Installing and configuring SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS) is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. Recently I ran into some troubles (or woes) when configuring MDS at a client. The installation went smoothly, as well as the installation of other prerequisites (like IIS, PowerShell and so on). The […]
Author: Koen Verbeeck
Koen Verbeeck is a Microsoft Business Intelligence consultant at AE, helping clients to get insight in their data. Koen has a comprehensive knowledge of the SQL Server BI stack, with a particular love for Integration Services. He's also a speaker at various conferences.
Reporting Services redesign – it’s the little things
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is getting quite the overhaul in SQL Server 2016. Lot’s of things are changing: new look ‘n feel for Report Builder: Report Builder Changes in SQL Server 2016 new chart types (check out my sunburst, treemap and heatmap articles) a (somewhat) customizable parameter pane HTML 5 support and many, many […]
Reblog: Data Visualization – Book Review
To prepare myself for my session Data Visualization Tips & Tricks, I read a few books. In this blog post, I’ll give a short review for each one of them. Information Dashboard Design This book, written by Stephen Few, was the first one I read. And it was a fascinating read! I went through the […]
Webinar – What’s New for Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2016
I’ll be giving a webinar for MSSQLTips.com on Thursday 29th October 2015. The title is What’s New for Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2016 and its abstract goes like this: The preview of SQL Server 2016 has been released right before the summer and it already seems this will be the biggest Business Intelligence release ever! A lot […]
Presentation Design – Before and After
Recently I gave a session on the SQL Server Days about the new features for business intelligence in SQL Server 2016. I have always found that the design of the slide deck matters and this time I was fortunate enough to have the assistance of 356labs, a presentation design agency founded by SQL Server MVP […]
Overview of Published Articles – 2015Q3
Here is an overview of the articles I published in the third quarter of 2015. Retrieve file sizes from the file system using Power Query Create a Treemap Graph in SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 How to create a heat map graph in SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 How to create a Sunburst Graph in SQL […]
What’s new for BI in SQL 2016 – Session materials
SQL Server Days 2015 is over and it was a blast. Met a lot of people from the #sqlfamily, too many to mention, and I saw some interesting sessions. My favorites were David’s session about loading data faster and Catherine’s session about BIML (yes, both are related to SSIS). I gave a session on the new […]
New SSRS features in SQL 2016 CTP 2.4
SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.4 hasn’t been released yet (any day now I guess), but someone was apparently very eager at Microsoft because some of the MSDN documentation pages are already updated. One of those pages is What’s New in Reporting Services. There we can see three new features will be added: PDF replaces ActiveX […]
Why I hate Pie Charts
The pie chart should be avoided at all costs. Why? you can only display a limited number of slices (although that doesn’t really stop people from creating pie charts with dozens of slices) they take up a lot of space the human brain cannot easily compare slices based on radial areas. We’re better in comparing […]
Reblog: The Magic Alt Button
SQLKover update: I love this trick! I use it daily, no kidding (except in weekends). Want to see it in live action? You can watch my MSSQLTips.com webcast on-demand where I demonstrate this trick. Start watching at around minute 38. Lately I have been using more and more the awesomeness of the Alt-button in SQL Server […]