:4TheLuvofSharePoint – Ivan Sanders

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Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Get 40% off of the print book and 50% off of the ebook version of this book by entering discount code AUTHD.

By Norman P. Warren, Mariano Teixeira Neto, Stacia Misner, Ivan Sanders, Scott A. Helmers

May 2013, ISBN 978-0-7356-7543-8

406 pages, $34.99

© 2014 O’Reilly Media, Inc. O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media

-Ivan

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I just received my copies of Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2013. I will be signing the books and giving them away at the next SharePoint Saturday 2013 in Redmond where I am speaking.

Being an Author and writing a book is very time consuming and can be difficult since you are working with software that is going to change many time’s prior to release and you are typically the first to be writing opn the new features being released.

However, I was lucky enough to work with a few authors (listed below) who are all some of the best folks I have had the pleasure of working with, and I learned a lot about how much my writing needed to improve.

Norm Warren, Mariano Teixeira, Stacia Misner, and Scott Helmers

Our book was listed last week on the Microsoft Press Blog Site

Dive into the business intelligence features in SharePoint 2013—and use the right combination of tools to deliver compelling solutions. Take control of business intelligence (BI) with the tools offered by SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft SQL Server® 2012. Led by a group of BI and SharePoint experts, you’ll get step-by-step instructions for understanding how to use these technologies best in specific BI scenarios—whether you’re a SharePoint administrator, SQL Server developer, or business analyst.

Manage the entire BI lifecycle, from determining key performance indicators to building dashboards Use web-based Microsoft Excel® services and publish workbooks on a SharePoint Server. Mash up data from multiple sources and create Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) using PowerPivot
Create data-driven diagrams that provide interactive processes and context with Microsoft Visio® Services

Use dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators to monitor and analyze your business
Use SharePoint to view BI reports side by side, no matter which tools were used to produced them

I would also like to thank all of the wonderful people at O’Reilly and Microsoft Press for being there when we needed you….

 

Thank you all !!!

 

-Ivan

 

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Key Dates

Pre-Conference	April 10
Welcome Reception	April 10 (evening)
Day 1 Keynote: Microsoft	April 11
Appreciation Event	April 11
Day 2 Keynote: Steven Levitt	April 12
General Sessions	April 11-12

Highlights

• § 60 + technical sessions presented by Microsoft and Community Speakers
• § Steven Levitt Keynote – Bestselling co-Author of Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics
• § 5 session tracks including:
•    ▫ Data Analytics and Visualization
•    ▫ Advanced Analytics and Insights
•    ▫ Information Delivery and Collaboration
•    ▫ Big Data Innovations and Integration
•    ▫ Strategy and Architecture

Why Attend?

• § Top community speakers including big data ZDNet blogger Andrew J. Brust; BI experts Alberto Ferrari, Stacia Misner, Peter Myers, Marco Russo and Chris Webb; data mining and predictive analytics gurus Mark Tabladillo and Cristian Vava; data science expert Mark Whitehorn; and Decision Sciences professor, Mathletics expert, and two-time Jeopardy! champion Wayne Winston.
• § Hear from the Microsoft experts: Kamal Hathi, Director of the BI Group for Microsoft SQL Server; Ashvini Sharma, Group Program Manager in the Office Data Experiences team; and Tim Mallalieu, Principal Group Program Manager for Microsoft HDInsight.
• § Connect with us for real-word insights, prescriptive guidance, best practices, and strategic vision
• § Expand your ability to analyze, manage, and share information to predict business performance
• § Walk away with the tools and connections for maximum impact within your organization
• § Dig deeper into Microsoft’s collaborative BA platform – Excel, SharePoint, Azure, Hadoop,
• Parallel Data Warehouse, and SQL Server.

Connect with us:

 

-Ivan

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Prior to discussing the Visio Graphics Demo Builds I would like to say that it was a privilege to work with Mariano Teixeira Neto, Stacia Misner, Ken Brown, and especially Norm Warren who I owe the most gratitude for taking a non-author under his wing and somehow bringing me through the process.

