Luke Hayler - SQL Server developer

That’s right folks. If you missed out on some (or indeed all) of the awesome presentations at SQLBits V, you can now view them online or download them for viewing at your leisure. Simon Sabin has done a great job once again, so a big thanks to him and the rest of the SQLBits team.

Here’s a taster for what is available:

• A Whistle-stop tour of SSIS Add-ins
• Data Visualisation with Bing Maps for Enterprise
• Let’s make SQL Fly
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2: What’s new in Reporting Services
• T-SQL Tuning with Colin Chapman, Enzo Ferrari, and The Stig

And of course the link to the entire list is right there under each of the presentation descriptions.

If you need a recap of SQLBits V you can read all about it here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

If you ever happen to be in a situation were you do not have access to or have ‘misplaced’ the SSRS report files (.rdl) and you need to edit one (or more) of the reports on your server, there is an easy way to download the .rdl files.

Follow these easy steps:

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio,
2. Log on to the Reporting Services Instance that contains the reports you are looking for
3. Browser through the directory structure to the report that needs to be updated
4. Right-click the report and choose Edit…
5. Now follow the prompts to save the file to a destination of your choice
6. Open BIDS & create a new project/solution
7. Import the (previously) saved .rdl file into your SSRS project.
8. Edit away to your hearts content….

I’m not going to ask why you don’t have access to or have misplaced the files in the first place (No source code management? Seriously?). I am sure there are a myriad of reasons that you can come up with. This post merely provides a quick way to recover your files and continue edits/updates that may be required.

This is the second part in my recap of SQLBits V. You can read Part 1 here.

Sessions

I was assigned as a room monitor on the Saturday, and as 3 of the sessions I was planning on attending were in the BI track, this is where I ended up. The day for Room 1 went as follows:

Getting Dimensional with Data -  Chris Testa O’Neill (Blog | Slides)

Chris took us through the basics of building a cube, highlighting the use of data sources and data source views, the importance of dimensions and hierarchies, and of course the measures that will hold the business metrics. This was a good talk on getting started with building your first cubes.

A Whistle Stop Tour of SSIS Add-ins – Jamie Thomson (Blog | Twitter | Slides)

Jamie introduced us to a number of free/paid for SSIS add-ins. He described each add-in, how it was configured and demoed a practical use for each. I have already written about this session in Part 1 of the Conference Recap. Jamie put a lot of work into his demos, so a big thanks to him.

Self Service Business Intelligence (Project Gemini) – Bob Duffy (Blog | Slides)

Bob took us once again through building a business intelligence solution with Office 2010 and Gemini. It seems that no matter how many times I see presentations on this stuff I don’t get tired of it. Looking forward to the moment I can use these tools in a commercial setting. Whenever that might be….

SSIS in SQL Server 2008 – Allan Mitchell (SQLIS.com | SQLDTS.com| Slides)

Allan did a great job (even though he overran his session by ‘a few minutes’) of informing us of a couple of differences in Threading between SSIS in SQL Server 2005 & 2008, why you need to be using the Cache & the Lookup Transform, the Data Profiling Task and Change Data Capture. Another enjoyable and informative session.

Report Builder 3 – Andrew Fryer (Blog | Twitter | Slides)

Andrew wowed us all. Again. Even with some demo trouble (he was plagued with ‘technical issues’) it was a fabulous session. He took us through all the features of Report Builder 3 as a Managed Self-Service BI tool. Items to note:

• The Tablix Object
• Improved Visualizations (Better Charts & Gauges, Maps, Sparklines, Data Bars, Indicators)
• Interesting layouts (see slides)
• Support for Spatial Data
• Integration with Virtual Earth tiles.
• Multiple Map Layers
• A number of Layout enhancements (new functions, new data sources, Expression-based page breaks & chart headers, Excel tab naming, Bottom-to-top text rotation)
• Aggregating aggregates

This was the last presentation of the day and of the conference and it ended on an high note.

Everyone then piled out into the foyer for drinks & games. About an hour after the social started Simon gathered everyone for prize giving – There were several prizes and winners were chosen by selecting completed feedback forms from a box (that contained all of them). I couldn’t believe it (cue Victor Meldrew). On the fourth attempt a feedback form of mine was pulled out and my name was called. Score! I still wonder at how the Redgate SQLComapre license was still there for the taking. This is after 3 other winners had taken mice, & webcams from the pile. I think I did pretty well. Thanks Redgate!

