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For those of you who read my earlier post (SQL Server Data Services, Part Uno!) and have signed up for the beta program (SSDS Beta Signup), here are a few pointers to sample code you can use to try out SQL Server Data Services (SSDS). First, check out CodePlex. This page has source code for a few sample applications such as a Guestbook client and ...

In this blog, let's take a quick look at how to use a map to display nationwide sales data on a SQL Server report. You can jump quickly to the bottom of this blog entry to see how the report will finally turn out. To try out the steps below, you first need a server running SQL Server 2005 with the AdventureWorks database. You also need SQL Server ...

Welcome back to part 2 of my blog on Database-Driven Excel Charting in SharePoint. If you followed the steps from the first part of this blog, you should have an Excel 2007 workbook with a pivot table calling a stored procedure in SQL Server. In this blog, we'll publish this workbook to Excel and configure SharePoint to allow the workbook to ...

Hello everyone. I'm Gus Collazo, a member of the speakTECH Data Services team. Welcome to my first blog entry for speakTECH. In the future I'll focus my blog entries primarily on SQL Server 2008, PerformancePoint Server, and SharePoint. For my first entry though, since I'm working on a project focused on Excel Services, I'll focus on creating ...

Kevin McLaughlin from CRN Magazine recently wrote an article entitled ''Revving Up the SharePoint Engine'' in which he discusses opportunties for product companies to capatilize on the wide adoption of SharePoint.  It's an interesting topic as it causes some reflection for current SharePoint users on 'where do we go from here'.  Once in ...

Welcome to speakTECH’s BI BLOG!  This is Zeeshan Subzwari and I'm a BI Strategy Analyst, working as part of the BI Practice at speakTECH.  I'm very excited about this recently created speakTECH-BI blog.  This is a team blogging site which will be regularly contributed to by speakTECH's BI practice team members, a growing ...

Kudos to one of my clients for being quoted in a recent eWeek articled entitled ''BI Skills are in Demand'' (http://www.careers.eweek.com/article/BI+Skills+are+in+Demand/214388_1.aspx).  This is a great piece on the state of the BI resource pool... especially as we approach the lauch of PerformancePoint Server.  It's not enough to say ...

Came across a very interesting blurb in this month's CFO magazine... an article by Allan Richter entitled ''The High Cost of Clean Data'' details the challenges CIO's are facing in getting proper funding for BI project.  A very interesting read!  Some interesting tidbits (especially as we head in the budget planning ...

Thanks to everyone who attended my ''Leveraging Technology to Build Knowledge Sharing Systems'' session at NEECOM (New England Electronic Commerce Users' Group) yesterday.  The link to my sessions slides is below.  Lots of great discussion on the challenges of building a KM system.  My favorite discussion point was on desktop ...

Business Intelligence is out there, everywhere.  Sometimes, you just need to look for it. A perfect example is the cover story in the current Fortune magazine.  It's an article on a website, www.zillow.com, that allows you to see the value of your home (type in your address and see all the data!) -- even in the context of your enitre ...