Category: SQL Saturday (Page 3 of 3)

SQL Saturday Recap: #318 – Orlando, FL

September 28, 2014 / jpries

SQL Saturday Roundup: #318 – Orlando, FL

This past Saturday, I made my annual trek down to Orlando, FL for SQL Saturday #318 at Seminole State College. I’ve learned you can always count on the Orlando team to put on a great event, and this one was no exception. With over 600 registrations and over 450 in attendance, this was one of the larger SQL Saturdays in the region and in my opinion, it went off without a hitch!

On Friday morning, I left Atlanta and began the drive down to Orlando. I would’ve liked to have been able to attend Jason Horner’s (B | T) “Zero to Dimensional Modeling Hero” pre-con session, but that would’ve required an extra day and with how busy things currently are, that just wasn’t in the cards this time.

I’d been following Andy Warren’s (B | T) blog posts regarding marketing for the even leading up to it and was pretty happy to see that they were able to exceed both their registration goal of 500 and their attendance goal of 350 by 640 and 450 respectively. Well done! He really worked hard getting the message out there and it worked.

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early and headed over from the hotel to the campus. Signage was great and convenient parking was easily found. Having printed my SpeedPASS in advance, check-in was a breeze. Additionally, I got to pick up my SQL Saturday Orlando polo at check-in, which came out really nice!

SQL Saturday Orlando polo shirt, sold online prior to the event. Came out great!

SQL Saturday Recap: #328 – Birmingham, AL

August 30, 2014 / jpries

SQL Saturday Roundup: #328 – Birmingham, AL

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of trekking to nearby Birmingham, AL for SQL Saturday #328. Seeing as Birmingham is so close to Atlanta and I hadn’t been to a SQL Saturday event since the Atlanta event in May, I figured this would be a great opportunity to make a short road trip to a venue I’d not yet attended.

The first SQL Saturday I attended was in Columbus, GA in September of 2012. Since then, I’ve attended 12 events of varying sizes. I found Birmingham to be very similar to the Columbus event — a small attendee base, but great speakers and a huge Atlanta presence. It looked like quite a few of us made the trek out to Birmingham!

I arrived at the registration desk and check-in was very smooth. As always, I had my SpeedPASS pre-printed and cut out…always make sure to do this, it saves a ton of time!

Being a smaller event, the venue was a tad confusing — a single 1-hall building with sessions and sponsors on both the first and second floors. Despite the initial confusion of finding all of the rooms and sponsors, it was pretty smooth after that.

Samford University campus at SQL Saturday 328

SQL Saturday Recap: #285 – Atlanta, GA

May 8, 2014 / jpries

SQL Saturday Roundup: #285 – Atlanta, GA

It’s that time of year again! This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the annual SQL Saturday event here in Atlanta (well, Alpharetta, really) and, as always, it was a great time.

SQL Saturday Atlanta is always a pleasure since being local means no travel necessary (hooray) and it’s always a top-notch production. This year was no exception as the event had a great line-up of pre-cons and speakers and was very well executed.

I started off my SQL Saturday weekend by attending Teo Lachev’s (B | T) pre-con session, Deep Dive into the Microsoft BI Semantic Model (BISM). Check-in for the pre-con was a very smooth process and we were each given a giant packet of all of the printed slides for the session. Additionally, the pre-con sessions had what I’d call the best breakfast I’ve seen at a SQL Saturday event, which included a buffet of hot food items such as eggs, etc.

Teo Lachev presenting his BISM deep dive pre-con session at SQL Saturday Atlanta

The pre-con session itself had a great turnout and Teo did an excellent job presenting a very large amount of material in the given time. All in all, it was a great day and time well spent!

SQL Saturday Recap: #237 – Charlotte, NC

October 24, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday Roundup: #237 – Charlotte, NC

Following the incredible PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte, the Charlotte BI Group was gracious to host another edition of SQL Saturday – BI Edition.

As I was already in Charlotte for Summit (and would’ve drive to Charlotte for this event anyway if I hadn’t been at Summit) I took advantage of the opportunity to keep the week of connecting, learning, and sharing with the community for one last day.

This is the second year that CBIG has hosted a SQL Saturday BI Edition and it actually marks the first SQL Saturday that I’ve attended twice in a row (as I really started getting into SQL Saturday last year with Columbus, GA).

As the first SQL Saturday that I’ve attended two years in a row, I thought the event went very well. There seemed to be a good number of attendees and a lot of big name speakers. Many of the speakers from Summit stayed the extra day to present at SQL Saturday, though I was surprised that it didn’t seem there were as many attendees from Summit at SQL Saturday that I would have thought. There were some though and it was fun to identify each other. Lunch was an excellent BBQ with a number of sides and various lunch time presentations. I’ve had a lot of BBQ these past couple days, but it was still great!

