Back in the Saddle

Howdy all,

It has been a while but I am back.   While we have been rebuilding our B.I. practice and trying to get lost and cold leads all ramped up again, I have been working on a couple of Dynamics GP implementation projects.  However, last week we began our first Clarity implementation.  We have done our analysis and design sessions with the client (a large financial institution based in Toronto) and now we begin our requirements document and once we have sign-off we begin the actual design.  All leading up towards a September 1st go-live.  It is going to be a wild ride.   But all I can say is WHOOO HOOOO as after 6 months I am finally back in the B.I. game!

At the start of last week I also attended some more advanced Clarity 6 training.  It was interesting comparing Clarity to PerformancePoint Planning.  Clarity has (for the most part) all the bells and whistles, from an end-user point of view, we had wished were native to PPS.  All the stuff that caused us to bang our heads against the wall (i.e., input validation, note aggregation/roll-up with row and cell level notes, add lines on the fly, etc.) is there.  It is the stuff we figured Microsoft would have added in v2 and v3 of PPS.   However, what I am now missing is how automated and easy the database and cube creation process was within PPS.  The creation process is a manual one within Clarity.  Because of that, expect me to get much better in creating databases and analysis cubes and using Visual Studio.  I will post what I learn. 

I hope to get back to the once per week posting schedule.

And The Winner Is…

So after much research, discussion and thought, TGO Consulting has mapped out the new road map for our business intelligence practice.  A lot of work has gone into our decisions and I hope we have made the right choices.  I can’t speak for everyone here, but if I have to be involved in restructuring a BI practice a 3rd time, you are going to next see me on the evening news with the phrase ”goes postal” being used to describe my actions. 

After the dust (and anger) settled on the January PPS announcement we got down to business and began working out our options.  We were still convinced that there was a huge opportunity for BI/CPM offerings and even though Microsoft might have made a stupid decision we still wanted to pursue the market.

The first thing we did was to decide if we were still on-board with PerformancePoint M&A now that it was being shifted to the SharePoint group.  Ultimately the answer was “yes”, although we did/do have some concerns as to how much attention (i.e., development dollars, marketing, support, etc.) PeformancePoint Services will be receiving now and in the future.  We also worry about the potential marginalization of the product.  The fear here is a potential erroneous perception that since it is now a “free” feature within MOSS, then just how good could it be and just how seriously is it being handled by Microsoft.  Because of that we have decided to boost our offerings in this area and will be utilizing more Excel (with and without Gemini), Virtual Earth and Visio into our solutions.  We are also toying with adding Xcelsius to our mix as well.

So after we had taken care of the M&A side of the house we had to decide what to do for planning.  We we were committed to offering a complete CPM solution.  Right away we decided that before any final decision we would wait until the Dynamics group released their product road map.  Not only did it make business sense to wait, but I think to some degree, as irrational as it was, we still hoped that the Dynamics team would decide that PPS Planning made the most sense and that they would keep it alive.   Hope springs eternal as they say.   

So What Next?

With the demise of PerformancePoint Planning both TGO and myself have had to adjust our BI strategy.   It has taken many months and a lot of effort but we have finally finalized our new plans (pretty much).  The new plan will include implementation of another high-end planning package, although we are not ready to formally announce any selection yet.  Stay tuned though as we hope to  have something formalized in the next few weeks.

So with this new strategy you will see more of the following in this blog:

• PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics as the stand-alone product it is today
• Using Virtual Earth, Excel and Visio as a front-ends to help visually present data to the end user
• Implementation of SharePoint and using it as a central hub for displaying line of business data
• Posts on the new planning application once we finalize our selection

Now that things will hopefully be getting back to normal for us, I am going to try getting back to posting new content at least once per week.

Sign of the Apocalypse — I’m a Microsoft MVP

I got the email this morning congratulating me on being awarded the MVP designation from Microsoft.  I am now a SQL Server MVP.  Whoa!

So why SQL Server when all my knowledge and contributions were pretty much based around PerformancePoint Server?  Damn good question.  As I understand it, a group of us were nominated in the PerformancePoint Server category and in the queue prior to Microsoft deciding to discontinue PPS as a stand-alone product.  However, since the awards are “product based” when PPS went away they had to put us somewhere.  I am guessing that since PPS was a business intelligence product they figured it made the most sense to put us under the product that is platform that delivers BI for Microsoft — SQL Server.  If you think about it, anyone who successfully implemented PerformancePoint (Planning or M&A) had to deal with SQL or SSAS on a regular basis.  I am sure others might make a case that SharePoint would have been the better choice.  Who knows.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank a few others here at TGO Consulting for all their hard work.  Shout outs are in order for Grantley, Richard and most definitely Jerry.  All of them work on PerformancePoint with me and their knowledge and experience has contributed to my own.   

Finally a big thanks to those clients who took a leap of faith on PerformancePoint.  Without their ”unique” needs as a driving force, I never would have been driven to learn PerformancePoint to the degree I did. 

I am still wading through the materials that cover all the benefits of being an MVP.  What jumped out at me is that I think the award entitles me to stay free at Bill Gates’ house whenever I visit the Seattle area.  I could be reading things wrong though.  Can anyone confirm this for me?