Volunteering

As I have mentioned before, SQLBits is a not commercial conference. It is organised and run by a handful of professionals that do it in their own time. I offered to be one of the helpers at this November’s conference and was glad I did so, as I got to meet and interact with a number of great people. It can sometimes be difficult to start a conversation with someone you don’t know (as I mentioned here) unless you have something in common, or an icebreaker. Volunteering can be the icebreaker. It forces you to meet a bunch of new people and gets the ball rolling.

So what did volunteering at SQLBits involve? About an hour of my time on the Friday evening, and playing room monitor in one of the rooms (BI Track) for the day – which meant that I couldn’t attend all of the sessions that I was aiming to, but as most of them were in the same room this wasn’t too much of an issue for me. To be honest, it was a lot less work than I had expected – note to self: must get involved earlier next time.

And what did I gain out it? A better understanding for what is involved in organising a SQLBits conference, meeting and conversing with the organisers, speakers and other volunteers, making new contacts and friends, being part of the community, a wonderful dinner late on Saturday night, and a great bonus from the organisers which was totally unexpected. So a HUGE thanks to Simon, Chris, James, Darren, Martin & Allan. You have pulled off (another) great conference and I am sure that I am not alone in saying that I can’t wait for the next one.

The People I met

Meeting more sql folks was one of my goals for the conference and I think I did pretty well. What remains to be seen is if I managed to leave a good enough impression. Over the two days I was at SQLBits I had the privilege of meeting and chatting to a number of people, some for just a brief few minutes, others for good enough chunk of time to get to know them a little better. Here’s a few of those awesome folks:

• Allan Mitchell (Site)
• Andre Kamman (Blog | Twitter)
• Andrew Fryer (Blog | Twitter)
• Ashwani Roy(Blog)
• Bob Duffy (Blog)
• Brent Ozar – finally! (Blog | Twitter)
• Chris Alcock (Blog | Twitter)
• Chris Testa-O’Neill (Blog)
• Chris Webb (Blog)
• Darren Green (Site)
• David Baker (Site)
• Derek Neighbour
• James Rowland Jones (Blog | Twitter)
• Jamie Thomson (Blog | Twitter)
• Jenifer Stirrup (Blog | Twitter)
• Marcus Ford (Twitter)
• Martin Bell (Blog)
• Phil Carter (Site | Twitter)
• Rachel Clements (Site | Twitter)
• Rob Farley (Blog | Twitter)
• Simon Sabin (Blog | Twitter)
• Vivek Sekrou (Blog | Twitter)

A fantastic group of people, all knowledgeable in their own sphere of SQL Server, and great personalities. I found I had the best conversations later in the evening once things had quietened down a bit. I think it would be great if there were more opportunities for quiet times like these, as sometimes they are of the most benefit. I believe that some others actually forego sessions when they’re having a great conversation with a new (or indeed old) acquaintance.

It would be nice to see a little more time (and possibly structure) attributed to mealtimes during the conference. These are times that could be used to great benefit for that all important networking. I have a few ideas that I’d like to pass around and will possibly write another post about it later. At the very least I’ll pass them along to the organisers (or possibly something that I could organise???). For those that were lucky enough to go to the PASS Summit, what opportunities did you have for catching up with old friends & getting to know some new folks?

So, what did I learn at SQLBits?

I have mentioned previously the sessions that were my highlights and have gone into some details there. This is a list of other things

• Arrive early – to the conference and to each session. You’ll get the lay-of-the-land and you get to meet a few people before it begins to get crazy. At the very least, get to your sessions on time. Speakers have a set time to give their presentations and need to have some time for questions. Your questions. If they have to start late due to interruptions, there’s less or no time for questions.
• Leave late – Stay over on the last evening. I found this to be the best time for conversations with speakers, MVPS, organisers and attendees (that also stayed over). The stress of the sessions and the conference has abated and people are much easier to talk to and get to know.
• A book/laptop/netbook/napkin/whatever – Bring something to take notes. Anything. Just ensure that you take notes for things that spark your interest. The sessions can be fairly intense (speakers try and pack in as much as they can) and your brain will be overflowing pretty quick (well, maybe I only speak for myself here), so taking notes enables you to revisit the key points at a later date when you have the time.
• Business/Contact cards – get some made and hand them out. I met many more people than those on my list but due to my overflowing brain, just couldn’t keep track. Go get some cards people! If you weren’t on the receiving end of one of mine (care of moo.com), here’s an electronic copy:
• 
• Ask questions – if you don’t you’re missing out on some valuable first-hand information from some of the brightest sql folks around. It also helps to prepare some ahead of time. The sessions and speakers are listed well ahead of time, so take a note of those sessions you would like to attend and write down the questions you may have.
• Time to digest – set aside some time, even just an hour, during the day to digest what you’ve learned and who you may have met. You’ll be surprised how easily this information will escape you if you if don’t. So, got get your favourite beverage, find a quiet spot and go through your notes, you may find that you have a few questions, which you can now go pose to the speaker of the session, or indeed any others.
• Attend a Donald Farmer presentation. ‘nuff said.
• PowerPivot, Excel 2010, Reporting Services in 2008 R2 – are all pretty awesome. I can’t wait to get my hands on these and building some mind blowing data analysis and reporting solutions.