If you haven’t ever had the opportunity to write a book on technology of any kind prior to its release while maintaining your own business, it was a challenge to say the least. I worked more hours in the last 6 months than I would have ever thought possible. Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2013 is a great guide to the numerous Business Intelligence features to be found in the combination of SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint 2013. There were times, well most of the time I found parts difficult to write. In some ways I learned (always have know) I can build and automate anything. But what I didn’t know or have a clue about, though I have been writing technical guidance for years for clients is that when writing to a diverse audience you had better have folks on your team to learn from that have been there and delivered the end product many times before.

My difficulty was due in part to the the diversity of the audience, I don’t think I am eloquent enough to write to a non-technical audience in any meaningful way. This may be due in part to being a geek and all I speak is geek. It may have been I was so impressed with the other authors work that it made mine seem to me sophomoric. However, it was a great learning experience and allows me to share some pretty cool Demo Builds with you including this Visio Services Demo 2.0 Content Pack that you can download from Codeplex. http://SharePointDemoBuilds.codeplex.com.

In addition, though this work has been modified so there isn’t any stuff that is broken. The diagrams broken or not  have been around in many forms for a couple of SharePoint Releases. So, I would also like to thank Microsoft for providing these diagrams as learning tools and though I don’t know the folks directly who created most of the diagrams I have modified most of them,  and left  a few in lace for you to go through the upgrade process. I would just like to thank everyone involved that I haven’t mentioned previously from O’Reilly, Microsoft, and the folks that originally provided this collection of content. Though it is a work in progress it enabled me to learn Visio Services more quickly than I would have without having this work as a resource.

Its a pretty simple page with a few Visio Diagrams like the following network diagram

or it can be as simple as a wireframe as Contoso Casinos

We have even more content samples for everyone to play with so that you can learn Visio Services easily and have fun

Most people don’t realize that you can drop one the Visio Shapes on the page, then highlight and drop Excel Workbook information and if you had 50 rows of information you would end up with 50 labeled Visio Shapes in the diagram. Much like what’s been done in the next Visio Diagram

In summary this is a way to build not code Visio Diagrams and then add them to dashboards attached to live meaningful data., Because we know that executives love red Light, Green Light, Yellow Light and who they need to get in touch with to find out what’s up..

If you want to use these examples along with 30 or 40 more, we have the presentations, walkthroughs and scenarios on Codeplex at http://SharePointDemoBuilds.codeples.com and download / install the Visio Demo 2 Content Pack.

The following Demo installations are available for download now.

•   Visio Services Demo 2.0 Content Pack
•   Self-Service BI Demo 2.0 Content Pack
•   PeoplePack – UserProfile Provisioning Demo 2.0
•   SQL 2012 SP1 Content Pack Demo Build 2.0.0
•   Active Directory Content Pack Demo 2.0

 

-Ivan

 

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Hi All,

I will be presenting tonight in San Diego at the SharePoint Users group on Business Intelligence then and now… Please, Join us for the San Diego SharePoint User Group (SanSpug) meeting on Nov 6th, 2012 at 6PM. Our meeting will include the following topics:

· Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010 and 2013 by Ivan Sanders, SharePoint MVP

SanSpug meetings are held at New Horizons Learning Centers:  Be sure to tell your business colleagues and friends!

 

• 7480 Miramar Road
• San Diego, CA

Meetings start at 6:00 PM

Nov 2012 Featured Speaker(s):

Ivan Sanders, SharePoint Consultant and SharePoint MVP

Sponsored by:

The San Diego SharePoint User Group (SanSpug) was founded to serve the unmet needs of the Southern California SharePoint Community.  We are a formally structured group made up of members and an elected executive team.  Meetings are free to attend by all, but access to our more exclusive content and events will be presented only to our valued members.  The SanSpug mission is to strive to show and display unique and highly targeted SharePoint content of all flavors.  The information you will walk away with from our meetings will always be rich and interesting!

