Configuring SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

The Decoder Ring to Data Warehousing / Business Intelligence

Hope you enjoyed the sessions, and thanks for coming.

I was lucky enough to be asked to present two sessions this time. The first is at the 10:15 am time slot.

Configuring SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

Reporting Services can be one of the easier tools to configure, once you understand how to use the configuration manager. In this session you’ll explore the configuration settings available through the exploration of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager. You’ll learn the different accounts Reporting Services will need in order to run, how to access Reporting Services via URLs, and the importance of encryption keys.

This year they are doing something new, and having a beginner track. For anyone brand new to SQL Server this is the place for you to be. I was asked to do my second session in the beginner track in the 1 PM time slot.

The Decoder Ring for Data Warehousing / BI

Business Intelligence is one of the hottest job skills in the IT field. DBAs and Database Developers are being asked to implement databases with non-traditional design, and are having a lot of new vocabulary thrown their way. In this talk you will learn the concepts behind building and designing data warehouses, and cut through the buzz words so you will walk away with a clear understanding of what words like dimensions, facts, and measures mean.

Last I checked there were still some seats left for the event, but hurry as they are running out quick. I also have a little extra swag to give out during my sessions, courtesy of Pragmatic Works and Pluralsight.

As you can see, it provides a simple, easy to you way to navigate help in PowerShell. I find this especially nice as I often have my editor open in one window and want help files or other reference materials open in a second. Down the left is a tree which allows you to navigate to the type of object you are seeking help for. It also supports search, you can see the search results pane in the lower right.

Like iPowerShell, it uses the standard PowerShell help format, so you can add in any PowerShell help file, just as you can with iPowerShell. Best part is the price, it’s free! Just go to Sapien’s website, to the download center, and navigate to the Community Tools section. Select your flavor (32 or 64 bit).

One little quirk I was having that someone in the support forums helped me with, and this was a Windows issue not a PowerShell Help issue. I wanted to create a docked shortcut for this right in the Windows 7 task bar, but it wasn’t letting me. Turns out if you have the word Help in your file name Windows “protects” you by not letting you add it to the task bar. I created a shortcut, renamed the shortcut to remove the e in Help from the file name, and all was well with the universe.

I have e-books on PowerShell which I can read on my various e-book devices, but as you might expect with a book they are not highly interactive. So the other day I ran across a solution for, of all things, my iPad.

It’s called iPowerShell, from the folks at Sapien. It was less than five dollars (US), and they have both iPad and iPhone / iPod Touch versions. It provides interactive access to the PowerShell help system, allowing you to quickly drill down into Cmdlets, Aliases, Providers, and more.

What I love most about iPowerShell is it’s extensibility. It uses the standard PowerShell help file format. That means you can write your own custom help files and use them not just in regular PowerShell but iPowerShell and other products that incorporate standard help.

This brings up some great possibilities. Many companies have generated their own set of custom modules and cmdlets. Often they have already created help files to go with them. Now those same help files can be used by simply importing them into iPowerShell.

If I had any wishes for iPowerShell, there’s be two. First, it’d be nice to have the basic syntax included. For example, there’s two ways to do the foreach command, it’d be nice to have those documented for easy lookup in iPowerShell. Second, right now the cmdlets are sorted alphabetically by the verbs. It’d be nice if there was a way to have them sorted by the nouns. There is a search feature though, which greatly alleviates that need.

Incidentally I found out about the tool because of my post on PowerShell Training. Over on the BIDN version of the post, a reader had posted a link to Windows PowerShell 2.0 TFM by Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks. This is an extremely comprehensive book, one that I immediately bought and have been reading ever since (hence explaining why I was up until 2 am this morning). You can get it in PDF format directly from Sapien at the link above, or in print format from Amazon. Highly recommended.

Sapien has some other cool, free community tools I plan to blog about in the near future, so stay tuned. In the meantime if you are both a PowerShell coder and iPod / iPhone / iPod Touch owner I think you’ll enjoy this inexpensive app.

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition – If you are only going to buy one PowerShell book, this is “The” book as folks say. It’s one of the two that gets referenced quite often. Note the prior link is to Amazon, where you can only get the paper (aka “dead tree”) version. You can get electronic versions (Kindle, PDF, and ePub) directly from the publishers website.