Some Suggestions & Ideas

• Better information about sessions – I found that while most of the sessions were well described (in the schedule), there were some that held little or not information about the session, and one or two that had misleading titles. This makes it pretty difficult to know what to expect when you are attending. Given that feedback is so valuable to speakers (and organisers), I would have though that if someone’s expectations were not met then the speaker might receive poor feedback. Ambiguity about the session also leads to more disruptions – people will leave during the session if they feel that it’s not quite what they expected. Personally, I would like to know exactly what the session is about before I make a decision to attend. Most of the speakers I saw had an agenda slide. This is perfect for the session description.
• Several screens in the foyer (TVs/projectors/etc) with any important announcements (room updates, next sessions, etc)
• Live Twitter stream in each session room – which could be managed by a room monitor perhaps.
• More time to mingle – I know that the sessions are the core of the conference, but wouldn’t having more time to get to know people and ask the MVPs/Speakers/other attendees questions help too? There was barely enough time between the sessions to get a cup of coffee & a biscuit (or cookie for our US readers) let alone meeting and having a meaningful conversation. I am not sure how much of a nightmare it would be to start sessions earlier and finish later in the day, but it might make the day easier to handle – from an attendee point of view.

Did you attend SQLBits? Do you have any comments on any of the above Suggestions & Ideas (or indeed anything else I’ve mentioned)? Let’s hear from you!

You’re still reading this??

This has been a fairly epic post, so if you have made it all the way down here I applaud you. Thanks for sticking it out!

This has been my experience. I hope it provides a good summary of what SQLBits is about and if you weren’t already thinking about going to the next one you should definitely make plans to do so. It’s worth it.

See you at SQLBits VI!

Better late than never

I’ve been a little under the weather since getting back from SQLBits V so this post has been days in the making instead of just s a few hours. But here it is. This post focuses on the conference sessions, I am going to follow up with another post on people, conference feedback and things I might do differently next time.

Even the birds aren’t up this early…

Friday started swimmingly. Up at the crack o’ dawn,  taxi to a mainline station (my local didn’t have an early enough train to get me into London), only to find that the train has been delayed by 18 minutes. Pants. There goes all my hard work ‘being early’. The good news is that I made it on to the Newport Train (from Paddington). With just 2 minutes to spare. And I got a seat with a power outlet. Bonus! All my good intentions at getting a head start on an article have gone out the window as I am a little tired, so I try to catch up on some much needed shut eye.

Keynote by Donald Farmer

I arrived at the Celtic Manor, having shared a taxi, just in time for registration and a quick bacon bap before the welcome started. The keynote was given by Donald Farmer (Blog | Twitter). He gave us a great preview of the simply awesome PowerPivot and a few features in SQL Server 2008 R2. See this recap by Brent Ozar.

Below is a recap of the sessions that I found I got the most out of.

Friday Session 1 – New Development Features in SQL Server 2008 [Simon Sabin]

The first session of the day, that I attended, was Simon Sabin’s (Blog | Twitter) overview of the new development features that can be found in SQL Server 2008. Simon favours the demo approach for sessions and so had relatively few slides. Not a bad thing. Among other features available in SQL Server 2008, the following were discussed/demoed:

