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September 25 2008

Microsoft’s PerformancePoint Server and Proclarity Analytics

It’s often we have requests from customers on Proclarity, but few know that it is part of a much more complete Business Intelligence (BI) package from Microsoft called Microsoft PerformancePoint Server. This solution encompasses more than just traditional charts and graphs. It provides modules that integrate with the applications you use on a daily basis. Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 is built from Microsoft’s Proclarity Analytics product.

Traditionally we think of BI as just the reports we run off of our database. While this model works, it is a limited view of what it can provide your organization. This is why Microsoft has invested heavily in this space and came up with PerformancePoint. Their goal was to provide a tool that can become a framework for delivering reporting across your organization. Without a standard tool it is difficult to see trends in your data outside of your group.

How many excel reports do you get? Do you use more than 1 tool to perform reports within your company? Do you have Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services but only have a few reports to show for it? PerformancePoint is a solution that can give you a consistent, common data model to work from for monitoring, analytics and planning.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are tools you can use to make quick decisions. The challenges are getting all of this information in a format that can be used for reporting. The other challenge is how to disseminate this information to the masses in a way that is secure, easy to understand and highlights the right information. This is one of the many features such as dashboards and scorecarding built into PerformancePoint. You can deliver this information via SharePoint Web Services to your employees, also incorporating security from the various sources such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services.

Finally, if your business has to do financial reporting, this is a tool that can help you with the planning and delivering of these reports.

ISInc has recently put together a number of PerformancePoint courses that will help you get up to speed on all of the available features in this application. We have courses on just the planning modules, or on the end-to-end solution.  This is a great compliment to SharePoint Training.

May 1 2008

Guest Instructor Series

If you haven’t heard of our Guest Instructor Series, you have been missing out on the opportunity to come and learn first hand from some of the industry’s top experts!

ISInc selects guest instructors that are known internationally for their background, specialties, writing, and for talking at the most attended conferences. We hope you will be able to take advantage of some of the upcoming sessions. The next three in the series are included here. To keep up to date on new ones as they are added, please subscribe to our newsletter. Remember, these seats often fill quickly, so please don’t wait too long to register.

TOGAF 8.1 Certification, Course No. TOGAF, Jun 2-5, limited seats left
TOGAF is an architecture framework – The Open Group Architecture Framework. It enables you to design, evaluate, and build the right architecture for your organization. Customers who design and implement enterprise architectures using TOGAF are ensured of a design and a procurement specification that will greatly facilitate open systems implementation, and will enable the benefits of open systems to accrue to their organizations with reduced risk. To register, or for more information, click here.

ITZIK BEN-GAN TEACHES ADVANCED TRANSACT-SQL
Itzik Ben-Gan, international expert and the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress, 2006) and Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming will teach the course, Advanced Transact-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning for SQL Server. Course ISI-1119, Sep 15-19. A limited number of seats are left. Itzik Ben-Gan is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books on Microsoft SQL Server. He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN. Itzik’s speaking activities include Tech Ed, DevWeek, various SQL User Groups around the world, PASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and other events to name a few. Don’t miss out on you opportunity to learn from him directly here in Sacramento. Find out more information on his course by clicking here.

KALEN DELANEY TEACHES SQL SQL Server 2005 Architecture, Internals and Tuning, Course ISI-1079, Sep 8-12

You’re reading her books. Now you can attend her class. The instructor, Kalen Delaney, a well-known world expert in SQL Internals, is the author of the best selling books, Inside SQL Server 2000 and Inside SQL Server 2005. Kalen has been a columnist at SQL Server Magazine since the first issue, as well as writing for MSDN and TechNet Magazines. The course includes extensive demonstrations and hands-on exercises that illustrate the details of SQL Server internals as well as tuning techniques. This course will be presented on SQL Server 2005 and cover features specific to that version, but much of the information is relevant to SQL Server 2000 as well. For more information on this course, please click here.

Please contact ISInc at 916.920.1700 or email us at [email protected] if you want more information on any of our current Guest Instructor Series courses or if you have requests on future guests you would like to see at ISInc.