People who have been working for a while with Integration Services probably know the legendary blog post by SQL Server MVP Jamie Thomson: Suggested Best Practises and naming conventions. The blog post served as a guidance point for many SSIS projects regarding naming conventions of the various tasks and components. I still use them every […]
Problem where you can only browse Google websites
Note: not a SQL/BI related post like usual, but since it’s a common issue I want to share my solution here Quite recently I had a bizarre issue on my laptop: suddenly I could only browse Google websites (Google search, YouTube, Gmail …). All the other websites would time out or give error messages. On […]
Calculate a semi-additive average in DAX
A semi-additive average? What exactly are you trying to calculate? Let me explain first. A semi-additive measure is a measure that can be summed across some dimensions, but not all. Typically it’s the time dimension that isn’t additive. For example, the stock level at various warehouses. You can add all the stock levels of your […]
SQL Server 2016 service pack 1 is here!
SQL Server 2016 service pack 1 has been released and it is a mayor one! You can download it here. Why, you ask, is it so important? Because a lot of Enterprise Edition database engine features are now available in the other editions as well. In other words, you can now enable compression and use […]
Book Review – Power Pivot and Power BI
Since Power BI is all the rage right now, I was in need of some material to spice up my knowledge of DAX (read: finally understand how CALCULATE works). I’ve been following the website powerpivotpro.com for quite some time now and they always have very insightful articles about DAX and real world scenarios. Anyway, Rob Collie […]
Master Data Services – Database Error has Occured when Publishing Business Rule
I was preparing a demo for a session about the new features of Master Data Services in SQL Server 2016. In that demo, I created a business rule to test out the extension with custom scripts. When the business rule was finished, I tried to publish it. But, I was greeted with the following error: “300 […]
First thoughts on Power BI on premises
The wait is over, the Reporting Services team finally released a preview for Power BI Desktop reports hosted on premises using Reporting Services! The preview itself is a VM hosted in Azure. You can read all about setting it up in the SSRS team blog post. I toyed around with the VM for a few […]
Master Data Services error – Cannot read configuration file due to insufficient permissions
In preparation of my upcoming webinar on the new features of Master Data Services 2016, I installed MDS on my system. Otherwise it would be quite hard to give demos, of course. The installation itself went quite smooth, no remarks there. I also enabled Internet Information Services (IIS) on my system, as well as a […]
What’s new in SSRS 2016 – Session Contents
The 2016 edition of the Belgian SQL Server Days is over. It was a blast – as usual – and it was very nice meeting up with the #sqlfamily again. I had a session about the new features in SSRS 2016. I was so excited that I could do a full hour session on Reporting […]
My thoughts on Recertifying your MCSE through Microsoft Virtual Academy
A couple of years back I achieved the Microsoft certification MCSE – Business Intelligence. You can read all about that process in my blog post How I prepared myself for the MCSE certification. As you might know, this certification is only valid for 3 years. My certification should have expired a couple of months ago, but […]