• Variable declaration and initialisation – this can now be done in the same line (Declare @i Int = 1)
• Named regions - You can create these using BEGIN & END blocks & naming it with a comment. Named regions will enable you to collapse the blocks for readability.
• Intellisense – as has been available to .NET programmers for years. My only query here is, why not use the syntax that can be found in C# when writing LINQ queries [where you specify the FROM TABLENAME line first and then the SELECT statement). As such, you find yourself writing the FROM line first and then going back up to the SELECT statement….
• Highlighted Syntax errors - think MS Word red squiggly lines to highlight that something is the matter.
• Code validation at design time -
• Date & Time datatypes - new Date datatype allows dates before 01/01/1753, and only takes up 4 bytes of storage. great for when you don’t actually need time precision. Time datatype handles precision down to the nano second, for when you do. The Time datatype also only refers to the time of day and not a time interval.
• No longer allowed implicit calculations on dates - you now must use Date functions to perform calculations on Date datatypes (i.e. DateAdd(), Not “MyDatetime + 1”).
• DateTime Offset - Allows you to store the date and time that has time zone awareness (based on the 24-hour clock)
• Debugging - You can now debug your code! breakpoints, watch lists, view locals, etc
• MERGE Statement - enables you to perform updates/deletes/inserts all within one statement.

Whilst this list is not conclusive, it certainly highlighted a number of new features that are now available in SQL Server 2008 and incentivises you to at least find out what else is available that could simplify you SQL development.

This was a great session, and if you find out that Simon is doing a presentation near you (UK User Groups), I suggest going.

Friday Session 2 - SQL Server 2008 R2: What’s new in Reporting Services? [Donald Farmer]

Donald Farmer (Twitter | Blog) blew my mind. Not once, but twice. First, in his keynote, he talked about the awesomeness of PowerPivot. Then in this session, he did it again. I loved this session and quickly realised that there’s going to be quite a learning curve and an altering of mindset of how reporting ‘gets done’ in the future. Why? Because the lines between the business & IT are blurring.

With the new Self Service Analysis and Reporting tools, there’s a new approach to finding out and tracking how the business is performing. So, if you are a Reporting Services Developer or Data/MI(S) Analyst. Things are going to change:

• PowerPivot & Excel 2010 bring a lot more functionality ( & power) to business users. Enabling them to analyse data at length straight from the data source.
• The arrival of report components in report builder, means that reports can be built quicker using existing parts of reports or report items. Think sub-reports, but on a more granular scale. Each report item can be a reusable component, which can be tweaked by the user for use in their own report.This includes the reuse of datasets, as components. These components are centrally managed by IT (or a reporting team).

So what did we learn? Here’s a bulleted summary:

• Business users analyse data through tools like PowerPivot & Excel 2010, digging for answers to business questions. This analysis is an iterative process and gives rise to metrics that can be monitored. Enter reporting services. Reports are built to monitor the ‘answers’ discovered by the business analysts.
• Reports can be created using components. Components are pre-built report objects that reside in a library that anyone can reuse. Think of sub-reports, but in a centrally managed way.
• Created reports that are saved to the Server are saved as a report in its entirety, as well as individual report components. These components are then available to other users to include/tweak in their own reports.
• When Publishing reports, you can choose which components of the reports you want to publish.
• Report Data can be subscribed to via feeds (rss anyone?). This can be used to in PowerPivot to run Excel-based analyses using Pivot tables
• New features of Reporting Services:
  • Spark lines – think inline charts. No x/y axes. Just used to illustrate a trend.
  • Data bars – no more having to use expressions to calculate cell padding and the applying a background colour. Pick your element & configure.
  • KPI’s – like those in SSAS, you can now add a KPI and configure it’s value, goal, status & trend. KPI’s can be ‘componentised’ and reused in other reports.
  • Lookup functions
  • Aggregates of Aggregates
  • New data sources (Project Madison, SQL Azure)
  • Ability to reset page numbers based on groups
  • Expression-based page breaks
  • Expression-based chart headers
  • Naming Excel Worksheet tabs (on render to excel)
  • Bottom-top text rotation
  • Session variables
• R2 to be released in first half of 2010 (CTP is already out).

Saturday Session 2 – Jamie Thomson’s Whistle Stop Tour of SSIS Add-ins

In this session Jamie took us through the fact that there are a number of SSIS custom tasks available on the intertubez. Many of them are free and can be found on CodePlex. There were only one or two slides (Jamie’s contact info), as the whole session was taken up demoing each of the tasks he had chosen.

XMLify (http://xmlify.codeplex.com) – takes columns that you specify (from a query/view) and loads them into an xml block. Jamie demoed this for capturing error outputs.

Kimball SCD (http://kimballscd.codeplex.com) – For slowly changing dimensions. Takes all data in the destination and for each column you can define it’s usage ( type 1 change, type 2 change, business key, surrogate key, etc). Type 1 changes will update the destination data based on the source data. This task is a monster. Loads of options for configurability.

