Click Image to Visit the Forum

The other day I suggested to Bill Jelen that he might want to add a PowerPivot-dedicated forum on MrExcel.com.  I wasn’t sure what he would say, to be honest.  I mean, he didn’t have a dedicated forum for really anything else – there wasn’t one for VBA, wasn’t one for formulas, wasn’t one for charts.  Instead basically all of those are combined in one single forum.

I respect that approach, really.  If my question involves formulas, charts, and VBA, where would I put such a question?  If he’d segmented the forums like that, it may have fragmented the discussion and ultimately resulted in an ineffective forum.

So I was perfectly prepared for him to say “good idea Rob but I’d rather not introduce noise with a new forum.”  Grudgingly I would have been forced to accept that.  But I was hoping he’d bend the rules just a bit here and make an exception, since PowerPivot still IS very new to the Excel audience.

I was overthinking it.  He loved the idea.  And the forum is already off to a decent start.

So if you have a question, pop on over there and post it.  Also, feel free to answer questions as well – I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall behind soon.

Oh, and be kind to newcomers.  One of the benefits of this new forum is that the legions of Excel pros who frequent MrExcel.com will undoubtedly notice all the activity and wonder what this whole “PowerPivot” thing is all about.

Here’s the link again:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=29

“I have detailed files.”

A few quick mini-posts today.  First up, I was recently asked if there was a way to see the title of every post and its URL all in one place for reference.  And the answer is…  no, but there should be.

Next week I hope to add a page to the site that provides that sort of index.  In the meantime, here’s a really rough export of all 300+ post titles and URL’s.  It’s not perfect by any stretch but you may find it useful in the meantime.

It is, of course, in Excel format

Click here to download the list of all
300+ posts and their URL’s

Back in January with Renewed Vigor and Two Posts Per Week!

Well folks it’s been 15 straight weeks of two posts per week (Tuesday and Thursday), sometimes with bonus posts.  Your PowerPivot bloggers are taking a bit of a break over the next two weeks and then resuming our twice-weekly program with a fresh and rested perspective.

In the meantime we may have a bonus post or two, but no guarantees until January 2nd

Have a great holiday season everyone and we’ll see you in two weeks.

Anyway, part two of “why PowerPivot is better fed from a database” is coming later today.  The blog is on an eleven-week streak of consistent Tuesday/Thursday posts and I’m not about to mess that up

***UPDATE***:  We have filled all available positions for the moment.  We may open new positions in the future of course, but also, we expect to be in a position to refer business to 3rd party SSIS/SQL professionals, so please still feel free to submit resumes in the meantime.

–

At a high level, we have two separate but related businesses at Pivotstream: 

1. “Full-Service” BI Subscriptions – an example of which is covered in a blog post and then as a Microsoft case study.
2. Self-Service PowerPivot Environments – including low-cost, optimized hosting as well as onsite training and software.

Both revolve around PowerPivot (and, in the near future, Tabular BISM). 

Both require a lot of backend SQL work to ingest, shape, and prepare data before it can be optimally consumed in PowerPivot.

And both businesses are booming.

If you are a SQL/SSIS professional with five years or more experience, have a friendly and flexible attitude, and want to witness firsthand the transformation of the BI industry, please drop us a resume:

info@pivotstream.com

Relocation is not required – we are very “telecommute friendly.”  We do ask that you be a US resident, however.

Apparently there was a Denial of Service attack against the server that hosts the blog.

Clearly, there are people out there who don’t want you to get your hands on PowerPivot.  (I seriously doubt I was the target here, but it makes for a good story ).

Anyway, I’m pretty sure other firms could have handled this more quickly. 

I think it may be time to take the blog and put it over at Rackspace, which is where all of our production PowerPivot farms have been running since January (and with zero disruptions).

This time though there will be no disruption to RSS and Email subscriptions.

That’s what you call…  a backlog. 

(BTW, if you don’t use OneNote, I highly recommend it.  It can boost your productivity by 20% and that may be an understatement, depending on how well you take to it.  I edit that list from about 5 different computers and it synchs with no issue).

Anyway, as an experiment, I’m going to try getting myself onto a regular schedule of posting every Tuesday and Thursday – either a post by me or a guest post.  I call it an experiment because I don’t know how well it’s going to work until I try it.  You know how Google was originally labeled a “Beta” for seemingly 10 years?  Let’s call this “The Tuesday-Thursday PowerPivotPro Beta Release.”

Hey, we could even spin up a game on the side where we bet on how long I can maintain it.  I’ll sit out for conflict of interest reasons of course.  But here’s a hint:  I already have the next few posts written.

So be on the lookout starting tomorrow, with the “Incredible Iffer-Blanker Filter Measure.”

Ideally you will NOT notice a difference, but if you do, PLEASE let me know.  I’m rob.  At a place called pivotstream.  You know, dot com.

If you are receiving this post via RSS or Email, then you have NO ACTION to take.  If you subscribed since about November 2010, that subscription should carry over just fine.

But some of you have RSS or Email subscriptions from a long time ago, and sadly, those will need to be re-established.  I will notify those folks separately.

Presentation titled:  “PowerPivot: SharePoint 2010’s Secret Weapon” at 1:55 PM.

Event Directions Et Cetera:  http://sharepointsaturday.org/columbus/Pages/about.aspx 

And yes, I have some real posts coming.  It’s been VERY busy lately, in a good way.  One of my biggest problems is “paralysis” on what to write about first

1) HostedPowerPivot Interest – Wow!

We’re blown away by the response to HostedPowerPivot.com.  I’ve spent multiple hours on the phone today with longtime blog readers – an added benefit of this is getting to know some of you better.  Very cool, seeing all the different usage cases people have in mind.

2) Webinar with Rackspace June 8th

I’m going to be doing a PowerPivot webinar with Jeff DeVerter, SharePoint guru at Rackspace, on June 8th.  It’s going to be more of an intro to PowerPivot, so longtime readers here may find it elementary.  But there will be some fun demos, and Jeff is a really dynamic personality, so I am looking forward to it.

Click here to view the agenda, and to reserve a spot

3) Part two of “portable formulas” is live on the Excel blog

I’m 100% serious that formula portability is one of the top 3 benefits of PowerPivot over normal Excel, it’s just taken me awhile to figure out how to explain it.

Click here for part two

…and here if you missed part one