PowerShell In Practice -  This is the other book in my collection that gets a good workout. Lots of great examples and easy to understand. Like the previous book, the link is to the Amazon dead tree version, you can also get the electronic version from the publishers website.

Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices – So you want to know if you are doing PowerShell right? As it’s title implies, this book lays out best practices to help your PowerShell solutions succeed.

Note there are a lot of other really good PowerShell books on the market that focus on using PowerShell with specific technologies such as SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, and Windows Server. The books I’ve listed above cover PowerShell in general.

Blogs

Richard Siddaway – This guy blogs more about PowerShell than anyone I know. It’s an invaluable resource for PowerShell. In addition he is also the author of PowerShell in Practice, listed above.

PowerShell.com – This website is a treasure trove of resources. Indeed, it could have been put into all of the sections in this post as it holds not just blogs but free e-books, forums, and webinars.

Hey Scripting Guy – Ed Wilson, author of the Best Practices book above, is “The Scripting Guy”. Ed works on the PowerShell team at Microsoft and is very active in the PowerShell community.

Podcasts

PowerScripting Podcast – A great show out of Atlanta, has a lot of information about PowerShell especially for beginners. The website also has a lot of useful links. I always learn something new listening to their show.

Get-Scripting – If you are out of the UK you’ll appreciate this PowerShell Podcast. Has a focus on PowerShell with VMWare’s PowerCLI.

Videos

Pluralsight – I know Pluralsight has a great series on PowerShell, as I’m the one who authored them! In addition Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of other courses you can pick from. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcaneps

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence 24 hour Trainer – This is a really cool book, in that it’s not just a book. It comes with a DVD loaded with video lessons on how to use the various tools in SharePoint for doing BI. This is the first book to buy if you are new to doing BI in SharePoint.

Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 – This is a great book which provides an introduction to all of the BI Services available within SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence Unleashed – Like most of the books in the “Unleashed” series, this takes a much deeper dive into the tools than the previous two books. A good choice once you are ready to move beyond the beginner stage.

Blogs

There aren’t many blogs that focus solely on SharePoint for BI, so I’ve picked out two sites that have a lot of SharePoint for BI content on them.

Data Inspirations -  This blog focuses on all aspects of BI, one of the lead bloggers is Stacia Misner, co-author of the BI in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 book listed above.

BIDN – Many experts in the BI field, myself included, contribute to the Business Intelligence Developer Network. Here you’ll find a wide variety of topics in the BI field, including many on SharePoint BI.

Videos

Pragmatic Works Webinars – On our website we have a big catalog of past webinars (all of which are free to watch), many of which focus on PowerPivot.

Pluralsight – Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of other courses you can pick from. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcanespbi

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint – This book covers all aspects of PowerPivot, from using it to installing it to configuration. Everything you want to know in one volume. I wouldn’t particularly call this a beginners book however, it assumes you are competent in BI, Excel, and SharePoint.

Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning – This is a good first book to get, it goes deeply into the use of PowerPivot within Excel.

Practical PowerPivot and DAX Formulas for Excel 2010 – Once you are comfortable with PowerPivot, you’ll want to learn more about DAX, Data Analysis eXpressions, the set of functions used to do advanced calculations and aggregations in PowerPivot. I’m a big fan of the way the author, Art Tennick does his books. It’s the Problem – Solution approach, where he demonstrates a common problem then shows one or more ways to solve it. Art also has books on MDX and DMX you should check out.

Blogs

PowerPivot Pro – Probably one of the best blogs around, Rob and Kasper provide excellent content.

Denny Lee’s Blog – Denny works for Microsoft and is part of the PowerPivot team. He provides some really great insights, and is co-author of the Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint book above.

PowerPivot Info – Not so much a blog but a blog aggregator, this site brings the best PowerPivot content on the web to the forefront.

Videos

Pragmatic Works Webinars – On our website we have a big catalog of past webinars (all of which are free to watch), many of which focus on PowerPivot.

Pluralsight – A little shameless self promotion here. I did a complete course on PowerPivot for Pluralsight. This includes both using PowerPivot from Excel and managing PowerPivot within SharePoint. In addition, Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of other courses you can pick from. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcanepivot

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Step by Step – A great beginner book, loaded with good examples.

Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services – This book goes much more in-depth with SSRS, delves into many advanced topics.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes – 2008 or 2012 version of book. This is a great book, especially if you are doing Business Intelligence reporting. Note Amazon says the 2008 version is no longer available in the US, but I’m betting you can find it in your local bookstore or from other retailers. The 2012 version is available for pre-order.

Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services – Great book, like the book above covers many aspects of SSRS including BI reporting. Note Amazon only sells the paper version, you can also get it in PDF format direct from the publishers website.

Professional SQL Server 2012 Administration – I mention this book because I wrote the chapter on SQL Server Reporting Services. I don’t go deep into creating reports, although I briefly cover Report Builder. I do go into configuring SSRS and how to do scale out deployments, the total chapter is around 50 pages.

Blogs

Paul Turley – Paul is an active blogger and fellow Microsoft MVP. He is also co-author of the Reporting Services Recipes book I listed above.

Tep Lachev – An active blogger, Teo is not only a good resource for SSRS but for other BI tools such as PowerPivot. He is also author of the Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services book, listed above.

Videos

Pragmatic Works Webinars – On our website we have a big catalog of past webinars (all of which are free to watch), many of which focus on SSRS.

Pluralsight – Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of courses, including some great SSRS content. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcanessrs

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Step by Step – This is a great beginners book. If you are starting at ground zero, this is the book to start with.

Professional Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 with MDX – If you are looking for one book that has everything, this is it. It’s a huge book that covers pretty much everything you need to know about SSAS.

Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services – There’s one book that is universally hailed as the “experts’” book, and this is it. Be warned, this is not a beginners book. Don’t try to tackle this until you’ve had at least a little SSAS experience. But it should definitely be on your “must buy” list at some point.

Blogs

Devin Knight – My coworker Devin posts about all aspects of SQL Server BI, but his SSAS posts are ones I often refer back to, or refer others to, when learning SSAS concepts.

Marco Russo – Marco’s blog is a great source of in depth SSAS content. He’s also one a co-author of the “Expect Cube. . .” book listed above.

SSAS Info – This last link isn’t exactly a blog, but more like a blog aggregation site. It’s very useful though, and should be on your list of regularly read sites.

Videos

Pragmatic Works Webinars – On our website we have a big catalog of past webinars (all of which are free to watch), many of which focus on SSIS. 

Pluralsight – Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of courses, including some great SSAS content by Stacia Misner. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

SQL Share – This site takes a new twist on videos, in that each video is very short and very focused on one specific task. 

For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcanessas 

Installing the TFS 2010 tools for Visual Studio / BIDS 2008

First off, thanks to Derek Miller for covering most of the steps involved in his blog post http://derekjmiller62.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/using-tfs-2010-with-bids-2008/. I won’t go into the detail he did, but will summarize into these basic steps.

1. If you haven’t installed Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1, do so by downloading it and installing.

2. Next, you will need to install the Visual Studio 2008 Team Explorer.

3. After installing Team Explorer, you will have to go back and reinstall VS SP1 (from step 1). Don’t skip this step! Team explorer has some older components that overwrite the SP1 components, and you will have reinstall them.

Now this next part I really haven’t seen anywhere else and was a real pain to find, and thus is the main reason for this post. During the SP1 install, we often see “Visual Studio SP1 Installation Failed”. Checking the error log, buried deep you will find “Returning IDOK. INSTALLMESSAGE_ERROR [Error 2902. An internal error has occurred. …”

When you see this, go to your Control Panel, and then to Add Remove Programs. Look for a program called “Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component” and uninstall it. This is actually installed as part of the Office suite, and you don’t really need it since you likely have much more powerful web authoring tools, or since you are doing BI development won’t be doing an web development in Microsoft Office.

After uninstalling it, SP1 should then install, and you are ready for step 4.

4. Install the Visual Studio Team System 2008 SP1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010. That probably took you longer to read than it actually will to install. After installing, it may prompt you to reboot. Even if it doesn’t ask you should reboot anyway, we’ve seen a few times when we weren’t able to connect until we rebooted.

After that you should be able to go into Visual Studio and go to Tools, Connect to Team Foundation Server. If you still have problems connecting, I will refer you to Derek’s post where he describes some registry entries you can try. So far we haven’t found them necessary, but you may.

Installing the TFS 2010 Tools

Note that there is one big limitation to using TFS 2010 with VS2008. You can connect to a TFS site and upload your solutions and projects, but you can’t create a new team site with VS2008. To do so, you will need the VS2010 shell with the TFS components, a free download.

