Friday, February 13, 2015

The Effect of Incorrect SQL Data Types

On taking over an existing data transfer and comparison system I was intrigued to notice that a seemingly simple SSIS process was taking over four hours to run - on a daily basis.  Something didn’t seem right, and on investigation it turned out there were lots of improvements to be made.  This blog is covering only one of them: the importance of choosing the correct SQL data types.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

My first SSIS project: Part 1

 Helping myself and other beginners gain a better understanding of SSIS

I want to show my understanding and the methods I found from the Internet and colleagues to explain the concepts of SSIS. The reason I am doing this blog is because I want to leave a little bit of a guide for myself. If this blog sheds some light on the functionality of SSIS for you as the reader then that is great.
Some of the blog tutorials I have gone through are either are very vague and sometimes can’t be easily followed, other blogs have too much information and takes a lot of effort to maintain attention on the tutorial. I want my tutorials to be concise and easy to follow. Another reason for the creation of this blog is so that I won’t be constantly searching the internet for stuff I used before in my SSIS projects.


Converting a SAS application into a working SSIS project

My journey began with unveiling my new mission that was given to me by the SQL Secret Services: To unravel if it was possible to convert a current SAS application that was run manually by a user once a week. I was to help the poor unfortunate soul get rid of this burden.

So I began my destined journey to complete the difficult but possible mission.


Monday, February 9, 2015

PowerBI Update

There have been a few rumblings in the PowerBI (Microsoft`s cloud BI solution) world of late.

With the visual analytics and self-service BI world as competitive as it is, this is good news for anyone who has a strategy built on the Microsoft BI toolset.

Here are the highlights:


Thursday, January 15, 2015

GIF Animations in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer(IE) has an inherent problem with animating .gif images which are originally hidden.
The reason is that IE loads the .gif but does not start the animation when it is hidden.
Unfortunately the animation does not start when it made visible thus appearing to be frozen.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014


Choosing the Right BI Platform

In any business environment the critical mission is staying ahead of your competitors and ahead of the economy, choosing the right business intelligence (BI) platform can give you the competitive advantage you need for success. Taking time up front to evaluate your current environment and to define your goals and objectives are key in identifying a solution that will best fit your organization's needs and ensure long term success.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Can someone give me a Template please?


Can someone give me a Template please?

In this post I’m going to explain how to create a custom template that you can add to your Report Server and it will then appear in the Visual Studio installed templates list when you add a new report to your project.