Sunday, August 28, 2011

Business Analysis with Microsoft Excel (3rd Edition)


Whether you own a small business or work for a large corporation–whether you are looking for help making financial and business decisions–this book is for you. Business Analysis with Microsoft® Excel, Third Edition, provides in-depth information that will streamline your use of the tools within Excel. Professional advice and guidance from an experienced author provide the answers to your most pressing questions:
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• What’s the relationship between my cost of goods sold and my inventory?
• How do I get Excel to keep these values up-to-date on my income statement and my balance sheet?
• I have to track service quality over time. How can I automate that using Excel charts?
• How can I forecast future demand for my products, based on prior sales results?
• What’s the difference between financial leverage and operating leverage? How do I calculate them using my financial records?
• I need to project my financials for next year. Show More Does Excel have a tool for that? What do I need to know to use it effectively?

• How do I do all these things using the new Ribbon in Excel 2007?
• What are the best ways to automate a connection between Excel and an external database?
Category Spreadsheets
Covers Applicable for versions of Microsoft Excel 97 to 2007
User Level Intermediate–Advanced

• Sample journals and ledgers; examples of trial balances, income statements, and balance sheets
• Custom functions, such as FIFO and LIFO, for inventory management
• VBA routines that automate the creation of forecasts, quality control charts, and sales and marketing analysis
• Statistical process control charts: P charts, X-and-S charts, X-and-MR charts
• Forecasting tools: Seasonal smoothing and ARIMA model identification

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Business Composites Training Downloads

Learn how you can lay a deep foundation for your SharePoint Server 2010 Business Composites skills in this training course. Download the lab manuals for this course here.

Quick details

Version: 1 Date Published: 8/4/2011
Language: English

Files in this download

The links in this section correspond to files available for this download. Download the files appropriate for you.
File Name Size
Lab01-Access-Services-in- SharePoint.docx 871 KB Download
Lab02-InfoPath-Services-in-SharePoint.docx 1.0 MB Download
Lab03-Workflows-in-SharePoint.docx 1.0 MB Download
Lab04-Business-Connectivity-Services-in-SharePoint.docx 2.0 MB Download
Lab05-SharePoint-Service-Applications.docx 724 KB Download

Overview

Learn how you can lay a deep foundation for your SharePoint Server 2010 Business Composites skills in this training course. This course covers a SharePoint Server 2010 Composites overview, and all of these aspects for SharePoint Server 2010: Access Services, InfoPath Forms Services, Workflows in SharePoint Server 2010, Business Connectivity Services, and SharePoint BI and Composites Service Application Configuration.

System requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP

To download and read these documents, you must have Microsoft Word 2010.

Instructions

  1. Click the Download button in the upper right corner of this page to start the download.
  2. Click Save or Save this program to disk.
  3. Find the file on your hard disk and double-click it to open it.
Sponsored Link:


Friday, August 26, 2011

MDX with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Cookbook

Overview of MDX with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Cookbook
  • Enrich your BI solutions by implementing best practice MDX calculations
  • Master a wide range of time-related, context-aware, and business-related calculations
  • Enhance your solutions by combining MDX with utility dimensions
  • Become skilled in making reports concise
  • Learn how to optimize, dissect, and debug your MDX calculations
  • Maximize your learning with detailed explanations following each solution
  • Packed with practical, hands-on cookbook recipes, illustrating the techniques to enrich your Business Intelligence solutions



Microsoft SQL Server is an enterprise database platform that contains a multitude of technologies, Analysis Services being one of them. SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) provides OLAP and data mining capabilities and allows users to analyze multidimensional data stored in cubes using the MDX query language.
This cookbook contains over 80 practical, task-based recipes that show how Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services solutions can be taken further by enriching them with high-performance MDX calculations and flexible MDX queries.
Packed with immediately usable, real-world recipes, the book starts with elementary techniques that lay the foundation for designing further MDX calculations and queries. Here you will find topics such as iterations on a set, Boolean logic, and dissecting and optimizing MDX calculations.
In the first half of the book you will learn how to efficiently work with time, strings, metadata, calculated members and sets in general, and how to implement MDX solutions that are appropriate in a particular context: a time-aware calculation, a concise report, a calculation relative to another. You will also learn how to implement various types of conditional formatting, how to perform typical MDX calculations like ranks, percentages and averages, and year-to-date calculations.
The book then deep dives into topics such as enhancing cube design with utility dimensions, context-aware calculations, and other advanced topics. In this part you will learn how a utility dimension can be of great help, for example when you want to calculate histograms or implement time-based calculations. The advanced topics also cover parent-child hierchies, recursion, random values, and complex sorts.
Enrich your Business Intelligence solutions with over 80 recipes for high-performance MDX calculations and flexible MDX queries

