Book Review: Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

I have just finished reading this book (Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012) and wanted to let you know my opinion.

I believe the book is a very good starting point for beginners in SSRS or Power View. I also got some gotcha's out of it, so there may be interesting points for more experienced users.

Overall I feel the content described is correct (some minor typos aside), thorough and easy to read, but it is on a pretty basic level. So if you have (almost) never worked with Reporting Services I believe it is worthwhile reading the chapters on SSRS, but if you're already a(n) (more) experienced user, I don't believe this will add very much to your knowledge.

While chapter 2 also covers new features in SQL 2012 (like data alerts) and could therefore be of use for experienced users, chapter 3 will not cover many new things in my opinion.

Because Power View is a much younger product than SSRS, this book might also be a good starting point. It covers the differences between SharePoint and Excel as a starting point for a Power View report very well. It also let's you create a basic report and publish this to SharePoint.

All in all a good and easy read on the subject.

Dashboarding for Power Pivot and Excel

Last week I heard the exciting news that Kasper de Jonge's ( B | T ) book Dashboarding for Power Pivot and Excel will be available shortly. I understand the e-book is also only available when the paperback is on Amazon, so we'll have to wait for that too.

What you cán do is you can already pre-order your copy here of course.

Cannot delete Evernote shortcut from desktop

I have had this annoying issue for a while now and decided to fix it.
After installing Evernote (and Toggl also), I wasn't able to delete the shortcut from my desktop.
I found some hints in the right direction on the Evernote support site, but they didn't quite solve the issue.

Apparently it resides in the User\Public folder, but I couldn't Del or Shift+Del it there either. However, when I right click and choose Delete (as Admin) I was finally able to delete the shortcut.



Hope this helps..

70-461

You could say: -391. Because that's what 70 minus 461 is.. :)

But I actually meant to say 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012, that's the exam I finally did last friday and succeeded with a score of 981!

Now up to 70-462 for my MCSA.

Power Pivot: unable to convert a value to the data type requested

I just ran into an (for me strange) issue when I was updating a Power Pivot workbook.
I had 2 columns in a table, let's say "One" and "Two", where One has integer values and Two string values. In my model I created a calculated column Three to concatenate these values. Because One and Two are actually redundant and never used on its own, I decided to delete those columns and save some space (the tables contained just over 2.2 million records).
So I started with updating my source view to concatenate the values in T-SQL, but when I refreshed the table in Power Pivot I got the error:
"Unable to convert a value to the data type requested in table x for column Three"

This error occured because I renamed the column in the view One and I already had that column present in my PP earlier (although I deleted it before opening the Table Properties). So my column One was previous INT, but would now be VARCHAR, however PP keeps this setting in mind although the column was deleted.

I found an answer on StackOverflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6981688/powerpivot-sql-query-fails-unable-to-convert-a-value-to-the-data-type-requeste

My solution was to recreate the column One in my PP and leave it empty (this would get the data type INT), and then add the new column One from the source in the Table Properties. This gives a warning that the column is already present in your workbook, but solves it by renaming the new column to "One 1" when refreshing the changes. After that you can delete the old column One and rename "One 1" to One and you're done!

So in short:

1. Recreate the column (One) you deleted
2. Then add the newly added column from your source with the same name
3. PP renames the new column to "One 1"
4. Delete the old column (One) again and rename "One 1" to One, or the desired name

SQL Rally Amsterdam 2013

Of course I would have loved to go to the PASS Summit this year, but unfortunately that wasn't going to happen according to my employer..

But then I heard that SQL Rally was coming to Amsterdam and saw my opportunity.

I read several posts from Allen, Brent and PASS itself on the topic How to Convince Your Boss... I had my hotel reservation ready, my arguments lined up (with even some backups to negotiate).. But he just said: "Well, that sounds like a good idea, just book it! :-)

The only catch was that I was asked to talk about a few of the topics on a study night to some of my co-workers. Well, that wouldn't be too hard I guess!

I hope to see a lot of my SQLFamily (Twitter-)friends in Amsterdam in the next 3 days! Do grab on to me and we'll have a chat!

@NickyvV

Suggested reading

I came across some nice articles and blog posts in the last weeks I wanted to share:

• FAQ about TEMPDB by Brent Ozar (B|T)
• What Developers Need to Know About SQL Server by Brent Ozar (B|T)
• Explanation of SQL Server IO and Latches by Derek Colley (T)
• A great SQLFamily talk by Jen Stirrup (B|T): Women in Technology: Children at Technical Conferences 
• Times are changing for Koen Verbeeck (B|T)

SQLRally Nordic and Amsterdam will be held next week, I believe you can still register.

I will be attending SQLRally Amsterdam, so I hope to see some of you over there!

Hopefully you can get somehting useful out of here!

@NickyvV