SQL Saturday Recap: #232 – Orlando, FL

September 16, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday Roundup: #232 – Orlando, FL

For my 9th SQL Saturday, I decided to head to the source and attend the one that started it all — SQL Saturday Orlando. SQL Saturday started in November of 2007, led by Andy Warren, Brian Knight, and Steve Jones. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, you can see the original event’s main page and schedule page preserved in their original form…oh, how things have changed!

To begin the weekend for SQL Saturday 232, I attended Tim Mitchell’s (B | T) Pre-Con session: Real World SSIS: A Survival Guide. The session was hosted in a meeting room of the host hotel and had a pretty good turnout. Tim provided a fantastic overview of his 7 tips for SSIS techniques in the real world complete with numerous demos. I found the session overall very well organized and informative, though I did have difficulties at time as I don’t currently use SSIS nearly as deeply of frequently as others.

After a great day of learning about SSIS survival tips, it was time to get some rest in preparation for a full Saturday of learning. SQL Saturday 232 was held on the campus of Seminole State College in Lake Mary, FL. The event itself was well-organized with good signage and ample parking. Upon check-in, in addition to the usual name badge, each attendee was given a branded USB drive, which was a nice touch, and a t-shirt (though these were on a separate table and easy to miss)

As always, deciding which sessions to choose from the vast array of great choices was difficult. Ultimately, I decided on a good mix of BI topics, with a mix of general troubleshooting and professional development as well. A few of my favorite sessions for the day were:

Tips for Attending a SQL Saturday Event

May 30, 2013 / jpries

Tips for Attending a SQL Saturday Event:

I’ve been attending SQL Saturday events for only about a year now, however, thanks to the proximity of so many good sized cities in the southeast, I’ve managed to attend 8 events so far! In doing so, I thought it would be helpful to run through some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way to help out anybody else who may just be starting out.

Background

A SQL Saturday event is a free all-day event centered on the subject matter of SQL server and its surrounding technologies. These events are organized by local SQL Server User Groups and usually occur once per year per city and group. Most major cities have at least one user group and some have multiple groups. It is common for a SQL Saturday event to be preceded by one or more pre-conference sessions which all day learning events, for a small fee, on a single topic in a more classroom setting. While SQL Saturday events are organized by local user groups, they tend to attract speakers from all over the country.

The SQL Saturday home page for SQL Saturday 220 in Atlanta, GA

SQL Saturday Recap: #220 – Atlanta, GA

May 22, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday #220 – Atlanta, GA:

This was my 8th SQL Saturday, yet somehow only the first one I’ve attended near my home, Atlanta. It’s pretty strange not having to drive for hours and stay in a hotel!

For anybody who has not yet had the pleasure of attending a SQL Saturday event in Atlanta, they’re known for being pretty popular events. As such, not one or two, but five pre-conference sessions were offered for Friday before the main event.

I had a tremendously difficult time choosing between Stacia Misner’s (B | T) “Languages of BI” pre-con session and Bill Pearson’s (B | T) “Practical Self Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel” pre-con. With both topics being interesting to me and both speakers being extremely knowledgeable it was a pretty tough decision!

Ultimately, I opted for Bill’s session, “Practical Self Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel” as I had yet to see Bill speak in person and the session was a little bit more applicable to a project I am currently about to undertake at work. Given the opportunity though, I’d still love to attend Stacia’s pre-con!

We had a great crowd for the pre-con session. The rooms provided by the Georgia State University Alpharetta building were very nice with plenty of space and great audio/video. Bill provided digital copies of the course material on some very sleek Atlanat MDF USB drives as well as printed booklets of the slides for following along.

The session began with an overview of PowerPivot with how to get it properly installed and configured and then it was off to the races. We went through an overview of the how PowerPivot works and when its useful in organizations and then proceeded through a number of scenarios building out a PowerPivot solution. I found the information on using linked date tables for proper “Time Intelligence” of particular use. After a great day of going through PowerPivot from top to bottom, it was time to head home and get some rest before the big event.

SQL Saturday Recap: #215 – Jacksonville, FL

April 28, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday #215 – Jacksonville, FL:

I’d been looking forward to this event for a few months now and it had arrived at last — SQL Saturday Jacksonville!