What you will learn from this book :
  • Create time-aware calculations (relative to the current date)
  • Create context-aware calculations (relative to members on axes)
  • Implement business-related calculations like forecasting, allocation of values and ABC analysis
  • Calculate various percentages, averages, and ranks
  • Work with related members (on the same and other dimensions)
  • Combine MDX with utility dimensions
  • Implement error handling
  • Implement AND, OR, NOT logic
  • Conditionally format your MDX calculations
  • Optimize, dissect, and debug MDX calculations and queries
  • Capture MDX generated by SSAS front-ends
  • Register SSAS-related assemblies and use stored procedures in them
Approach
This book offers practical, task-based, and immediately usable recipes covering a wide range of MDX calculations and queries. In addition to its cookbook style, which ensures the solutions are presented in a clear step-by-step manner, the explanations are done in great detail, which makes it good learning material for everyone who has experience in MDX and wants to improve.
The book is designed in such a way that you can read it chapter by chapter or refer to recipes in no particular order. However, some of the recipes depend on each another. When this is the case, you will be notified.
The book is focused on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services, but most of the concepts and explanation are also applicable to previous versions of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.
Who this book is written for
If you are a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services developer and want to improve your solutions using MDX, then this book is for you.
The book assumes you have a working knowledge of MDX and a basic understanding of dimensional modeling and cube design.

Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Elementary MDX Techniques
Chapter 2: Working with Time
Chapter 3: Concise Reporting
Chapter 4: Navigation
Chapter 5: Business Analytics
Chapter 6: When MDX is Not Enough
Chapter 7: Context-aware Calculations
Chapter 8: Advanced MDX Topics
Chapter 9: On the Edge
Conclusion
Appendix: Glossary of Terms
Index
  • Preface
  • Chapter 1: Elementary MDX Techniques
    • Introduction
    • Skipping axis
    • Handling division by zero errors
    • Setting special format for negative, zero and null values
    • Applying conditional formatting on calculations
    • Setting default member of a hierarchy in MDX script
    • Implementing NOT IN set logic
    • Implementing logical OR on members from different hierarchies
    • Iterating on a set in order to reduce it
    • Iterating on a set in order to create a new one
    • Iterating on a set using recursion
    • Dissecting and debugging MDX queries
    • Using NON_EMPTY_BEHAVIOR
    • Optimizing MDX queries using the NonEmpty() function
    • Implementing logical AND on members from the same hierarchy
  • Chapter 2: Working with Time
    • Introduction
    • Calculating the YTD (Year-To-Date) value
    • Calculating the YoY (Year-over-Year) growth (parallel periods)
    • Calculating moving averages
    • Finding the last date with data
    • Getting values on the last date with data
    • Hiding calculation values on future dates
    • Calculating today's date using the string functions
    • Calculating today's date using the MemberValue function
    • Calculating today's date using an attribute hierarchy
    • Calculating the difference between two dates
    • Calculating the difference between two times
    • Calculating parallel periods for multiple dates in a set
    • Calculating parallel periods for multiple dates in a slicer
  • Chapter 3: Concise Reporting
    • Introduction
    • Isolating the best N members in a set
    • Isolating the worst N members in a set
    • Identifying the best/worst members for each member of another hierarchy
    • Displaying few important members, others as a single row, and the total at the end
    • Combining two hierarchies into one
    • Finding the name of a child with the best/worst value
    • Highlighting siblings with the best/worst values
    • Implementing bubble-up exceptions
  • Chapter 4: Navigation
    • Introduction
    • Detecting a particular member in a hierarchy
    • Detecting the root member
    • Detecting members on the same branch
    • Finding related members in the same dimension
    • Finding related members in another dimension
    • Calculating various percentages
    • Calculating various averages
    • Calculating various ranks
  • Chapter 5: Business Analytics
    • Introduction
    • Forecasting using the linear regression
    • Forecasting using the periodic cycles
    • Allocating the non-allocated company expenses to departments
    • Calculating the number of days from the last sales to identify the slow-moving goods
    • Analyzing fluctuation of customers
    • Implementing the ABC analysis
  • Chapter 6: When MDX is Not Enough
    • Introduction
    • Using a new attribute to separate members on a level
    • Using a distinct count measure to implement histograms over existing hierarchies
    • Using a dummy dimension to implement histograms over non-existing hierarchies
    • Creating a physical measure as a placeholder for MDX assignments
    • Using a new dimension to calculate the most frequent price
    • Using a utility dimension to implement flexible display units
    • Using a utility dimension to implement time-based calculations
  • Chapter 7: Context-aware Calculations
    • Introduction
    • Identifying the number of columns and rows a query will return
    • Identifying the axis with measures
    • Identifying the axis without measures
    • Adjusting the number of columns and rows for OWC and Excel
    • Identifying the content of axes
    • Calculating row numbers
    • Calculating the bit-string for hierarchies on an axis
    • Preserving empty rows
    • Implementing utility dimension with context-aware calculations
  • Chapter 8: Advanced MDX Topics
    • Introduction
    • Displaying members without children (leaves)
    • Displaying members with data in parent-child hierarchies
    • Implementing the Tally table utility dimension
    • Displaying random values
    • Displaying a random sample of hierarchy members
    • Displaying a sample from a random hierarchy
    • Performing complex sorts
    • Using recursion to calculate cumulative values
  • Chapter 9: On the Edge
    • Introduction
    • Clearing the Analysis Services cache
    • Using Analysis Services stored procedures
    • Executing MDX queries in T-SQL environments
    • Using SSAS Dynamic Management Views (DMV) to fast-document a cube
    • Using SSAS Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) to monitor activity and usage
    • Capturing MDX queries generated by SSAS front-ends
    • Performing custom drillthrough
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix: Glossary of Terms
    • Parts of an MDX query
    • MDX query in action
    • Cube and dimension design
    • MDX script
    • Query optimization
    • Types of query
  • Index