Twitter task (http://ssistwittersuite.codeplex.com/) – I think this is awesome. You can automate sending your tweets. Careful though, password is in full view in design mode. You can also get all replies/mentions and then data mine them using the Term Extraction task. I can see this being used as a substitute for text (SMS) messaging notifications, for whatever you need to be notified about (if you’re always on Twitter).

Term Extraction – A data mining task to pick out nouns, verbs, phrases. Although not an add-in (comes with SSIS) this is still a neat task that I had not used previously. Jamie is using it to sift through the Twitter feed to his @ssisdemo Twitter account. Very cool use to see what people are saying (words & phrases), and how often each occurs. Could be useful, I guess.

Normaliser (http://normaliser.codeplex.com) – Normalises the data from an incoming data stream. Pure. Simple. Awesome. Data must be sorted as a prerequisite. This task only handles one to many relationships.

Rank Transform (http://ranktransform.codeplex.com) – Ranks a dataset by Partition. Enables you to view a dataset ordered and ranked (by specified column), as well as being able to specify a partition for the ranking (i,e, month). The dataset must be sorted before use. Rank & Dense Rank have their differences, specifically where you have two ranked values that are equal (a ranking ‘tie’). So, if you have two values that are equal and ranked ‘2’, then for the column RANK the next value will be ranked as ‘4’ whereas the column DENSE RANK the next value will be ranked as ‘3’. Still confused? Go here.

Zip task (http://cozyroc.com/ssis/zip-task)- this task takes a source file and compresses it into a gzip file (.gz). That’s it. Decompression decompresses the file. This will only work with a single file and not for a folder or multiple files. I think I would prefer to use 7zip and an Execute

FileWatcher (http://www.sqlis.com/post/File-Watcher-Task.aspx) – This task ‘watches’ a directory, when a file is detected it will progress the flow to the next task. Placed in an endless loop this will continually execute, and will pick up files as they arrive. Neat.

Trace File (http://www.sqlis.com/post/Trace-File-Source-Adapter.aspx) – understands a sql trace file and enables you to handle the trace file contents.

Data Flow Plus (http://www.cozyroc.com/ssis/data-flow-task) – Enables you to populate two different tables with the same data flow. Neat.

Trash Destination (http://www.sqlis.com/post/Trash-Destination-Adapter.aspx) – Enables you to send any data flow to a trash destination. No configuration required, so ideal for a number development scenarios.

This session, along with those by Donald Farmer, was the most enjoyable and one that I probably took the most away from. It opened my eyes to the world of custom SSIS tasks and that fact that so many of them are freely available (with source code so that you can tweak at leisure). Jamie definitely seems to be the go-to guy for SSIS related  info. If you haven’t checked out his site yet, I suggest doing so: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/default.aspx

Other SSIS Add-in Links:

• http://www.cozyroc.com
• http://ssisctc.codeplex.com/
• http://www.sqlis.com/category/Component-Downloads.aspx

Go to Part II of the SQLBits recap.

Using the DatePart() Function in SSRS can be tricky, even at the best of times. I have pulled my hair out too often trying to remember what syntax should be used, so have resorted to writing down all my findings. This is so that you don’t have to go through the same agony & frustration as I did, as well as for my own benefit (my memory is shot…)

What it does: Returns an Integer containing the specified part of a given date

Syntax: DatePart(interval, date[,firstdayofweek[,firstweekofyear]])

There are two ways to use this function:

• Using the DateInterval collection
• Using a string expression

Using the DateInterval Collection

Let’s start with an example:

To return the current month: =DatePart(DateInterval.Month, Today())

Now, in the expression builder (in BIDS), it will look like there’s something the matter with what we have just written:

You can ignore this, the expression will work. An important point to note when using the DateInterval collection, is that you must use a date that is of type Datetime. If you use a string representation of a date (“2009/11/13”), then you’ll need to convert this to Datetime using CDate(“2009/11/13”) before the expression will work. Thus:

This will work:  =DatePart(DateInterval.Month, CDate(“2009/11/13”))

This won’t:  = DatePart(DateInterval.Month, “2009/11/13”)

When you use the DatePart function to identify the day of the week you can specify what the First Day Of The Week is (defaults to Sunday if this is not specified). You can do this by accessing the FirstDayOfWeek collection. Example – To Return the day of the week, specifying Monday as the first day of the week:

DatePart(DateInterval.Weekday, CDate(“2009/11/13”), FirstDayOfWeek.Monday) returns 5 (Friday)

All the possibilities for using the DatePart() function with the DateInterval Collection:

The following table shows all the possibilities for the DatePart Function using the DateInterval collection. All expressions use a Parameter called MyDate (type = Datetime), which has a value of “2009/11/13 12:34:23”

Using a String Expression

Again, let’s start with an example:

To return the current month:  =DatePart(“m”, Today())

Using a String expression for your interval enables you to use a date that is of datatype String:

=DatePart(“m”, “2009/11/13”)

All the possibilities for using the DatePart() function with a String Expression:

As noted previously, using a string expression for the interval allows you to use a date value that is of the String datatype. You can of course use a Datetime value if you wish to.

