Change is hard, so digital transformation is tough. However, small changes with the agile methodology and Power BI can add up to produce results and deliver business value by moving the needle slowly but surely. Gently, gently, incrementally!
Category: Business Intelligence
SQLBits: The Data Lifecycle: Decision making with data in Power BI and Fast Focus: Azure Notebooks for Artificial Intelligence
SQLBits Business Intelligence presentation. Data can be viewed as having a product lifecycle, where it can be collected, analysed, visualized, utilized and then monetized. In this session, aimed at business intelligence leaders, we will look at generating ideas and formulating a strategy that could benefit your organization by adding information as an asset to the organization.
User Stories for Agile Business Intelligence
User stories are development tasks often expressed as follows: persona + need + purpose A key component of agile software development is putting people first. User stories put actual business users at the front-and-centre of the conversation. In this post, we will cover the following topics: What makes a good user story? Story template Definition… Continue reading User Stories for Agile Business Intelligence
Data Lineage and Power BI: Why is it important?
The Microsoft Power BI team have released a preview Data Lineage feature and I couldn't be happier! The Power BI lineage view displays the lineage relationships between all the artifacts in a workspace, and all its external dependencies.
Businesses need a clear line of sight on data asset ownership and stewardship. This has traditionally been in the hands of the IT department, but unfortunately the projects can become deprioritized as IT fight other battles elsewhere. IT can do so much, but the business do need to bring things to the table. Hence, we now see accessible tools appearing in technology such as Power BI.
University of Washington Foundations of Data Analysis Course
I'm pleased to announce that the University of Washington are running a Foundations of Data Analysis course, starting in January 2020. In this 10-week course, you'll learn how to understand and analyze data. We’ll start with fundamental data-related concepts, terminology and ethical considerations. You’ll learn how to articulate business problems and identify required data. Using Microsoft Excel and SQL, you’ll practice gathering, cleaning and organizing data. Finally you’ll use Tableau to effectively describe, analyze and visualize data.
AWS RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database: What does it mean for the business?
From the business intelligence perspective, it is incredibly useful to compare AWS RDS and Microsoft Azure SQL Database. As a freelance industry analyst who has worked with GigaOm, I'm pleased to see the GigaOM Transactional Field Test derived from the industry-standard TPC Benchmark™ E (TPC-E) report which compares Amazon Web Services Relational Database Service (AWS RDS) and Microsoft Azure SQL Database.
Keynote and Session highlights at ASG Evolve19
I'm excited to be attending ASG Technology's Evolve19 event in Dallas, Texas on October 21 - 23. I'm particularly interested in learning more about metadata management. As I've written previously, I believe that metadata management is often overlooked in data science. It's an important part of obtaining full value from data, and it should be… Continue reading Keynote and Session highlights at ASG Evolve19
Putting the Business back into Business Intelligence: reduce Data Debt by reconciling IT Department with Finance Professionals
At some point, however, we need to pay back data debt if we are to succeed in making better decisions.
SSIS Toolbox components are all missing?! Here’s the fix!
Credit to stux-12364 for the jigsaw image. When you install SSDT, you can find that the SSIS Toolbox components are all missing. I am writing this blog for myself BECAUSE I ALWAYS FORGET WHERE IT IS and I am SO ANGRY with myself right now. Here is what to do: Click on Control Flow Go… Continue reading SSIS Toolbox components are all missing?! Here’s the fix!
Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence in the Cloud with #Azure: How do we get good, fast, cheap and easy?
Customers want their data good, fast, cheap and easy. A tall order, right? One of the biggest challenges that I see with data warehousing in the cloud is that customers are concerned with cost. I was interested to see the Gigaom report on the topic of Data Warehousing in the cloud, which contained a number… Continue reading Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence in the Cloud with #Azure: How do we get good, fast, cheap and easy?
Power BI Dataflows and fixing ‘Your Azure storage account must be in the same Azure Active Directory tenant as your Power BI tenant.’
I'm excited about Power BI dataflows, since I believe it's a great way forward for companies to sort out the issue that nobody likes to talk about: cleaning data. I'm passionate about this topic since I believe in inheriting technical debt as much as I can, so I leave the organization's technical debt in a… Continue reading Power BI Dataflows and fixing ‘Your Azure storage account must be in the same Azure Active Directory tenant as your Power BI tenant.’
Error converting data type varchar to numeric where ISNUMERIC finds only numbers
I am writing some SQL to form the basis of views to pull data from a Microsoft SQL Server source into Azure SQL Database, and then the data would go to Power BI. The data was all presented in string format initially (not my data, not my monkeys, not my circus), and I wanted to… Continue reading Error converting data type varchar to numeric where ISNUMERIC finds only numbers
