Building BI Solutions using Excel and SharePoint 2013 with Ted Pattison

Building BI Solutions with Excel and SharePoint 2013 is an intensive 3-day course for business analysts, expert Excel users and BI developers that want to learn about the fundamental concepts and tools used to create business solutions using the Business Intelligence (BI) features of Microsoft Excel 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013.

The first day of this course focuses on the self-service BI features provided by Microsoft Excel 2013 and the Power Pivot add-in. Students will learn the fundamentals of using Power Pivot and Data Access Expression language (DAX) to create an Excel data model with calculated columns, calculated fields and dimensional hierarchies. Student will additionally learn how to create a time table and add it to an Excel data model to provide support for time intelligence functionality.

The second day begins by each students how to use the Excel Power View add-in to create Excel data model visualizations within an Excel workbook. Students will also learn how to use Excel Services and Power Pivot for SharePoint to publish an Excel workbook with a data model to make BI visualizations and reports available to a wider audience of BI consumers. The day ends with a discussion of data warehousing and how to design and deploy multidimensional cubes using SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

The third day of this course explores the available options for creating and publishing a professional BI solution in a SharePoint 2013 environment. Students will learn how to create and deploy BI dashboards with KPIs and scorecards using PerformancePoint Services and the PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer. Students will also learn to take advantage of SharePoint’s integration with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) as well as the BI support provided by Microsoft Visio and Visio Services.