Installing TFS 2010 for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

Now that you have BIDS all setup to work with TFS, it only makes sense to make your SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) also work with TFS. Joseph Jun has a great blog post that goes into all the nitty gritty of how to do this. The short version though, is after you install the TFS 2010 tools in the step above (and they are a prerequisite) you need to install the Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider 2010.

After the install, you should see a new Source Control menu option under the File menu in SSMS. From here you can launch the TFS 2010 management shell or open an existing SSMS project / solution. If you have a solution you need to add, simply right click on the solution in the Solution Explorer window and pick Add to Source Control.

Visual Studio Database Projects

Note that if you are using Visual Studio Database Projects, any SQL Server 2008R2 development must be done in Visual Studio 2010. VS2010 is already setup to talk to TFS 2010. If you are using VS 2008 database projects to build a SQL Server 2008 (non-R2) database, then with the steps above you should be good to go for checking in your database project into TFS.

And away we go!

And with that you should be setup to manage your BI Development in Team Foundation Server 2010. It’s a lot of work, but well worth the effort. Using TFS will let your BI staff work as a team to develop projects. Additionally you have the benefit of source code control, something invaluable in the case of package corruptions or needing to track history.

A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.

Books

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: Problem, Design, Solution – I’m a big fan of problem / design / solution books. They do a great job of teaching you how to solve real world issues. The chapter by Jessica Moss on package configurations is especially useful, one I refer back to often.

Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services – This is another of those big thick books (1000+ pages if you decide to lug around the paper version) that covers the gambit of everything you ever wanted to know about SSIS but were afraid to ask.

Knight’s 24-hour Trainer: SQL Server 2008 Integration Services – This is one time where I suggest getting the physical book, as it is accompanied by a DVD full of videos focused on SSIS. They will take you from an absolute beginner and walk you through each of the most used Tasks and Transformations used in SSIS. If you want to get up to speed fast on SSIS this is the book to get.

Blogs

Jamie Thomson – Better known as the SSIS Junkie, Jamie posts some really advanced topics on his blog.

Andy Leonard – Andy is a whiz at SSIS, and does a great job at both teaching and consulting.

Christopher Price – A very active blogger on SSIS.

Videos

Pragmatic Works Webinars – On our website we have a big catalog of past webinars (all of which are free to watch), many of which focus on SSIS. 

Pluralsight – Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of courses, including an SSIS course. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.

SQL Share – This site takes a new twist on videos, in that each video is very short and very focused on one specific task. Lots of good stuff on here on SSIS, much of it by Brian Knight. Free.

For a quick link to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcanessis.

Unfortunately, these gentleman had a bad experience with the MVP program. This is disappointing, as I truly believe the MVP program is great, based on my own experiences. Let me respond to the 7 points made in the first post, and contrast them with my experiences as a SQL Server MVP since 2008.

What’s the Point?

Mr. Amobi stated “The MVP program seemed rather pointless”. To me, the point was quite clear from the outset. The information and tools provided to me allowed me to further enhance my ability to be a conduit for the community. I had contacts to pass information to from the community, and vice versa.

Additionally the MSDN/TechNet subscriptions gave me the ability to further enhance my knowledge of Microsoft products. Just recently I’ve been practicing setting up a scale-out deployment of SSRS. No way I would have been able to have 3 different Windows Servers plus 3 SQL Server licenses without the benefit. I’m now going to be able to pass this information on to the community in the form of new presentations, blog posts, and the like.

Quality Control

Here the author echoed a point form the Rob Eisenberg’s post in which he met an MVP who had limited knowledge of Technology X, the subject of this MVPs award. However, this person had continually posted and retweeted information about Technology X.

A major consideration of the MVP Award is about reaching the community with information about Technology X. Getting information into the hands of people who use that technology. Microsoft judged that this person was doing an effective job of helping the community, and hence the award. Technical competence is certainly important, but it’s not the only criteria for getting an MVP award.

Lack of Communication

Mr. Amobi complains there were no opportunities to participate. Yet he passed up the main chance of the year to  communicate with the teams, the MVP Summit. For me the summit is the place I learn new things, give feed back to the teams, and learn things covered by my NDA. It’s where I learn what new technologies I should be focused on so I’ll be ready to help the community when they are released. Perhaps if he had attended he would have had the chance for the interaction that he desired.