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple


Steve Jobs, mastermind behind Apple, has resigned as CEO of the company effective immediately.
Tim Cook, formerly Apple, Inc’s chief operating officer, has been named the new CEO, Apple’s board of directors announced on Wednesday. Jobs has been appointed chairman of the board.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs wrote in a letter to Apple’s board on Thursday. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004. In January of this year Jobs stepped aside to “focus on [his] health.” He has declined to elaborate on his condition.

Under Jobs, Apple delivered innovations from the first mouse-driven user interface to the pocketable iPod media player, which created the digital music revolution. It delivered the first popular tablet computer, the iPad, prompting a wholesale reinvention of the media business in the process. And as chief executive officer of Pixar Studios, Jobs became the tech-savvy equivalent of Walt Disney, fine-tuning the art of computer-generated storytelling beginning with Toy Story. Today, Apple continues to expand its reign in the mobile wireless industry with its phenomenally successful iPhone.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple’s Board, in a press release. “In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Cook first took over earlier this year when Jobs went on medical leave for the third time in seven years.
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others. Together they ushered in the Apple II, which went on sale in 1977. It was the first “practical” personal computer, eventually dominating the education market in particular. Jobs left Apple Computer in 1985 and set out to develop a new OS and computer company, dubbed NeXT. He returned to Apple in 1996 when the company purchased NeXT for $429 million, and took over as chief executive in 1997.

That same year he engineered a truce with Microsoft, Apple’s chief nemesis at the time. As Frank Rose recounts in East of Eden, his history of Apple, Microsoft’s $150 million investment in Apple breathed new life into the struggling Silicon Alley icon. The rest, as they say is history.
To help keep its wounded rival alive, Microsoft agreed to buy $150 million in non-voting stock and to continue producing its all-important Office software for Macintosh. He put Jonathan Ive in charge of design and brought in Tim Cook, Compaq’s self-styled “Attila the Hun of inventory,” to run manufacturing, setting up the team that has run the company under his aegis ever since.
In his letter to the board, Jobs “strongly” recommended that Cook be his successor. Cook has long been the favorite to take over the throne since Jobs took leave from the company in January.

Cook enters the position in the former CEO’s enormous shadow, but with all of the exposure, experience and skills anyone could possibly possess. And, with Ive on board, it’s likely that Apple’s run is far from over. Felix Salmon, finance blogger at Thompson Reuters, thinks that at least the near term will be more of the same.

“[W]ith or without Jobs, Apple is, for the foreseeable future, going to coin simply astonishing amounts of money.” Salmon wrote in a post entitled “Thanks, Steve.” “It made $7.3 billion of profit just in the last quarter, on revenues of an almost unimaginable $28.6 billion. That makes Apple of the most profitable companies the world has ever seen — and makes its stock look almost cheap, even at a market cap of $350 billion.

But making it look that easy will be just as difficult in post-Jobs era.
“The pressure on Apple is going to be the same pressure it’s had for the past decade — to continue to follow up with successful products, one after another,” Michael Gartenberg of Gartner Research told Wired.com in an interview. “People have loved Apple’s products because they make people happy. Not because they come from Steve Jobs.”

