Jeff Pries

SQL Server, Power BI, and other Business Intelligence and data technologies

Tag: Atlanta (Page 2 of 2)

SQL Saturday Recap: #392 – Atlanta, GA

May 19, 2015 /

sqlsatatl392SQL Saturday Roundup: #392 – Atlanta, GA

This past Saturday a time-honored event was held in Alpharetta, GA.  That tradition, straight out of past — or is it future? was SQL Saturday Atlanta.  Called by some the “PASS Summit of the South,” SQL Saturday Atlanta was the 392nd event in the SQL Saturday series and continues the yearly streak in Atlanta since SQL Saturday #13 in 2009.

It seems each year, the stakes are raised higher and higher as far as size, quality, and theme — and this year was no exception.  With this summer marking the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, it seems appropriate that the event was called Back to SQL Saturday and given a full, over-the-top Back to the Future theme.  But, before we talk about Saturday, we first have to travel back in time — to Friday…

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SQL Saturday Recap: #285 – Atlanta, GA

May 8, 2014 /

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!

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SQL Saturday Recap: #220 – Atlanta, GA

May 22, 2013 /

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.

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Choosing the Right Chart Type

April 30, 2013 /

Choosing the Right Chart Type:  

On Monday night, I attended our monthly Atlanta Business Intelligence user group meeting.  The speaker this month was the amazing Jen Underwood  (B | T) presenting on the topic of Data Visualization Best Practices.

As anybody who is familiar with building the presentation layer for a set of data knows, choosing the right method to represent that data can be the most challenging and important part of the entire process.

Whenever I am designing a new report, I will list my requirements and brainstorm a list of what I want to convey with the report.  Once I’ve determined what message is to be conveyed, I’ll sketch out mock reports on paper until I’ve gone through a few iterations and gotten an idea of what I’m going to implement.

During the process of sketching out a mock report, the topic of deciding what types of charts to use comes up.  In Jen’s presentation on Data Visualization Best Practices, she pointed out a very handy resource — a chart of charts by Andrew Abela, to help determine which type of chart to use and when:

A great resource to print out and decorate your office wall!

Another great resource is the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods by Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler which is an interactive resource which shows an example of each visualization method by hovering the mouse over the “element.”

There are many more great resources out there, including many by “the Moses of Data Visualization,” Stephen Few which I’ll cover in future posts.  Happy charting!

Jen Underwood presenting Data Visualization Best Practices at the Atlanta Business Intelligence April Users Group.
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