Part of the reason I’d been looking forward to this event (in addition to the great lineup of speakers and sessions) is the pre-con session for which I attended: “Building a SQL Server 2012 BI Platform” by Brian Knight (B | T) and Devin Knight (B | T).

Now, a day long session which goes through the entire SQL Server 2012 / Sharepoint 2013 Business Intelligence stack in a whirlwind is a great thing, but when its taught by both Brian and Devin Knight? Sign me up!

The pre-conference session on Friday started with a discussion of source data — an OLTP data source. From there, we covered the basics of data warehouse design and then dove into designing a traditional business intelligence solution — a data warehouse fed by an ETL process. With our data in place, we followed a traditional BI approach and built a multi-dimensional SSAS cube. To contrast, we also built a new SSAS tabular model based on a PowerPivot Excel workbook. With our data models in place, we finished out the BI stack by exploring them with SSRS, PowerPivot, PerformancePoint, Power View, and a little bit of Geoflow. An enormous amount of material, it was great going through the entire stack from start to finish with such knowledgeable teachers.

The next morning, after a quiet evening to rest my brain, the main SQL Saturday event was held on the University of North Florida campus. The venue for the event provided ample space, with a couple of larger auditoriums as well as a number of standard classrooms. The weather for the event was a sunny and beautiful spring Florida day — which was important as lunch (which was provided free for the event) as well as mid-session breaks were spent outside.

SQL Saturday Recap: #187 – Richmond, VA

March 15, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday #187 – Richmond, VA:

Continuing my back-to-back SQL Saturday extravaganza, this past Saturday I attended SQL Saturday #187 in Richmond, VA.

After a fairly impromptu trip to Tampa last weekend to attend SQL Saturday 192, this weekend it was off about the same distance in the other direction to visit Richmond, VA. As my first visit to Richmond, right away I wished I had more time to explore as the city looked extremely interesting. Next time!

For whatever reason, no pre-con sessions were offered before this SQL Saturday. Considering my brain was still a bit full from last weekend I was OK with this. I checked into my hotel room Friday evening for a nice rest before the whirlwind of learning that would be Saturday.

Continuing in a string of firsts, SQL Saturday 187 was held on the campus of the University of Richmond, which as I understand it was the first time the university hosted a SQL Saturday. The venue was very nice and the historic buildings provided a great atmosphere. The entire conference was held within a single building with both classrooms and auditoriums which allowed for plenty of room. About the only snag in the setup was a surprise soccer tournament on Saturday morning which gobbled up most of the parking that had been allotted causing a need for a bit of improvisation.

Once again, I was able to attend all six sessions during the day. And again, I was very pleased with the selections I made and the quality of the content. Every session that I attended was top notch and I believe I learned something new in each one.

A new event for me at this SQL Saturday was the WIT Luncheon. During the provided lunch, there were a number of options for presentations to take part in. Of these options, was a Women in Technology luncheon and panel discussion. As I have a co-worker who is very active in WIT in Atlanta and additionally I mentor women in IT, I decided to sit in. Kevin Kline (B | T) mediated a panel discussion with Melissa Coates (B | T), Karen Lopez (B | T), and Stacia Misner (B | T). Members of the panel each provided background and answered questions based on their experiences asked by Kevin and the audience.

In addition to the WIT Luncheon, a few of the sessions which really stood out to me were:

“Dashboards…How to Choose Which MSBI Tool” by Melissa Coates (B | T) – Melissa gave a very detailed analysis of the major Microsoft Business Intelligence tools and the various strengths, weaknesses, pros, and cons of each. She included some great charts which will make great references for the future.
“Branding Yourself for a Dream Job” by Steve Jones (B | T) — Steve gave a fun and energetic presentation about personal branding, social networking, and other aspects of the modern professional world. Some great tips on managing your online persona!
“So You Want to Be a Rockstar Report Developer?” by Melissa Coates (B | T) — This session is brand new and has great potential. Melissa covers various aspects of SSRS reporting and lists some of the big decision points we run into, such as stored procedures vs. queries in reports. Plenty of audience participation was encouraged and as this session is given many times, I can see it eventually holding a great wealth of best practices, tips, and tricks.

With that, SQL Saturday wrapped up with the traditional gathering for words of thanks and raffle of prizes. Sadly, I didn’t win anything this time, but all the great networking and knowledge was more than enough. I had a great time and look forward to visiting Richmond again in the future. Thanks to the Richmond SQL Server User Group and all the speakers for the great event!