In the last quarter alone, Apple has sold over 20 million iPhones and 9.25 million iPads, according to the company’s most recent earnings statement. Apple has dominated the mobile device market, owning the lion’s share of consumer-purchased tablets and fighting for the top spot in smartphone ownership with Google’s Android platform.

Earlier this month, Apple became the largest publicly-traded company in the world, surpassing Exxon-Mobil for the position (albeit briefly).

Before coming to Apple Computer, Cook held executive positions at Compaq, Intelligent Electronics and IBM. Cook earned his M.B.A. from Duke University, and holds a bachelors of science in industrial engineering from Auburn University.

“In some ways, Cook and Jobs are poles apart,” Wired.com wrote in a profile of Cook in 2009. “Cook is the yin to Jobs’ yang. A quiet, soft-spoken, low-key executive, he couldn’t be more different from Jobs’ sarcastic, fearsome, larger-than-life personality.”

Jobs’ letter to the board:
To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.
Steve

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Microsoft Denali (Code-Named) CTP 3 Installtion Guide

The installation of Denali CTP 3 is very simple as you have installed SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2.
Make sure your server/workstation is compatible with hardware and software update before you install.  I recommend you should run Windows Update prior the installation.

When you are ready  just follow these steps and get Denali CTP3 installed.

Good luck and enjoy!

Step 1: Click on “setup.exe”.

Step 2: Click on the Installation tab.


Step 3: Click on the “New SQL Server stand-alone installation…”

Step 4: You need to make sure that all Setup Rules are passed. If there are failed rules, you won’t be able to proceed. In case of warnings, you can continue to install, but you still should note the warning and take corrective measures, before or after installation. Click on OK.

Step 5: Click on the Next button.

The Product Key page is used to authenticate your license of SQL Server or choose to install a free edition – Evaluation Edition, or Express Edition with Advanced Services. Copies downloaded from MSDN often have the product key supplied automatically.
But in this case, we have opted for “Evaluation Edition”.
Step 6: Go through the License Terms and if you are agrees upon the terms, then check on “I accept the license terms”. And then click on the “Next”.

Step 7: Always installs the latest updates to enhance your SQL Server security and performance.
Click on the Next button.

Step 8: After this step, click on the install button, then a new window will shows up;

Setup Support Rules
You need to make sure that all Setup Rules are passed. If there are failed rules, you won’t be able to proceed. In case of warnings, you can continue to install, but you still should note the warning and take corrective measures, before or after installation.

As you will see here there has been Warning upon the Windows Firewall, so its a default warning and you need not had to worry about it. Just check that it should be using the Port No. 1433. Click on the “Warning”. So a dialog box will appear. Click on Ok.

Step 9: Here we have a three kinds of Setup roles available for the installation. ‘SQL Server Feature Installation’ is the installation option which individually selects which feature component to install, or click a feature role to install a specific configuration. ‘SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint’ gives users the ability to analyze massive quantities of data, and its seamless integration with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 helps IT departments monitor and manage how users collaborate.‘All Features With Defaults’ install all the features using the default values for the service accounts.
We have selected here SQL Server Feature Installation and then Click on Next.

Step 10: So under the Feature Selection, it’s on you what the feature you want to work with. You have the option to either Select All or multiple options can be selected. If you want to feature all of these features, then Click on Select All as I have done.

Step 11: If you want to precede further Click on Next.

Step 12: Installation Rules are the predefined rule which is being used to check if the Operation are being completed, or blocked. So if there has been any Operation which is being Failed or Warning, certain actions should be taken around before preceding it further.

As you can see the error flashed it up is “Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is required”.
If you also face with the same problem, then you should see the article-post written by me, i.e., several steps to get rid of this problem, through a link:
http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/articles/sql-server-bi/53/sql-server-%E2%80%93-error-%E2%80%93-you-must-use-the-role-management-tool
After reading the article-post, click on the Re-run button;

So, now the error has been recovered and so it “Passed”, as you can also see below:

Click on the Next button.
Step 13: Instance Configuration is the crucial part of your installation where you need to choose among the two: Default Instance or Named Instance.
Default Instance is the one under which there an Instance name which is being defined and cannot be changed, and you can have only one Default Instance. But the advantage of having Named instance is that you can name them, so it’s easier for you to identify each one of them uniquely. So we have chosen here Named Instance and specified a name DENALICTP3.
Click on Next button.

Step 14: Your system should surpass the requirements of space required by the installation process.
Click on Next button.

Step 15: Sever Configuration page shows up the service accounts and collation configuration.
This page supplies server options for the Database Engine component. Here is where the Windows service account is configured so that SQL Server will have permission to execute and access to files.
Also configured in this page is the initial startup type, which determines whether the services start automatically when Windows starts or whether they require manual starting.
So, I have used the default setting as it was.