This table shows all the possibilities for the DatePart function using a String Expression for the interval. All expressions use a Parameter called MyDate (type = String), which has a value of “2009/11/13 12:34:23”

Is there a preferred method?

Ultimately, no. At the end of the day, all the results are the same. What is my preference? I use the DateInterval collection, mainly becuase I like that fact that you can’t get confused about which date part you are using (w/ww, y/yyyy, n….). It’s very clear to anyone who is reading the code that (for example) DateInterval.WeekOfYear refers to the week of the year and nothing else. It also forces you to use a Datetime Value, which safeguards against invalid dates (sort of).

I hope this clears things up a little!

The SQLBits agenda is up! And not a moment too soon. I understand that the organisers had a few issues when initially trying to get the schedule on the site, but all is resolved. These guys do great work to provide an amazing service to the community, and all at their own expense. So every credit to them as well as a big thanks from the rest of us!

You can find the SQLBits agenda here: http://sqlbits.com/information/newagenda.aspx

Lending a hand

After reading Jeremiah Peschka’s (@peschkaj) article, Volunteering with PASS, I’ve realised the need to help out if I can. So, one of my goals at the conference is to find a few of the current organisers and figure how I can get involved. Is there any better way to rub shoulders with the best & the brightest out there? So, if Simon or James or Chris or Martin or Darren or Allan happen to read this, then consider this my offer to help. By the way, you’re all on my list of people to meet…

My Schedule

When I originally planned to go to SQLBits I wondered whether or not to go up on the Thursday evening or rush in on the Friday morning. I was never going to make the Thursday pre-con, so it was a toss up between shelling out more ££’s for another night in the hotel or risk missing the start of the Friday program. So I gambled and decided I would travel on the Friday morning. This was done before the agenda was published (train tickets are sooooo much cheaper if you book in advance, see my previous entry), hence the gamble. It seems to have paid off however, as registration is from 08:45 – 09:40 and I should arrive (hopefully) at around 09:30. Just in time.

Here’s my planned schedule (if you’re remotely interested):

Friday, 20th November:

Saturday, 21st November:

Sunday, 22nd November:

I’m hoping to meet a bunch of folks at the conference, so if you are going, let me know. It’s always easier to start a conversation if you’ve already introduced yourself, even if that is only in a ‘online’ sense. So, either leave a comment here or look me up on twitter (@lukehayler). Oh, and if you’re already on twitter and not using the #sqlbits tag for related posts, you should be.

I’m hunting for social events next….stay tuned.

SQLBits is almost upon us. In less than 10 days, around 400 people will be descending on the Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales for the 5th instalment of what I am led to believe is a first rate conference. Great speakers, great sessions, awesome venue, _____________ attendees. That space is intentional. I plan to fill it in once I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of you and making a few (hundred) new friends.

Preparations

So I’ve been reading a lot in the last few weeks. As the PASS Summit has just come and gone, there are a multitude of blog posts out there about conference preparation, travelling tips, ways to cut costs, what type of questions you should and shouldn’t be posing to speakers/vendors/other attendees, starting conversations with others, making new acquaintances, as well as those about the actual conference.

My preparations have be slow and steady. Research has been the main focus, with understanding what sessions are on offer, who the speakers are and what events will be taking place ‘after hours’. The first two items here are easily accomplished by venturing over to the sqlbits website where you will find a description of each of the intended sessions, the speakers and their bios with links to their websites and other web presences (twitter) if any exist – most do, but there are a few who seem to be ghosts on the information super-highway (ha! when was the last time that you heard that phrase…). Say what you like, but I believe that if you are a speaker then you should at least have a spot on the intertubez where people can find out more about you and download your slides.

I’ve ordered a bunch of business cards from moo.com. They’re of the mini variety and hold all the vital contact info as well as a mug shot of yours truly – so you can remember who to avoid look for at the next meet…

I’ve started to put together a few questions for key people that I’m aiming to stalk find, meet and get to know a little better. I’ll bribe them with whatever they need to persuade them to stick around long enough find out who I am and to answer my questions – I find beer works pretty well in most cases.

