http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=64E29:CC236C780D31BEA00C1E26C7EE2DC5A9
https://www.sqlpass.org/summit/Lists/2007%20Summit%20Sessions/SQL%20CAT%20Sessions.aspx
Eric Jacobsen, in particular, is well worth catching if you’re interested in SSAS.
Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Analysis Services, DAX, M, MDX, Power Query, Power Pivot and Excel
http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=64E29:CC236C780D31BEA00C1E26C7EE2DC5A9
https://www.sqlpass.org/summit/Lists/2007%20Summit%20Sessions/SQL%20CAT%20Sessions.aspx
Eric Jacobsen, in particular, is well worth catching if you’re interested in SSAS.
Things are warming up in advance of the release of PerformancePoint, I see…
First of all, there are some launch events in New York and London:
http://www.microsoft.com/bi/performancepointlaunch/
I’ve registered for the London event, so say hello if you’re going! I see it’s at Vinopolis, so hopefully the drinks will be good; pity it’s on a Tuesday when Borough Market is closed.
If you’re trying to find out more about PerformancePoint, Microsoft have clearly done a deal with the folks at the OLAP Report (why not make my day and buy a subscription?) and made their writeup on it available as a free download from the Microsoft site:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/c/d/3cdc4df9-eb2b-4eb1-b29f-d892f31aa29c/OLAP%20Report%20PPS%20preview.pdf
As you’d expect from Nigel and co it’s pretty even-handed and not afraid to make the odd criticism where necessary.
Books are also starting to appear. I see Nick Barclay has announced two sequels to the excellent BSM book he and Adrian Downes wrote from last year covering the monitoring/analytics and planning sides of things:
http://nickbarclay.blogspot.com/2007/09/two-rational-guides-for.html
This made me wonder what other books might be in the pipeline. A quick look on Amazon revealed:
"Business Intelligence with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint 2007" by Craig Utley
"Administrator’s Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers" by Peter Bruzesse
This post on the MSDN forum:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2064643&SiteID=1
…reminded me of something interesting I found out a few months ago. It seems that whereas you can’t mix regular and calculated measures in a set used in the SCOPE statement, you can rewrite the assignment to avoid using SCOPE and do a direct assignment instead. So, for example, if you were trying to assign to a regular measure and a calculated measure using a SCOPE statement like this:
SCOPE({[Measures].[RegularMeasure],[Measures].[CalculatedMeasure]});
this=1;
END SCOPE;
You would get the following error:
A set has been encountered that cannot contain calculated members.
MdxScript(Cube1) (line, col) A set has been encountered that cannot contain calculated members.
The END SCOPE statement does not match the opening SCOPE statement.
MdxScript(Cube1) (line, col) The END SCOPE statement does not match the opening SCOPE statement.
You could rewrite the assignment as follows using two SCOPEs:
SCOPE([Measures].[RegularMeasure]);
this=1;
END SCOPE;
SCOPE([Measures].[CalculatedMeasure]);
this=1;
END SCOPE;
…but this is clearly a pain, as you’re duplicating your assignment logic. What you can do instead is this:
({[Measures].[RegularMeasure],[Measures].[CalculatedMeasure]})=1;
Not as easy to read as using SCOPE, I know, especially if you’re doing something complex, but at least it works! Now I wonder why SCOPE has this problem? Probably something worth opening an issue on Connect about…
The worst thing about taking a holiday is coming back home and, despite having taken my laptop with me and checking my mails a few times, finding there are a gazillion emails waiting for me to follow-up. Hohum. Anyway, here are a couple of things that need mentioning…
First of all, registration is open for the next BI evening in London on September 26th:
http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/
There’s also a whole load of new stuff up at the SQLBits site, including some sessions (though not mine yet) and speakers:
http://www.sqlbits.com/
You can register for the conference here:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032349295&Culture=en-GB
I see Vidas Matelis has picked up some more useful snippets of new features in AS2008 from a recent webcast:
http://www.ssas-info.com/VidasMatelisBlog/29_ssas-2008-katmai-info-from-august-9th-webcast#more-29
I missed the main webcast on the wider changes (originally billed as just being about the time series algorithm but it seems to have had its scope widened) in AS2008 but it looks like the recording should be available soon:
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6194
PerformancePoint CTP4 has been released and can be downloaded from Connect. David Francis has a feature list:
http://blogs.conchango.com/davidfrancis/archive/2007/08/16/PerformancePoint-CTP4-now-available.aspx
I also received a copy of Marco Russo’s new book "Introducing Microsoft LINQ". I won’t be reviewing here because I’m not really qualified to do so, but from the point of view of someone whose dev skills are pretty basic it looks like a good introduction to the subject.