About James Serra
I am an independent consultant with the title of Business Intelligence/Data Warehouse/Master Data Management Architect and Developer, specializing in the Microsoft SQL Server BI stack.Need some help?
If you are looking for help in building a data warehouse or end-to-end BI solution, send me an email and we can discuss your needs. I am available for short or long-term projects.Follow Me!
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- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture | James Serra's Blog on SQL Server 2012: Multidimensional vs tabular
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture | James Serra's Blog on Ralph Kimball Books
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture | James Serra's Blog on When to use T-SQL or SSIS for ETL
- James Serra on Business Intelligence Maturity Assessment
- Dave DuVarney on Business Intelligence Maturity Assessment
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- Consultants: 1099 or W-2?
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture
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Category Archives: Power View/Project Crescent
Power View for Multidimensional Models Released
As a followup to my blog Power View for Multidimensional Models – Preview Available, the final version is now available via SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 4. So you can now create Power View reports against multidimensional models … Continue reading
Microsoft BI tools: How they use data sources
A quick list of how each of these Microsoft BI tools handles the two data sources “SQL Server” (relational-based) and “Analysis Services” (multidimensional-based): Report Builder – Using “SQL Server”, auto-detects joins if source system has foreign-key relationships (by selected “Auto … Continue reading
Power View for Multidimensional Models – Preview Available
Microsoft introduced an interactive data exploration, visualization and presentation experience called Power View with SQL Server 2012. Power View can only consume data from tabular models. At the PASS Summit (see PASS 2012 Announcements) it was revealed that you would soon be able to … Continue reading
PASS 2012 Announcements
Some announcements and notes from the SQL PASS Summit 2012 last week (If you don’t know what PASS is, check out What is SQL PASS?): PASS Summit 2012 had 3,894 delegates – up 13% from last year’s previous record attendance – and 1,717 pre-conference … Continue reading
How to use a multidimensional cube with Power View
The requirements for Power View state that it can only use tabular models as data sources. So if you want to use Power View against a multidimensional cube, you are stuck. But there is a work-around: Create a PowerPivot for SharePoint … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Power View installation and requirements
Power View is installed when you run the SQL Server 2012 install and on the Feature Selection page choose “Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Products”. This is a newer version of the add-in that is installed with SharePoint 2010, with … Continue reading
End-User Microsoft BI Tools – Clearing up the confusion
Given two types of underlying data sources (a data warehouse and a OLAP cube built from the data warehouse) there are many different possible presentation layers (client tools) that serve different user communities with varying usage profiles. There is a … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 and other PASS announcements
Some announcements and notes from SQL PASS Summit 2011, going on this week: It was announced that the official name of the SQL Server “Denali” product is SQL Server 2012 and will be released in the first half of the year 2012. There … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): CTP3 now available!
CTP3 of SQL Server Code 2012, code name “Denali”, was made available for download this morning. You can download the 32-bit and 64-bit versions here. Official announcement from the SQL Server team blog and the announcement from the Analysis Services … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Power View (“Project Crescent”)
Power View (code name “Project Crescent”) is a new interactive data exploration and visual presentation experience coming in the next version of SQL Server 2012, code-named “Denali”. It will offer a fun, visual, and powerful drag-and-drop ad hoc reporting experience. It is an web-based end-user … Continue reading