Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

Earlier today I delivered my GBN Conference presentation to an audience over the web. It was… interesting. 🙂 I have done web presentations before but never to an audience of this size. I didn’t have time to count, but it seemed like there were well over 100 attendees that stayed through to the very end. I hope they (or you, if you were online) found the time to be worthwhile.

It was certainly different for me. Presenting to a live audience is not stressful to me at all anymore. I have enough experience that it just doesn’t bother me. Whether I am delivering a training class to an audience of ten, or a conference presentation to an audience of hundreds, it doesn’t make me nervous at all. But today on the call was a different story. Continue reading “Webinar is Done, Whew!”

The presentation that I did for the 2008 GBN conference earlier this year has been scheduled for a webcast that will be hosted on the GBN web site. Registration is required, but it’s fairly simple. If you go to the GBN Home Page there is a link for Webcast Series on the right side of the screen. Clicking that link will take you to the schedule, and a link to sign up for the various presentations, including this one.

There are other speakers from the GBN conference that will be delivering their presentations in this format as well. I just get to go first and iron out all of the bugs in the process. 🙂

A Brief Overview of Measure Objects

A universe has three basic types of result objects: dimensions, details, and measures. Measure objects are analytical values like dollars or quantities. Measure objects have two extra settings that dimensions and details do not have: a SQL aggregate function and a report Projection function. The SQL aggregate function is not enforced by the application, but it should always be present. (That’s a subject for another blog post. Or two.)

The SQL aggregate function is performed by the database server, and the projection function is used by the report engine. This is what makes measures “roll up” when you slice and dice or drill on a report. The problem is, certain calculations cannot be done by the database because there is no valid projection function. Designer 3.x gives me a way to address that by introducing a new projection function setting of Database delegated. This post will explain why that’s important and how it works.
Continue reading “Designer XI 3 New Feature: Database Delegated Measures”

Designer has provided the option to create “stub joins” in a universe for quite a few years. A stub join is a permanent where clause on a table that appears as a small stub rather than a full join connecting two tables. This feature has often been used to apply security to a table via a reference to the @Variable(‘BOUSER’) value.

However this strategy had one major flaw in that if the table was not referenced in the query then the security would not be applied. I now have a much more flexible (and powerful) option in Designer 3: Class Restrictions.

Continue reading “Designer XI 3 New Feature: Class Restrictions”

The @Prompt() function has been around for a very long time. There have been subtle changes made to it over the years to support some of the new Web Intelligence extended options but they were not always documented. I don’t know about you, but I find using undocumented features a bit daunting. 🙂

Continue reading “Designer XI 3 New Feature: Extended Prompt Syntax”

I have been asked by a few different folks about evaluations for the conference, both from an attendee perspective and for speakers as well. For previous conferences conference attendees filled out evaluation forms before leaving the site (that’s how you got your conference t-shirt). For the GBN conference we didn’t do that. From what I hear, conference attendees will be soon receiving an email with a link to an online survey, at which point you will be able to provide any feedback about the overall conference.

I don’t know how much of the details for the conference feedback will be made public. Business Objects did not release the overall conference evaluation numbers to the public. I do know that every single comment will be read, categorized, and evaluated. This was the first year for a GBN-run conference and I think everyone recognized that there were some differences. The opportunity before us will be to sort out which differences were important, which should be repeated, and which should be fixed.

For example, one bit of feedback that I intend to provide is related to the room configuration. The room I was scheduled to speak in was quite large, and fairly deep. I don’t know how many rows of chairs there were, but it was more than a few. Yet there was no raised platform for the speaker in the front of the room. I am sure that impacted how visible I was in the back of the room. I imagine everyone could hear me, but hearing is not the same as hearing + seeing at the same time. I think for larger rooms we want to make sure we have elevated platforms next year.

Speakers, on the other hand, will be waiting a bit longer to get our feedback. I don’t have exact dates, but I am told that each speaker should be getting an email soon with more details on when we can expect to see our results. I know I look forward to seeing the numbers. I have had some great comments over the years, and I do strive for the best overall ratings that I can get.

Survey response percentages are typically very low. If you attended the conference and you’re reading this, I would encourage you to fill out the survey once you get the link. The function of the steering committee is to “steer” or guide in the desired direction. It is your voice that should determine that direction. Let’s hear it. 🙂

I have posted my presentation from the 2008 GBN Conference. I have also posted placeholders for my other conference (or user group) presentations and will really try hard to get the rest of them loaded before the end of the year.

Conference Presentations Download Page

I have already published on extended post based on one of the tips from this presentation, and have several more ready to come out over the coming weeks. If you went to the presentation then these blog posts will help you remember what I talked about. If you were not able to attend the conference, then these posts will hopefully help you get more out of the slides.

As the saying goes, “The king is dead, long live the king!” The first GBN-sponsored conference closed yesterday afternoon and I think it was a success. There are things that can be improved, of course, and I hope that folks will share their suggestions and experiences with me or any of the steering committee members. I was way too busy in the days leading up to the conference (not to mention during) that I didn’t get to do the “daily updates” that I have done for the past several conferences. I plan to address that by posting about my experiences during the conference over the coming days.

I haven’t drawn the winner for the cup either, so that’s coming soon. 🙂

Wow, a five day conference (more specifically four days + Community Day) makes for a long week. Yesterday I had lunch with Giles Farrow (from Business Objects an SAP Company). Those that have been speakers in the past might recognize his name as he has been the coordinator for the Insight conferences these past few years. Giles used to work for Guinness (the beer company, not the book of records people) and tells some interesting stories. It was nice to catch up with him.

After lunch I went to the Community Clubhouse where I talked with Brian Bischof for a while. I had been introduced to Brian the night before; he is a well-known author, having published several books on Crystal Reports. He also has a series of articles on his web site (end of post for link) that talk about his experiences with self-publishing that I found very enlightening. I enjoyed the talk.

Continue reading “SAP TechEd Day … Something. Where Am I Again?”

So I find myself typing this post on my Blackberry because the wireless at the convention center is so bad… 🙄 … Mostly that means this post will be short. I am sitting in a Universe Design session. Why? Because nothing else at this time looked familiar or interesting. Why is this post-worthy? Because of all of the sessions I have observed, this one had the longest waitlist. It seems that SAP folks are starting to “get” that universes are where it’s at. 🙂