But don’t click on the Next button.
A common error on this page is to miss the Collation tab on this page. The default is probably OK for most installations, but be careful that you don’t miss this important step.

Now, Click the Next button.
Step 16:
Click on Account Provisioning tab. Here in the Database Engine Configuration, you have to select the authentication mode out of the two: Windows Authentication Mode and Mixed Mode.
Windows Authentication Mode enables Windows Authentication and disables SQL Server Authentication.
Mixed Mode enables both Windows Authentication and SQL Server Authentication.
SQL Server Authentication becomes very important part when it comes to security, so there should be credentials (login and password) every time that they connect.

After you enters the password click on “Add current user”.

Click on Data Directories tab
Ideally the User data and the log files directory should be kept separately from each other which enhance the performance. The same is also is in the case of Temp DB data and log files directory. The Backup directory is also being kept separate from rest of these will either be in Tape drive or other disks.
Click on the FILESTREAM tab and make the following changes;

Step 17: The Analysis Services Configuration page is being used to add initial users with administrative permission and configure the default directories for Analysis Services.
See the Server Configuration tab and then click on the Add Current User button.
If you are the current user, you alone would be the administrator of the feature.
If you leave, this machine cannot be used by anyone with an "admin" privilege. For development environment you can click "add" to add the builtin\administrator account so that any administrator of the computer can also be an admin to that SQL feature.
For production environment I suggest that you have a domain group "Domain_name\SQLAdmins" and add them as administrator of the SQL feature.
Between the “Multidimensional and Data Mining Mode” and “Tabular Mode”, I had prefer to use Multidimensional one!!

Don’t change anything inside the “Data Directories” tab, keep it as it was!!

Click the Next button.
Step 18: Reporting Service Configuration

Click on the Next button.
Step 19: Similar to SQL Server Profiler, you can use Distributed Replay to replay a captured trace against an upgraded test environment. Unlike SQL Server Profiler, Distributed Replay is not limited to replaying the workload from a single computer.
Distributed Replay offers a more scalable solution than SQL Server Profiler. With Distributed Replay, you can replay a workload from multiple computers and better simulate a mission-critical workload.
Add the Current User and the click on the Next button.

Step 20: Distributed Replay Client
Enter the name of the controller, the “Working Directory” and the “Result Directory”.

Step 21: Error Reporting
Well you can check this option, if you want.

Click on the Next button.
Step 22: Installation Configuration Rules
This rendition of the Rules page verifies the installation Configuration.

Click on Next button.
Step 23: Ready to Install
The Ready to Install page reports the complete configuration in a tree view, and the location of the created .ini file with these configuration options.
Click on Install button.

Step 24: Complete!!!
The installation for the SQL Server 2008 R2 has been completed. There are no warnings and no errors, that means we have Successfully installed it!!

Click on the close button.
Step 24: Go to the Program File, click on the “SQL Server Management Studio”.



Now you are ready to get familiar with Denali CTP3.  I myself try to get along with its BI features and other component services in last couple days.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Top Sharepoint White Papers

Daily white papers, case studies, webcasts and product information on the topics you are interested in.


Developing an Effective Email Management Solution in SharePoint
by Colligo Networks Inc.
Today, email management is a critical requirement. But deploying and supporting an effective email management solution poses significant challenges for IT. Check out this white paper to learn the case for SharePoint.


Real-time Business: Playing to win in the new global marketplace
by Sybase
As more competitive factors become negligible, organizations are constantly striving to provide services and products quicker than their competition, and this focus is driving a shift towards real-time business. Read this paper to learn more about what real-time business is and how it will effect the future of business.


Business Intelligence Buyer’s Guide – 2011 Edition
by SearchDataManagement
This product directory of top BI software options will help IT and LOB professionals select the right BI software for their organization. This interactive directory includes detailed listings with product descriptions, vendor information, and pricing details.


Overcoming top data integration challenges to attain strategic business objectives
by Syncsort
Nearly 70% of IT decision makers recently surveyed by TechTarget's BeyeNETWORK said their data integration tools have actually impeded their organization’s ability to achieve strategic business objectives. This webcast will review key findings from new research on data integration tool performance, challenges, business impact and more. 


Optimizing Service Assurance with Operational Intelligence
by Vitria Technology, Inc.
Operational Intelligence is a new approach that gives service providers the ability to deliver service assurance by providing value into real-time customer information. Discover how to use Operational Intelligence to gain an end-to-end customer view of your enterprise in this whitepaper.