Being an MVP also helped solidify relationships with other areas in Microsoft. The developer evangelist for our region, Glen Gordon, checks in with the MVPs in this area regularly. He often participates with us in events, or provides assistance for our Code Camps and SQL Saturdays.

NDA for what?

The author says that during his year he didn’t have any opportunities for calls or interactions with the teams, and hence no reason for his NDA. In addition to the summit, our SQL lead sends out weekly e-mails in which he lists upcoming conference calls / interactions with product teams, almost all of which are covered under NDA.

For him to get none of these notices is disappointing. Clearly someone dropped the ball. Our lead in the SQL group (who just moved to a new assignment) was very good about us getting this information. I hope Mr. Amobi didn’t wait for the end of his year to point this out. I’ve made it a point to make friends with as many of the Developer Evangelists, other MVPs (including those in other disciplines) and other MVP leads. This not only gives me multiple ways of reaching out, but more importantly has let me make some great friends.

Career Impact

Mr. Amobi didn’t see any benefit, career wise to being an MVP. For me it’s had a huge impact. Through my MVP award I was given the opportunity to participate in not one but two books. My current job at Pragmatic Works is also a direct result of being an MVP.

Arbitrary Renewals

The author first makes the assertion that his award wasn’t renewed because he was asking questions such as the ones in his post. I really can’t speak to that, but if it were the case many long time SQL MVPs wouldn’t be here anymore. As a rule most of us are pretty opinionated, and have no issues speaking out when we see problems with the program, or what Microsoft is doing in general.

That said, I have no inside information on the people who decide who gets an MVP award. Perhaps he’s right, and they did indeed drop him for the reasons he states.

He then makes a statement that I consider rather risky.

“I’ll put my Web or FaceBook or Google or Twitter or Technology stats up against any MVP and I guarantee that I represent the voice of thousands of Microsoft consumers way more than they do.”

I know MVPs who are “household” names in the SQL world.  I’m not doubting the reach of Mr. Amobi, clearly he has made significant contributions for which I applaud him. And in the consumer realm he may even be right. But in my opinion statements like the above degrade the conversation into a “mine is bigger than yours” contest.

Now let me speak to the arbitrariness of the award. In the other article I sited by Rob Eisenberg he complained the process of getting the award is a black box. He’s exactly right, it is. It’s a combination of achievements plus subjective judgment on the part of the Microsoft product teams.

That’s done for a very specific reason. If there were a set formula you would have people who would game the system, do things just to meet some minimum requirement in order to gain the perceived benefits of being an MVP. At that point it would cease to be an award and instead become another credential.

I much prefer the current system. I have a much greater confidence that the people who get the award are deserving people who are interested in helping the community, and not just trying to get the award as another notch on their career belt.

It’s clear that this is not an important program to Microsoft

Based on my experiences this could not be further from the truth. Just in money alone Microsoft has made a huge commitment to the program. But what really speaks to me is the involvement of he very highest level of Microsoft management. Had he attended the summit he would have seen Steve Ballmer himself addressing the crowd. When the CEO along with a slate of vice presidents takes time to address the audience it speaks volumes about Microsoft’s commitment.

True, as an MVP I had to pay part of the cost. Budgets are tight for everyone. I felt the program was so important though I paid for two of the last three summits out of my own pocket. But it was an investment in me and my career. I made contacts and solidified relationships that are mutually beneficial for me and my fellow MVPs.

Another word or two…

I’d like to take just a moment to address a few points from Rob Eisenberg’s post. He was upset that his MVP lead apparently didn’t know enough about his accomplishments, and seemed insulted that he should have to fill out a spreadsheet detailing his activities.

I know our SQL MVP lead has to deal with at least 300 just in our discipline. I’m not sure the exact number, but there’s just no humanly way possible that even with a fantastic relationship they could be expected to know every single contribution a person makes to the community over the course of  year. I made it as positive an experience as I could. It was a great time to update my resume, to add my community involvement, book authoring, etc.

I would like to say Rob makes a point about open source, although I do see some shifting of Microsoft’s involvement with open source. They established the CodePlex site, and use it as a conduit for distributing the SQL Server sample databases. They are now giving support for jQuery, and most recently announced support for Hadoop. 

While I wish they could move a bit faster, they do have a very tricky legal tight rope to walk. Many licenses in the open source world require that should code be used from that project derivatives must also be open source. For a company who makes money selling software and guarding trade secrets, this is not the ideal situation.

