MDX, Power BI, New Analytics Roadshow Dates

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• Power BI and Big Data roadshow PPTs (4 decks, registered members)
• What is a Subselect in MDX? (3-min, registered members)
• Exists, MDX Solve Order, and Subselects (50-min, Full Access Members)
• MDX Performance Diagnosis with Profiler (30-min, Full Access Members)
• BA Roadshow in UK, Ireland, and South Africa (new dates)

What is a Subselect in MDX?

These are the final three instalments in our now-complete, 7-hour 30-minute, online MDX training course. Start with the short, 2-minute, free What is a Subselect in MDX? intro, then learn about it in depth in Chris Webb's full-length, 50-minute Exists, MDX Solve Order, and Subselects tutorial.

Exists, MDX Solve Order, and Subselects

In this module Chris covers three separate, advanced MDX topics: autoexists and the Exists() function and the Existing operator, solve order, and, of course, subselects. Not only does Chris carefully explain these important topics, but he also takes time to show you everything in his detailed, live demos, discussing the code, and the results.

MDX Performance Diagnosis

If, like many, you need to optimise the performance of your MDX queries, you need to start by finding out what makes them slow. Chris's final video, MDX Performance Diagnosis with Profiler, focuses on the SQL Server Profiler as a tool used to identify performance problems in Analysis Services. You will also learn about the interaction between the SSAS Formula Engine and its Storage Engine, focusing on the useful Profiler events, including Query Subcube Verbose.

Excited about Predictive Analytics!

You may know that I have been passionate about data mining, machine learning, and predictive analytics for over a decade, practising what I teach (see my online data mining course) for the last eight years. My toolkit has always consisted of SQL Server data mining engine, because I like how easy and visually rich it has always been. In the last few years I have expanded it with not only more Excel and R (stats are sexy), but also an increasing bit of Python. I am very pleased to say that the very next months should bring you new and much-awaited videos on more data mining algorithms, including the very useful Association Rules, Hadoop and Mahout, and all the new stuff that seems to be coming from Microsoft on their newly regular, cloud-schedule basis. Have you noticed the recently added Power View Forecasting algorithm? Easy to use, pretty visual, and aimed at day-to-day information workers who want to get started with Time Series without knowing it is even called Time Series. I expect more from Microsoft in the months to come, and you will get our video training on all the essentials in predictive analysis as it launches. I expect to be busy this year, wink-wink...

Power BI, Big Data, Data Science

Microsoft are making great strides in developing more and more functionality in Power BI. If you have already read my introductory (and rather popular) article, What is Power BI, and you would like to get more into the subject, please flick through the four PPTs which I have just reworked for the current Microsoft Business Analytics roadshow. Alternatively, have a look at the most recent presentation on Data Science with SQL and R which I have delivered in Germany at their Synopsis conference. All decks are, as always, here.

Microsoft Business Analytics Roadshow 2014

If you have missed my show in the eight countries which I have already visited, I hope you may be able to meet me in 2015. However, if you live in South Africa, Ireland, or in United Kingdom, you are in luck, because we had a last-minute addition of extra dates for those countries. The full description of this seminar is available here. In summary, Microsoft and I cover every aspect of Power BI and we overview Big Data analytics with HDInsight (Microsoft Hadoop), the recently renamed Analytics Platform System (which now contains the Parallel Data Warehouse, see a nice Microsoft blog post about it), and even predictive analytics. Please register for these events if you happen to be there:

• Johannesburg, South Africa: 11 June 2014 (register here)
• Dublin, Ireland: 18 June 2014 (register here)
• Birmingham, United Kingdom: 24 June 2014 (register here)

Promotion: 10% Off

For our newsletter readers I would like to offer a 10% discount, good for all memberships, until the end of May (just one week)! If you are not yet a Full Access Member, or if you would like to extend your existing membership, please use the code:

NEWSLETTER2014MAY

It is even valid for Group Memberships, great for a team of users who want to learn Microsoft BI from the best place on the web. 

I have a feeling I may be sending you my next newsletter in July/August. Happy be-eyeing.