What to do, Where to go

In terms of sessions that I’m thinking of attending, it depends on the schedule. I’ve been informed however, that although the schedule for the sessions has been done, ‘technical difficulties’ have meant that they are not yet available for the rest of us. Let’s hope they fix the issue soon… wink wink nudge nudge. Once I know when the sessions are to take place I’ll post a list that I’ll be attending.

On to the important stuff. Social Events! I have been searching for a while now, but have still to find any reference to the ‘after hours events’ – think organised dinners and karaoke sessions at the PASS Summit. This is due to the fact that either there are no events (yet) or they haven’t been adequately advertised. So, if any of you readers do have knowledge of any planned social events, please let me know. If there aren’t any planned events, well…, we’ll have to change that. Pronto.

I’ll see you there. SQLbits 2009.

Who, What, Why & When

When I first got into blogging (not that long ago), all my writing was done online. It meant that I had to be connected when I wanted to write, which was fine most of the time. But I found that more and more I needed/wanted to write when I didn’t have the luxury of being online. When I was on the train for example. So I started using [notepad/word/other] to draft my posts and then used ‘copy/paste’ to transfer them to the blog. This was frustrating as any formatting in the draft would be mangled on pasting it into the ‘new post’ on the blog. It meant that I would have to reformat everything, normally with horrible consequences. Many of my earlier blog posts were of varying styles. Ugly stuff.

Then I found out about Windows Live Writer. It does everything I need it to do, from saving drafts, inserting pictures, hyperlinks, tables, maps, video, code snippets. All while preserving formatting [Paragraph, Heading1, heading2, headingn], which is handled in the blog at the other end of the tubez.

So what is Windows Live Writer? In their own words:

“Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts”

What are some of the features of WLW?

• Integration with most [all?] blogging sites (WordPress/Blogger/TypePad/Live Spaces…)
• WYSIWYG authoring
• Save drafts locally
• Publish to draft (on blog)
• Scheduling – set the publish date & time.
• A great UI.
• Photo editing (basic) – crop, tilt, border styles, tints (no caption inclusion though???)
• Photo albums (care of Windows Live Photo Albums)
• Insert & publish video (YouTube)
• Tagging – both server-side and 3rd party integration (technorati, del.icio.us, etc)
• A whole load of plugins – I use Code Snippet & Polaroid Picture among others
• Multi-Blog management
• Many of the Microsoft keyboard shortcuts you are already used to –Ctrl [S|C|V|I|B|Z|Y|K|etc]

Getting Started

Firstly, go download the setup file. There is a gotcha here though. When you click the link you’ll be directed to the download page for WL Writer and should get a ‘Save as’ dialog box pop-up. This file is only 1.1MB and will not fulfil your installation requirements. Cancel that download and instead click the ‘Try Again’ button located on the right. This will download a much larger file (~135MB), which will enable you to successfully install WL Writer.

Installation is straight forward, just follow each of the instructions selecting the options you want and click ‘next’.

Setting up a connection to your blog

Once installed, locate & run WL Writer to set up your blog account(s). If you don’t yet have a blog, you can set up a Live Spaces blog from Writer, otherwise you will need to go to your preferred provider and create one.

WL Writer will attempt to get your blog’s template (so that you can preview your posts in all their formatted glory), and you will likely get a message pop-up asking if you would like WLW to detect the blog theme by posting a temporary post:

The fact that this does not work (most of the time – for me with WordPress) and that when it does (blogger), it makes writing a post quite awkward, so I have chosen to say ‘NO’ here. This means that I create my posts without previewing the theme that I use on the blog. I still use the Paragraph/header formatting that’s available which is carried through to the blog – which will apply the appropriate style sheet and ensure consistency to the look & feel.

Update – a recent update to WLW has meant that previewing your posts using the theme from your blog now works just fine. With no funny business.

Plugins

There are a number of great plugins available for integration with Windows Live Writer. The preinstalled features include the following:

The ones I use at the moment are (the last two on the list above):

- Code Snippet an AWESOME plugin that formats any code that you paste into it in the style associated with the code type that you choose. Here’s a sample in SQL:

- Polaroid Picture allows you to add pictures to your blog posts with captions, as in the picture above. Honestly though, the caption is the only real difference over the integration Picture… feature.