There is one point I totally agree with Rob on though. The format of the spreadsheet was pretty lame. 

The mystical MVP program

It saddens me that the two gentleman had such negative experiences. I wish a better job could have been done to keep talented people like these in the program. I am glad though they continue to be supportive of the community.

As for me, becoming an MVP was one of the highlights of my life, both personally and professionally. It opened doors for me, giving me a chance to fulfill a dream of becoming an author. It opened the door to become an employee of one of the most prestigious BI consulting firms in the world.

Most importantly, it has allowed me to make friends with some of the top professionals in not just the SQL community, but other disciplines such as .Net and SharePoint. The level of excellence these people have make me strive even harder to stay on top of my game.

For me, my MVP experience has been nothing but positive, and I will continue to serve as long as I can. 

My MVP Award was renewed for 2011. This award is something I’m both proud and humbled to receive, especially in the SQL community. MVPs in general are a very helpful, friendly bunch, and the SQL especially so. I really like the new #SQLFamily hashtag that’s being used on Twitter. Aside from my family, I think becoming an MVP is the thing I’m most proud of in my life.

I was quite happy when my second co-authored book, SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Vol II came out. All proceeds went to charity, it felt great to help out both the children in Operation Smile and the SQL community.

I’ve continued my public speaking, being allowed to present at places such as the New York City Code Camp, SQL Rally in Orlando, and one of my favorites CodeStock.

I produced quite a bit of new training content for Pluralsight, to positive reviews. I’m glad this relationship is continuing, teaching is the best way to learn new things and I’ve learned a great deal, and hopefully helped a few others.

The most exciting news of my year though was going to work for Pragmatic Works! You could have knocked me over with a feather when, at the MVP Summit last year, Brian Knight (I should say THE Brian Knight) looks at me and says “So, you looking for a job?” When someone of Brian’s caliber asks if you want a job, you don’t say no.

Coming to work at Pragmatic Works was a great career move for me. We currently have five (yes, FIVE) MVPs working here. That’s a huge percentage considering the size of our company. And there’s quite a few of our guys that are working hard in the community, and I see an MVP award in their future. 

In addition to the regular consulting you might expect I’ve also gotten to do a lot of training. I love doing training, its so gratifying to share knowledge, guide students, see that look of “ah-ha” on their faces when it all clicks for them. I think that has been my favorite part of the job so far.

As a company Pragmatic Works is doing very well, entering into several new, exciting partnerships. Plus, they keep increasing our benefits! In a time when other companies are cutting costs, they have given us three new benefits!

With this level of technical expertise, it keeps me challenged. It also inspires me toward even more professional achievements.

On the home front, I now have a teenager living in my home. My sweet little baby girl turned 13 this year! Holy cow, how did that happen? I mean, last time I checked I was only 17 myself. And her sister is not far behind.

They had a great year, we home school and they got involved in a science program at Auburn University where they learn scientific techniques. They did some forensic investigations, and are now learning how to do proper experiments, clearly defining the various steps. They get all this brain power from their teacher / mother, my wife is the real brains in the family.

They also took up new extra curricular activities. My youngest, Anna, learned to ice skate and even did her first skating show just before Christmas. My older daughter, Raven, now plays the guitar and has given her first recital. My home office is under her bedroom, and I often get to enjoy the sounds of her practicing over my head.

And of course, last but not least, I have to give a special shout out to my lovely wife of 15 years, Ammie. She has been very supportive of my career, even though with the new work related travel it has meant more work for her. I know I’m very lucky to have a wife this supportive. Thanks sweetheart!

With that, another year bites the dust. 2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year. Assuming of course the world doesn’t end. But if it did, I suppose that would be exciting too, so either way it’s a win, excitement wise.

While a more permanent patch is expected to be available within the next month, Microsoft has implemented a “Fix it” workaround you can access via this url:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639658

To enable the fix, scroll down and click the fix it button under “Enable”.

Please note: There is one drawback to this fix, once you enable it you will no longer be able to do a “Save As…” to PDF format from any Office app. You can restore this capability by disabling the Fix It by clicking the appropriate button under the “Disable” option in the above url.

I have successfully tested the fix enable / disable and was able to restore the ability to save as to PDF. For the time being I will be running with the fix enabled. If I need to export to PDF I can visit the site, disable the fix, and save to pdf, then re-enable. While disabled I would not be going to any websites. 

