Quick Intro: Hi there, my name is Denny Lee and I’ve been a long time data geek (hence the focus on SQL and Analysis Services) with an inkling toward Healthcare.
Formal Intro: Denny Lee is a Senior Program Manager based out of Redmond, WA in the SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) – DW/BI Group within Microsoft. He has more than 15 years experience as a developer and consultant implementing software solutions to complex OLTP and data warehousing problems. His industry experience includes accounting, human resources, automotive, retail, web analytics, telecommunications, and healthcare. He had helped create the first OLAP Services reporting application in production at Microsoft and is a co-author of
- Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint
- Professional Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 with MDX,
- Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Warehousing with Analysis Services and
He regularly contributes to SQLCAT.com and you can review his personal blog at http://dennyglee.com. Denny specializes in developing solutions for Enterprise Data Warehousing, Analysis Services, and Data Mining; he also has focuses in the areas of Privacy and Healthcare.
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So there you have it! Hope this blog is useful to you and provides some great information. And if you’re wondering, yes – that really is one of my own pictures (not stock photos) that I took from Waikiki Beach. Did I try to do a metaphor between the sun and enlightenment, and the enlightenment of BI? Nah, just liked the beach! 
Hi,
i have got a question. I’m looking forward to use the excel powerpivot november ctp addin, but after a successfull installation I havn’g got a ribbon in excel.
How can I solve this issue? thx in advance
best regards
tim mischkin
Hi Tim,
Sorry about the delay in response, you can find more information about this at: http://powerpivotfaq.com/Lists/TGPPF/DispForm.aspx?ID=5&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fpowerpivotfaq%2Ecom%2FLists%2FTGPPF%2FAllItems%2Easpx.
HTH!
Denny
Hi Denny,
We are using Analysis Services heavily at my company to deliver analytics to users. (www.retailsolutions.com).
We have had problems with the cube synchronization – some times with error of “transport layer”; some times others. I am wondering if you can tell me if there is any sync problem if the cube process server is on SQL 2008 and the query server (facing end users) SQL 2008 R2.
Any directions you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Shantha Mohan
Hi Shantha,
Ahh, technically SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2008 R2 is not officially supported. While I can see it work, this is one of those features where backward compatibility isn’t supported, eh?!
HTH!,
Denny
Thanks; I was hoping there was something we were missing.
Hi Denny.
I’m currently working on a large project for one of our clients. There is a need for extracting and analyzing various data, and PowerPivot seems to be a good tool for the job. The challenge that I’ve had is to make a PowerPivot solution flexible for deployment. We’ve got several developing, testing and production environments, and our solutions are deployed to these environments as needed.
What we desire is a way to automate the deployment process to the various environments, especially setting which database PowerPivot should use by altering a config file of some form. I know this is somehow possible in plain Excel by using ODC files, but haven’t found a similar solution for PowerPivot.
Hi Lasse,
For V1 of the PowerPivot product, there is no straight-forward way to build an automated deployment solution. The reason for this is because V1 of PowerPivot is about self-service BI – allow your analysts to build reports her or his self against the real data. For now, I would suggest creatung an alias for the database so that you can refer to the same server/database in each environment – or rebuild. Yeah, not the best options, eh!?
While I cannot commit what is being considered for future releases of PowerPivot, we are considering your scenario where IT can easily automate and deploy PowerPivot workbooks on behalf of their customer.
Hope this helps!
Denny