Meeting Agenda:

Time      

• 6:00 – 6:30 pm     Social Networking
• 6:30 – 6:45 pm     Opening welcome
• 6:45 – 8:30 pm     Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010 and 2013
• 8:30 – 8:45 pm     Closing Announcements
• 8:45 – 10:00         After meeting socializing in La Jolla

For more information, please see San Diego SharePoint Users Group, or contact Chris Givens at chris@sanspug.org.  Also check out our Social Pages:

 

 

-Ivan

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Wow, some one tried tell me but I didn’t listen, well at least not closely enough… I would just like to thank my co-authors but especially Norm for being there when I needed a shoulder to lean on and giving me the opportunity to almost kill myself as I lost the plot, working too many hours consulting for too many clients, building the demos for the book and the SharePoint Conference and of course writing…  Also thanks to Ken and O’Reilly for believing in me when I almost didn’t believe in myself.. The final drafts go out in two weeks and it will take a couple of months to get on your shelf.

Dive into the business intelligence features in SharePoint 2013—and use the right combination of tools to deliver compelling solutions.

Take control of business intelligence (BI) with the tools offered by SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft SQL Server® 2012. Led by a group of BI and SharePoint experts, you’ll get step-by-step instructions for understanding how to use these technologies best in specific BI scenarios—whether you’re a SharePoint administrator, SQL Server developer, or business analyst.

Discover how to:

• •Manage the entire BI lifecycle, from determining key performance indicators to building dashboards
• •Use web-based Microsoft Excel® services and publish workbooks on a SharePoint Server
• •Mash up data from multiple sources and create Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) using PowerPivot
• •Create data-driven diagrams that provide interactive processes and context with Microsoft Visio® Services
• •Use dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators to monitor and analyze your business
• •Use SharePoint to view BI reports side by side, no matter which tools were used to produced them

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145372703.do

By Norman P. Warren, Mariano Teixeira Neto, Stacia Misner, Ivan Sanders

Coming to  a store near you in January of 2013

I have said it before and I will say it again its all about friends…. You guys ROCK!

 

-Ivan

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You don’t want to miss the SharePoint Conference this year because you don’t want to miss my session but if you do happen to miss me you should be able to find me at the Microsoft Business Intelligence area, RackSpace, ShareSquared, Datafacet, or in one of the many sessions… 

I have included the official unofficial Business Intelligence Area schedule below

Register NOW

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business Intelligence by Day

Guns N Roses at Night

 

-Ivan

 

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Utah SharePoint Users Group

Have a spooky SharePoint day with the Utah SharePoint Users Group!

Join us to take the “scare” out of Business Intelligence and SharePoint.  BI specialist Norm Warren of Ancestry.com will guide us through self-service BI utilizing Excel 2013, SQL 2012, and SharePoint 2013… Costumes are optional…

Who:                   Norm Warren

What:                  Using Excel 2013 + SQL Server 2012 + SharePoint 2013 to provide business solutions                with self-service, interactive reports

Where:                Westech – 3665 S West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115

When:                  October 30^th, 2012 (Tuesday)

Using Excel 2013 + SQL Server 2012 + SharePoint 2013 to provide business solutions with self-service, interactive reports

The image shows the end-to-end lifecycle of a project using Office 2013, SQL Server 2012, and SharePoint 2013 to provide business solutions with self-service business intelligence.

Norm Warren works for Ancestry.com to help people discover, preserve and share their family history. He is organizer and co-author of a 2nd edition of Business Intelligence in SharePoint for O’Reilly/MSPress. He earned his Master’s degree in computer information technology and recently earned his MBA with an emphasis in financial accounting. He was previously a solution specialist for PerformancePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2010 at Microsoft.

I wish I was there……..

Happy Halloween!!!

