August 8, 2012 at 12:24 pm
GSquared (8/8/2012)
If execs are looking for ad hoc reporting tools, it's hard to go wrong with pivot tables. PowerPivot and Excel have been mentioned already. I haven't used PowerPivot, but Excel pivot tables reading from SSAS are a great way to let execs, etc., "build their own reports". I've seen problems with the kind of people who want to know why the TV on their desk has a typewritter plugged into it, but anyone beyond that stage can learn Excel pivot tables pretty rapidly, in my experience.
Thanks Aaron
We're not running SSAS right now, just plain old SQL and SSRS. The majority of the reporting is operational data. From what I understand about SSAS (very little) is that it's more for data warehousing, so should really operational data. We obviously do have historic data that we could warehouse and I want to explore that, but right now it's mostly operational data
August 8, 2012 at 12:25 pm
GSquared (8/8/2012)
If execs are looking for ad hoc reporting tools, it's hard to go wrong with pivot tables. PowerPivot and Excel have been mentioned already. I haven't used PowerPivot, but Excel pivot tables reading from SSAS are a great way to let execs, etc., "build their own reports". I've seen problems with the kind of people who want to know why the TV on their desk has a typewritter plugged into it, but anyone beyond that stage can learn Excel pivot tables pretty rapidly, in my experience.
We have been providing excel pivot tables from SSAS for years now.....sadly the majority of middle management execs who really need the slice/dice/summarise/drillthro that is easily available in excel...cannot for some reason (in spite of numerous training sessions / hand holding ) "get their heads around multi dimensions".
Quite often Support ends up reformatting a pivot table to provide a "new" view...which the exec then refreshes and maybe, just maybe knows how to alter the sales month.
We have even reverted in some cases to providing static pdf reports.
Accountants on the other hand....love pivot tables.
...perhaps this explains the strapline in my signature:-D
________________________________________________________________
you can lead a user to data....but you cannot make them think
and remember....every day is a school day
August 8, 2012 at 1:19 pm
J Livingston SQL (8/8/2012)
Accountants on the other hand....love pivot tables.
I would say that Accountants love Excel. some might even ask you to put the whole database in Excel and they will work from there.
August 9, 2012 at 6:41 am
J Livingston SQL (8/8/2012)
GSquared (8/8/2012)
If execs are looking for ad hoc reporting tools, it's hard to go wrong with pivot tables. PowerPivot and Excel have been mentioned already. I haven't used PowerPivot, but Excel pivot tables reading from SSAS are a great way to let execs, etc., "build their own reports". I've seen problems with the kind of people who want to know why the TV on their desk has a typewritter plugged into it, but anyone beyond that stage can learn Excel pivot tables pretty rapidly, in my experience.We have been providing excel pivot tables from SSAS for years now.....sadly the majority of middle management execs who really need the slice/dice/summarise/drillthro that is easily available in excel...cannot for some reason (in spite of numerous training sessions / hand holding ) "get their heads around multi dimensions".
Quite often Support ends up reformatting a pivot table to provide a "new" view...which the exec then refreshes and maybe, just maybe knows how to alter the sales month.
We have even reverted in some cases to providing static pdf reports.
Accountants on the other hand....love pivot tables.
...perhaps this explains the strapline in my signature:-D
Yeah, but the people who can't get pivot tables, won't get any other ad hoc reporting tool. In those cases, it's not the tool that's at fault.
There comes a point where you have to surrender to the innevitable, and (as diplomatically as possible), let them know that hiring a report-writer would solve all of those problems. The fact that it could, in most cases, be a high school freshman, just so long as the person is good at being patient with "no, wait, go back to what you were just showing, whatever it was", and "you know that report we looked at a few weeks ago, I need that one changed a little bit, when can you do that?" (to a person who works on dozens of reports per day).
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
August 9, 2012 at 9:22 am
A number of our business units have installed Tableau Desktop and find it does the job for them.
If you are unable to upgrade to SQL 2012 then Tableau can be a good choice. It has a lot of features and has consistently scored high in Gartners quadrents for ability to deliver (in simple terms it has a low number of bugs). The desktop version is fairly cheap, but their server version costs much ther same as a SQL/SharePoint stack.
If you are upgrading to SQL 2012 anyway and have SharePoint or will use SP Online then the SQL 2012 BI stack looks about as good as anything else out there.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
August 9, 2012 at 9:26 am
If I have the option then I'd stick with tools that I'm familiar with. SSRS does a decent job with reports. I have been impressed with it's continuous growth.
Here are few non-Microsoft recommendations for learning purposes.
I'll recommend MicroStrategy. I was impressed with their personal cloud feature, which is free to general public. On their portal, you can import a spreadsheet and it'll let you mark fields that are considered metric vs attributes. You'd get instant dashboard even without star or snowflake schema design. That's just one aspect of it.
BusinessObjects is ok as long as you have the right creative mind.
Tableau and Alterian are also decent in visualization and easy to pick up.
August 9, 2012 at 12:53 pm
As I understand it, you want to make things as easy as possible for your execs and you are using SQL Server relational tables as data sources.
