Parameter: chartObj - represents the chart object
' Parameter: series  - the series that is currently being populated
' Parameter: codeParams  - user defined code parameters

Dim runningTotal As Double = 0

For Each point As DataPoint In series.Points
  point.YValues(0) = point.YValues(0) + runningTotal
  runningTotal = point.YValues(0)
Next

Why does this work? It is actually quite simple.

At the time the series data is applied to the chart, the charting component is seeing the actual Y series datapoint value. For those future months, the datapoints are empty and the chart property for handling empty points works. After that is out of the way, we then come back and adjust the Y values for the existing datapoints. (Our empty datapoints aren’t there.)

Voila, our problem is fixed.

Sample Income over Time (Current + Historical) where a tooltip on datapoints would be useful.

Wow. Big disappointment for me today. I’ve been hitting my head against a brick wall for the last 1.5 hrs trying to find the Tooltip property in a Dundas Chart for Reporting Services object for each series data point.

Seemed like a simple request since the built in Chart object in SSRS 2008 has a marker tooltip property. Well boys and girls, the short answer is “no, you can’t.”

According to this article, Dundas is stating that the limitation is on Microsoft and affects all custom reporting objects.

Boy, that’s not how I anticipated ending my day after our organization shelled out for the Dundas dashboard bundle. Might just have to go back to the Microsoft chart control for some reports. Disappointing to say the least.

Great little query against your ReportServer db that you can create a report from to see subscription failures. A little tweaking and creativity and you’ve got the makings of a set of subscription management reports.

SELECT C.Name, S.LastRunTime, S.LastStatus, S.Description, Users.UserName
FROM Subscriptions AS S INNER JOIN
Users ON S.OwnerID = Users.UserID LEFT OUTER JOIN
Catalog AS C ON C.ItemID = S.Report_OID
WHERE (LEFT(S.LastStatus, 12) <> ‘Mail sent to’) AND (LEFT(S.LastStatus, 12) <> ‘New Subscrip’)