 

-Ivan

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We received the Official announcement on Thursday that Norm Warren and I will be presenting on: 

Practical Deployment Aspects of Business Intelligence

Please join Ivan Sanders and Norm Warren as they walk you through the best practices on the Design, Development and Deployment of Business Intelligence Objects with with SQL Server 2012, SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 using Visual Studio 2012

 

 

Don’t forget to register, this event will sell out http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/register.aspx

 

-Ivan

 

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I am very lucky in that I have been accepted to present on Business Intelligence Best Practices at a few upcoming SharePoint Saturdays which I hope all of you will attend.

This session is primarily based on walking you through demos on the Design, Development and Deployment of Business Intelligence Objects following SharePoint Best Practices in all aspects from Design to Deployment methodologies of SharePoint 2013. This session will start with a very quick walk through the foundational aspects of Business intelligence when integrated with SharePoint along Best practices in the Design, Development and deployment of Business Intelligence solutions in SharePoint Server 2013, with SQL Server 2012, on Windows Server 2012 that will include Analysis Services Solutions, with PowerPivot, PowerView and Reporting Services, Excel and Visio Services.

Also, Norm and Ivan will walk through the governance issues surrounding the deployment of SharePoint 2013 in general and the Business Intelligence Aspects in specific. In addition, Norm will quickly explain practical paths for designing tabular models in PowerPivot and the SQL Server Data Tools environment. He will explain decision points such as hybrid approaches with Direct Query, and include best practices for automating data refresh in SharePoint and scheduling processing in Analysis Services.

The session includes a thorough demo of creating an Odata feed from SharePoint lists and SQL Azure to relate a date table for quickly showing aspects of time intelligence. The demo will continue by showing how to create partitions in SQL Server 2012 and schedule data refresh (with an interval of 15 minutes) using XMLA. Lastly, the team will discuss how to choose the right Business Intelligence tools to start using now so you can show immediate results while planning for the future evolution of your SharePoint Business Intelligence Dashboards.. All demos are built on Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012, and SharePoint Server 2013.

I have been very blessed this year to be working on the Second edition of the Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 with the illustrious group of Norman P. Warren, Mariano Teixeira Neto, John Campbell, Stacia Misner the author’s of the First edition Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

Norm currently works for Ancestry.com to help people discover, preserve and share their family history. Norm was previously a writer for PerformancePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2010 at Microsoft, and has written articles on PerformancePoint Server for the information worker, IT Pro, and SQL Server BI developer audiences. Norm has his Master’s degree in computer information technology and is currently earning his MBA with an emphasis in financial accounting.

Norm has an active member of the community to provide the right content about Microsoft business intelligence such the SharePoint BI poster (Visio (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=167409). His past time is with his family, mountain biking, and sharing his passion of BI in SharePoint.

Norm will be joining me for the first two in an upcoming series of SharePoint Saturdays during the next few months. The first of this series is coming up on September 22nd 2012 in Redmond WA. at the Microsoft Conference Center. Where if you are like me and have a passion for all things Microsoft then you know its one of the best cities in the world ad I hope you will join us for this event and the place to register is http://spsred.eventbrite.com/

The second in the series will be held ion Bend OR. on October 6th 2012 at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon. If you were unable to join us in Redmond then this is the event we hope you can attend due to the numerous seasoned experts, MVPs and MCMs alike. Please don’t forget to register http://spsbend2012.eventbrite.com/

The last in the series leading up to the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas Nevada will be held in Sacramento California on October 13th 2012 at the Woodlake Hotel near the Cal Expo in downtown Sacramento. I was fortunate enough to be the keynote speaker last year and the number of people attending and the excellent venue made this one of the highlights of my year of presenting at many SharePoint Saturdays of which I was privileged. Registration is open http://spssacramento.eventbrite.com/

Last I would like to thank the many sponsors that make all of the free SharePoint Saturday events possible:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have been in the SharePoint industry  for any length of time you may be able to tell from the number of sponsors with SharePoint products and services, the SharePoint community is getting better very year and becoming more vibrant every day.

Thank You to ALL our SPONSORS and VOLUNTEERS for making SharePoint Saturdays possible…

 

-Ivan

 

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