This is a fairly serious issue that is already being exploited to infect machines. To protect yourself, along with your business and / or clients, you should consider using this fix until a permanent solution is provided by Microsoft.

Also note that this week’s “patch Tuesday” updates included some critical security fixes. If you do not have your box setup to automatically apply updates, you should go to Windows Update and get the latest patches.

A big thanks to Steve Gibson (@sggrc) and his Security Now podcast on the TWIT.TV network, where I heard about this. If you aren’t listening to the Security Now podcast, you should. I’ve long held it should be required listening for any IT Professional.

I’m about to move onto some of our other tools, and as I explore and learn them will be adding videos as I go. I wanted to wrap up the Task Factory series with a summary of all the tools, and links to the blog post and the direct link to the video. Please note I’ve listed these alphabetically, to make them easy to find, instead of the order in which they were published. 

Task Factory Address Parse video | blog

Task Factory Advanced E-Mail and SMS Task video | blog

Task Factory Case Transform video | blog

Task Factory Compression video | blog

Task Factory Data Cleansing video | blog

Task Factory Data Validation video | blog

Task Factory Delete Batch Transform video | blog

Task Factory Dimension Merge Slowly Changing Dimension video | blog

Task Factory Email Source video | blog

Task Factory File Properties video | blog

Task Factory Null Handler blog

Task Factory Replace Unwanted Characters video | blog

Task Factory RegEx video | blog

Task Factory SalesForce.com Source and Destination blog

Task Factory SharePoint Destination video | blog

Task Factory SharePoint Source video | blog

Task Factory Surrogate Key transform video | blog

Task Factory Terminator Destination blog

Task Factory Trim Plus video | blog

Task Factory Update Batch transform video | blog

Task Factory Upsert Destination video | blog

Task Factory XML Destination video | blog

These are quite similar to the SharePoint Source and Destination components I covered in previous posts. Here’s a screen shot of the Source properties window:

As with most of the tools in Task Factory, you simply pick the connection manager, pick the object to connect to, supply and parameters, and pick what you need. Just that simple and straight forward.

The Destination component is just as easy, as you can see:

Again, simply create a connection, pick the target object, map the columns and away you go.

Since I don’t currently have a way to communicate with a SalesForce.com environment, as of this writing we’ll have to settle for a few screen shots. I believe though they will convey the simplicity of the product. Most importantly though you are now aware of these handy components, something you’ll find invaluable if you deal with SalesForce.com.

What though, do we do if we need to push data into a SharePoint list? It turns out it’s every bit as easy, using Task Factory’s SharePoint Destination component.

As such, it’s becoming more and more important to be able to quickly and easily extract the data in those lists and bring it into other platforms for analysis, reporting and storage. SQL Server Integration Services seems like the ideal tool for moving and transforming this type of data around, but accessing data in SharePoint lists is not a trivial task.

Unless of course you have Task Factory. Task Factory is a suite of SSIS components from Pragmatic Works. In this video, we’ll look at the SharePoint Source component.

When I came to work for Pragmatic Works, I found out about this cool program we have called Virtual Mentoring. The concept is pretty simple. You buy a block of hours from one of our sales guys. Don’t ask me how much it costs, I try to stay out of the money side of things. You can contact one of them if you are interested (http://pragmaticworks.com/services/Consulting/VM/Default.aspx).

So once you get the hours you call up and get some time scheduled with one of our consultants. Our support folks pair up the type of problem with the right person. You answer this short questionnaire that helps describe the issue, and how long you think you’ll need.

On the appointed time you and the mentor join a virtual meeting space, such as GoTo Meeting or Windows Live Meeting (it’s setup ahead of time) and away you go. You can share desktops, and have a good conversation about the issue.

I’ve done several of these acting as a mentor, and it’s really cool. Most times it’s one on one, but one time I did speak with an entire team.

For some reason our mentoring program doesn’t seem particularly well known, so I thought I’d take a moment to pass along the info. I sure wish I’d known about this years ago!

A far, far better solution for handling Kimball SCD is to use the Task Factory SSIS Dimension Merge Slowly Changing Dimension transform. While it’s name is rather long winded, it’s definitely worth the breath.

In this video we’ll take a look at the Dimension Merge Slowly Changing Dimension in action.