Categories, Tags & Scheduling

Adding Categories (or topics), Tags and a publishing date (& time) can be done easily using the category/tag/publish boxes located at the bottom part of the application:

You can also add Tags using your favourite provider (Technorati, del.icio.us, etc) using the Tags…. plugin.

That’s about it. Now all that remains is to write your posts and save locally or online as a draft or publish to your blog (immediately or at a specified date & time).

Happy typing!

Let’s just assume that…

You’ve created your data driven subscription (File share) for your reporting services report, and everything is as it should be. The subscribers table has been created, populated and correctly mapped to the required fields in the subscription (FileName, Path, Format, Parameters, etc), the schedule is set. And then you test your subscription.

The Error Message Status

The schedule has run and you find this very helpful error message status beside you subscription in Report Manager. Scratching your head you dive into the Error & Event logs searching (in vain) for those few lines that will shed some light on the question “Why did those 2 errors occur?” Nothing.

Found ‘em!

Hidden away in its own folder are the Reporting Services Log Files:

*C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\LogFiles

*This may be different depending on your installation

More specifically, you’ll need to look at the ReportServerService__mm_dd_yyyy_hh__mm_ss.log files. These files will list, among other things, any errors encountered in your Data Driven Subscriptions. Here’s mine:

From this I could deduce that there was a problem with the filename that was being used for one of the reports. Once I had reviewed all the filenames being used and had updated those that contained the special characters (2 of them), the subscription ran without a hitch. Problem solved.

So the bottom line here is, if you have any issues with you reports look in the reporting services log file.

Be gentle, It’s my first time

I have never attended a SQL Conference, but yesterday I took steps to rectify that situation. I registered for SQLBits Goes West, which is being held at the Celtic Manor in Newport, South Wales. Check out the SQLBits website for all the info. I am not able to get the Thursday off work but will be attending the Friday and Saturday sessions as well as any social events that crop up.

Building Your (My) Network

I have read several blog posts about networking and the value of your network. I can safely say that in my experience I count the value of my network very highly. It is a resource to be treasured, nurtured and utilised. One of my goals at SQLBits, and something that I am really looking forward to, is meeting more SQL Server folks. I currently follow a handful of people on Twitter and will be growing that number as quickly as I can over the next few weeks in an effort to get to ‘know’ a few more people before setting foot in the Celtic Manor. If you’re going and I’m not yet on your follower list, look me up (@lukehayler).

With a host of speakers and up to 350 participants there is a huge potential to extend your network. As I said before, I have not been to a conference and have only attended one SSUG (in person – many live meetings), so am going to be working the crowd as best I can (care of @BrentO’s weekly links):

I believe that I am actually quite a shy person, but there are those that could not disagree with me more. You’ll have to be the judge….

People who I believe are attending that I’d like to meet/meet again:

• Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter)
• Jamie Thompson (Blog | Twitter)
• Simon Sabin (Blog | Twitter)
• Martin Bell (Blog)
• Dr John Tunncliffe (Blog)
• Vivek Serou (Blog | Twitter)
• John Stevens-Taylor

Logistics

Conference: Booking a place at the SQLBits conference was straight forward. Just go to the registration page and follow the instructions. Apparently there are ‘only‘ 350 places, so be quick.

Accommodation:I have opted to stay at the Celtic Manor (Manor House Hotel) as it was not that much more expensive (with SQLBits discount) than other options close by and it affords me the convenience of being onsite (so no taxi fares, which make up the difference in the price anyhow). The key here (as per SQLBits website) is to call the Celtic Manor booking line on (+44) 01633 410 262 and book a room on the SQLBits book direct. This will mean that you get the discounted rate of £70/night instead of the £99/night.

Transportation: I will be catching the train from London Paddington to Newport, South Wales (care of First Great Western). I highly recommend booking this in advance (National Rail) – Normal return fare (anytime – travelling 20th Nov at 7am returning 22nd Nov at 10am) is (GBP) £173, booking in advance = (GBP) £44! That’s a fair saving, allowing me to get in a round of golf. If only…

Breaking down the costs:

*Early bird special. This offer ends today (30th September), so hurry! has been extended to 31st October.

There is also an option on Conference registration for car sharing if you would prefer to try and save a bit more (including the planet).

Share the Love

I love the community, those people that are constantly giving back and are more than happy to share their knowledge with ‘the rest of us’. So thank you to those who share and to those who speak/organise & sponsor these events.

I am thoroughly looking forward to learning a lot, meeting some great people and making a few friends along the way. Hopefully I’ll see you there.