You can achieve your goals within an hour or two using the free download of our Analyzer BI solution.
Simply put, you can write a SQL query, copy/paste a SQL query, or refer to a Stored Procedure, then Analyzer will execute the query and automatically build an SSAS multidimensional cube for you, which you or your non-technical business users (even execs!) can use to build reports and dashboards. These reports and dashboards are built using a zero-footprint IE browser interface. They can be accessed using IE, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Soon we will be releasing a version which will enable the non-IE browsers to also be used to create reports.
You can also just upload an Excel file (any version) or Access file, then Analyzer will in the same way build the SSAS cube for you automatically. Other RDBMS data sources supported include Oracle and MySQL.
To make the reports/dashboards mobile-accessible, you click a checkbox, then they are immediately available via iPad, iPhone, Android smartphones and tablets, BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, and Windows Phone 7. Analyzer's mobile capabilities were covered by Gartner in their "Who's Who in Mobile BI" report (Sept. 2011). This report is available on the Gartner web site at http://www.gartner.com.
This has all been designed to give you the best of both worlds - simple access to the data sources you already have, while at the same time giving you the power, speed, scalability, and flexibility of cubes, without requiring you to build the cubes yourself.
Analyzer will work with SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2008R2, and 2012. We will soon also be supporting the Tabular model in SQL Server 2012. Analyzer supports SharePoint but does not require it.
The eval download and video demos of all the above are available at http://www.strategycompanion.com
August 9, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Gartner's research will give you some idea on BI solutions and their place in the industry.
http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-196WFCB&ct=120207&st=sb
September 4, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Hi there,
QlikView is easy to install and administer as long as you have plenty of RAM on your server.
The managers/directors at our company think QlikView is great.
Have you tried downloading the 'personal version' which is free from qlikview.com ?
Let me know if you have any questions.
Mark
http://www.techstuffy.com
twitter: @PracticalQlik
https://twitter.com/PracticalQlik
http://practical-qlikview.tumblr.com
September 4, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Mark, how about some full disclosure? From your sig and your profile avatar, it looks like you have some affiliation with QlikView. That's fine as long as you come right out and say it. Otherwise it looks like spam/astroturfing.
September 5, 2012 at 1:20 am
mark 4643 (8/3/2012)Beginning to look around for other BI tools. Don't have a vast amount of knowledge in this area, but been writing BI reports for a while and feel there has to be something better than 10-year old technology. Don't get me wrong SSRS has some neat features (esp. if you have Enterprise SQL), but it shouldn't be so hard for execs to get information they want (i.e. go through overburdened IT Dept).
We're just coming off SQL2005 (unfotunately to 2008). Haven't been overly impressed with Report Writer.
Anyone got nay experience with Visual BI tools, or is SSR as good as it gets.
Out of curiosity, what systems are you reporting from?
Re: Actuate; used to use it / a bundled version with an ERP package for a time. Absolutely hated it, but probably more to do with the way the libraries and demo reports were built. But when it worked, it was pretty cool.
September 5, 2012 at 6:03 am
Take a look at Tableau, http://www.tableausoftware.com
September 5, 2012 at 7:06 am
Hi Scott D. Jacobson,
No affiliation with QlikTech the company that developed QlikView.
I do however have a book out on amazon about QlikView if that is what you mean.
I was just trying to add something the post as someone who uses QlikView and SSRS.
Mark
http://www.techstuffy.com
twitter: @PracticalQlik
https://twitter.com/PracticalQlik
http://practical-qlikview.tumblr.com
September 5, 2012 at 7:17 am
RustyO (9/5/2012)
mark 4643 (8/3/2012)Beginning to look around for other BI tools. Don't have a vast amount of knowledge in this area, but been writing BI reports for a while and feel there has to be something better than 10-year old technology. Don't get me wrong SSRS has some neat features (esp. if you have Enterprise SQL), but it shouldn't be so hard for execs to get information they want (i.e. go through overburdened IT Dept).
We're just coming off SQL2005 (unfotunately to 2008). Haven't been overly impressed with Report Writer.
Anyone got nay experience with Visual BI tools, or is SSR as good as it gets.
Out of curiosity, what systems are you reporting from?
Re: Actuate; used to use it / a bundled version with an ERP package for a time. Absolutely hated it, but probably more to do with the way the libraries and demo reports were built. But when it worked, it was pretty cool.
I'd have to say that's a pretty fair assessment of Actuate. What worked well for us when we were using it is that we weren't really using any of the libraries. I think it was more a matter of fact that my predecessor had used it in a previous job so they used it there as well. We probably could have gotten by with SSRS in that scenario.
September 5, 2012 at 7:19 am
markodonovan (9/5/2012)
Hi Scott D. Jacobson,No affiliation with QlikTech the company that developed QlikView.
I do however have a book out on amazon about QlikView if that is what you mean.
I was just trying to add something the post as someone who uses QlikView and SSRS.
Mark
Good deal Mark, thanks for clarifying. Will definitely take a look at QlikView.
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