First spring conference: PASS Business Analytics Conference and SQL Bits #passbac #sqlbits #sqlpass

re: First spring conference: PASS Business Analytics Conference and SQL Bits #passbac #sqlbits #sqlpass

Toufiq Abrahams — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:32:00 GMT

Great choice of topics! Wish I was going to the conference.

IMHO the modern DW strategy should start with self-service as a means of early validation of requirements and immediate business value. I still believe in the need for proper data management architectures, and think that industry models have matured and are still valid. The only real changes are the way requirements are managed thru self service and hence also the sequence of task execution. The target data management solution remains largely the same, with the addition of complimentary new technology. Your thoughts on what's still valid and what changes interests me.

Your second topic is even more interesting. I have trained many business users to use PowerPivot. The technology is easy to teach and to learn. However this is not the case for building rich analytical models. Typically this is not the dimensional modeler mindset, but for those who can apply these techniques, are equipped with super powers. For those who don't, they still benefit hugely, but more from a productivity perspective than better insight. Your insight into identify and correcting modeling challenges in the face of an Excel community that have acquired habits based on previous toolset limitations is what I would like to hear about. My experience has been that those who latch onto the idea that proper modeling will be most beneficial, have the most to gain ... Including how well this ties into your first topic as an efficient means of taking self service models back to the data management platform.

Best wishes with your sessions!

re: First spring conference: PASS Business Analytics Conference and SQL Bits #passbac #sqlbits #sqlpass

Marco Russo (SQLBI) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:41:07 GMT

Thanks for the feedback!

I will try to write some article or blog post about the DWH topic - in short, the overall infrastructure does not change from a strategical point of view, but I see differences in the "last mile", because the shape of Data Mart might be different than what we have today. For self-service BI, using business keys is not an option and surrogate Keys might be not so useful if not confusing. This is not a good reason to avoid star schema and surrogate Keys, but the point is how to expose this data to data analysts.

I know this is just a small slice of the overall discussion, but it is the interesting one providing data to self-service BI environments.

re: First spring conference: PASS Business Analytics Conference and SQL Bits #passbac #sqlbits #sqlpass

Junior Vidotti — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:47:46 GMT

About self-service data modelings, I think that is like you said: "a good data warehouse is still the best starting point for any kind of analysis". You can use the data warehouse pre-modeled to drop some data into a Power Pivot and make your own analysis.

About this conference, I'm hoping that news about native mobile BI from MS. Mobile platforms has been forgotten and put aside from Microsoft. The world is claiming for freedom provided by mobile devices.