The Data Puzzle

Learn about Design Basics in PerformancePoint Server 2007

2008-07-21T09:51:00Z

Technorati Tags: PerformancePoint Server , BI , Design , business , intelligence From the abstract : “This white paper provides guidance and best practices for the decision makers who are involved in designing and building a Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 Planning application. The authors of this white paper review the methodology and structure of the fundamentals but do not provide step-by-step guidance on implementing them.” And please remember to leave feedback. We really do read it and...(read more)

Microsoft Access 2007 earns GCN Lab Reviewer’s Choice

2008-07-09T06:24:28Z

Technorati Tags: Access 2007 , GCN Government Computer News is a highly regarded source that covers IT news within the federal government. GCN Labs regularly test and review software, and came just published a very favorable review of Access 2007. Congratulations to the Access team!...(read more)

Ask Maps Now Using Virtual Earth

2008-07-02T17:02:06Z

Information management often includes incorporating Geospatial data via a mapping platform. Ask.com has chosen Microsoft Virtual Earth as their new mapping platform, which makes everyone here in Redmond really happy! Chris Pendleton explains more about how Virtual Earth is being utilized by Ask.com. Technorati Tags: virtual earth , ask.com...(read more)

A PerformancePoint Server 2007 Wordle word cloud

2008-06-22T18:02:00Z

Wordle is a lot of fun to use if you’re a data visualization geek like I am. I took Gartner’s October 2007 report on PerformancePoint Server 2007, selected the Key Points, and copied and pasted it into the Wordle Web page. Wordle works by turning text into word clouds “giving greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.” Click on the image below to see the full size version....(read more)

The New Microsoft Office Online page for PerformancePoint Server 2007 is looking GOOD!

2008-06-06T11:33:55Z

Kudos to everyone who had a hand in redesigning the Office Online portal page for all things PerformancePoint, including Service Pack 1, A list of Community Blogs, Tutorials, and How To pages for a variety of Monitoring and Planning topics. Help for PerformancePoint Server 2007...(read more)

Use Microsoft Outlook 2007 to view your dashboard (and a few other tips)

2008-06-03T22:26:00Z

As most of us who are involved with organizing data know, Microsoft Outlook is a frequently used tool for many people across the enterprise. So why not use it to view your deployed Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 dashboard as well? We’re now offering a short help page on that subject , as well as: How to find the help you need in Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint Services How to use Visio Viewer with a strategy map deployed in a dashboard Filter your data in Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint Services...(read more)

PerformancePoint’s Most Versatile Report Type: the Web page!

2008-05-01T22:14:10Z

Blogger friend Nick Barclay has written a great post about this topic at his blog. The ability to import a Web page into the dashboard to supplement other report types as well as the scorecard is a great way to express important metrics in ways that you might not be able to do in Dashboard Designer. If you can make that Web page dynamic, even better. Nick shows you how: Creating Dynamic Web Page Reports “As a follow up to my post on debugging filter links with web page reports I thought it would...(read more)

The vBusiness Expo in Second Life

2008-04-26T19:51:39Z

Will you be attending this free virtual event ? I’ll be checking it out in a few minutes. In the meantime, here’s a video to give you a taste of what’s possible in terms of sharing information across a virtual 3D platform like Second Life, compliments of Clever Zebra ....(read more)

Two new PerformancePoint blogs that I'm excited to tell you about

2008-04-25T21:26:00Z

Alan Whitehouse's Ramblings Alan works for TGO Consulting and is Microsoft-certified in PerformancePoint Server 2007. I was pointed to his blog by Microsoft MVP Adrian Downes , who co-wrote two excellent books on the subject, and to whom I STILL owe a book review (soon, I promise!). Peter Eb Peter is a Microsoft developer who's working on the Excel Add-in for our product, and his blog provides helpful tips for customers who are using the Planning side of PPS. Thanks to Microsoft MVP Nick Barclay,...(read more)

Using Visualization to aid analysis

2008-04-12T21:15:26Z

I love this approach to mapping and visualizing data to enhance analysis created by IntellectSpace . Click on the picture to see how IntellectSpace works. Hat tip to the excellent Sources and Methods for pointing me to it....(read more)

Data visualization using Virtual Earth

2008-04-12T17:21:35Z

Watch the full presentation here . Hat tip to The BI Blog ....(read more)

First Business Intelligence sizer for SQL Server 2005 by HP

2008-04-11T02:06:11Z

From the HP website: “The HP Business Intelligence Sizer for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is an automated tool that helps determine the appropriate hardware configuration for a database server used in a data warehousing ROLAP (Relational Online Analytical Processing) environment. In addition this tool will also size the ETL (Extract, Transformation, and Load) layer using SQL Server 2005 Integration Services.” You can get more information about this product here (registration required)....(read more)

New White Paper on Performance Tuning with PerformancePoint Server 2007

2008-04-07T22:43:00Z

"PerformancePoint Planning Server Performance Tuning" Executive Summary: "Planning Server is part of Microsoft ® Office PerformancePoint ™ Server 2007. This white paper is for analysts and IT professionals who want guidance about Planning Server scalability capabilities and the number of users that can be served. Considerations for hardware planning and software tuning are also covered." Introduction: "Microsoft ® Office PerformancePoint ™ Server 2007 was designed as an infrastructure that includes...(read more)

BI research tool suite that focuses on Natural Language Processing

2008-04-07T22:20:00Z

While I'm happy to see NLP put to such good use in this search tool for financial research professionals, I'm not as floored by it as Marshall Kirkpatrick is. The fact that they're collecting subscription fees of $10K per year per user tells me that there's a real opportunity for semantic analytics software in this market niche, but I predict that FirstRain will be outgunned by more advanced applications in less than 12 months from now....(read more)

Arrington describes Twitter as an Early Stage Warning System for Brands and Companies

2008-04-07T07:13:00Z

Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) lost his Comcast Internet service a couple of days ago. After 36 hours of exasperation with Comcast customer service runarounds, he vented his frustration about it on Twitter. Since Michael is one of the highest profile techies in the world, his tweets got a lot of attention and other high profile people began blogging and tweeting about it. Within 20 minutes, Michael received a call from a Comcast executive who monitors Twitter and other social media for Comcast-related...(read more)