SQL Saturday Recap: #192 – Tampa, FL

March 6, 2013 / jpries

SQL Saturday #192 – Tampa, FL:

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending SQL Saturday #192 in Tampa, FL, put on by the Tampa Bay SQL Server User Group.This being the first SQL Saturday of the year for my southeastern region, I was pretty excited to pop in the car and make the trek on down to Tampa.

Originally, I hadn’t planned on attending the event — Blissfully unaware, I’d already booked myself for the Richmond, Virginia SQL Saturday the following weekend. Fortunately, though, I happened upon a tweet mentioning the great pre-con sessions being offered and I was sold.About a year prior, I’d been really getting into reporting services and had been Googling for local classes for some additional in person SSRS training. I didn’t find much, but I did find a class being advertised as something called a “pre-con” preceding something called a “SQL Saturday” being given by somebody named Jessica Moss. Sadly, this was about a week before the class so it was already very sold out with a full wait list. “Maybe next time!” I said to myself, and filed away the idea of a SQL Saturday in my head for the future. Now, a year and 5 SQL Saturdays for me later, it appeared that a second chance for a SSRS class with Jessica Moss had appeared. Back-to-back SQL Saturdays in opposite directions from Atlanta for me then!

Friday morning, I attended Jessica Moss’s (B | T) “Taking the Next Steps with Reporting Services” pre-con session. A pre-conference session is a full day class on a single topic given by a single presenter. They’re typically given the day before a SQL Saturday and typically fairly small class sizes. Additionally, they’re incredibly affordable. We had a very small class size for the pre-con, which was great — it was very easy to learn, ask questions, and chit-chat. Jessica did a great job of covering a large array of SSRS topics, many of which I was familiar with and many that I hadn’t yet worked with. For anybody serious about SSRS, I highly recommend it!

Saturday morning kicked off the main SQL Saturday event. This year, for the first time, the event was held at Hillsborough Community College in Ybor City. Generally speaking, this was a great venue and provided far more space than the previous venue at K-Force. My only complaints were that parking was a little bit confusing if you weren’t in the main lot (not too bad) and the event was actually spread out between two non-adjacent buildings — which made finding the second building a bit confusing. Other than a little confusion though, the venue was very nice and provided plenty of room in each session I attended.

Rather than simply dropping off raffle tickets at vendor booths, the SQL Saturday Tampa crew had a sort of bingo card /scavenger hunt to fill out. Each square on the card represented a vendor or person and it was necessary to find people to check off all the boxes to be turned in for a raffle at the end. This was the first time I’d seen this idea used at a SQL Saturday event and I felt it did a very good job of getting me to walk up to and talk to people I otherwise may not have.

Throughout the day, I attended all six sessions and was very pleased with all my selections. I felt all of the material was interesting and top notch and all the speakers did a great job. A couple of sessions really stood out to me in particular:

“A Big Data Primer” by Stacia Misner (B | T) — I’m constantly hearing about Big Data, but not in an industry that has any use or real exposure to it. Stacia did a great job giving an overview of the industry, technology, and terminology involved. I left the session having a much better understanding of the concept of Big Data and a working explanation of how Big Data differs from regular? data.
“Way Too Much Fun with Reporting Services” by Stacia Misner (B | T) — Another great session by Stacia! In a nutshell, Stacia has put together a Words with Friends online game using SSRS as the engine. While the game itself has its flaws (I think anyone would agree that SSRS is probably not the best tool for the job of creating a game) it was incredibly eye opening seeing SSRS used as a platform that actually changed data rather than just showing a read only view of data.
“Exploring Your Data with Power View” by Jessica Moss (B | T) — Power View is a technology big on my want list that most likely I’ll explore on this blog. But that’s a story for another day. Jessica gave a great overview of Power View relying heavily on Microsoft’s online Sales Demos to show us a variety of the Power View functionality. I’m definitely looking forward to doing some implementation with this!
“Becoming a Data Professional – Taking it to the Next Level” by Buck Woody (B | T) — for my last session of the day, I visited Buck Woody for an overview on the current state of data professionals. Hands down, Buck is one of the most interesting speakers I’ve ever listened to. He has a great mix of humor and fact that creates a very compelling presentation. It didn’t hurt that all of his information was great, either!

With the conclusion of the day’s session, we gathered for the traditional closing words and raffle. There was a great turnout even until the end and everybody was very appreciative of the hard work in putting on the event. Additionally, I won a copy of “Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power View” by Brian Larson to add to my reading list. A great event all around and thanks to everyone for your hard work in organizing it!

On my way out of Tampa the following morning, I decided to hit up a couple of local geocaches in the area. For anybody who hasn’t, I highly recommend you hit up some of the caches by CacheMedics — they’re world class!