COALESCE(NULLIF( a1.YourColumnName,''), 'No Name')

A good explanation of how it works at JeffsHouseOfNullIf.

USE ReportingDatabase

GO

CREATE ROLE db_executerole

GO

GRANT EXECUTE TO db_executerole

GO

EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_executerole', 'ReportingorActiveDirectoryLogin'

GO

xcopy D:\*.* E: /s/e/f 

…where D: is the location of your mounted ISO image and E: is the location of your USB flash drive.

As long as your BIOS is set to boot from USB – Happy days.

Right click on your report parameter, select “Parameter Properties”, select “Default Values”, select “Get Values From a Query”, select the same dataset you configured for “Available Values” and select the Value field for this dataset.

To install, follow the download link and select either the 64 or 32 bit depending on your server operating system.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13255

Note, before installing, make sure you don’t install both versions on the same server otherwise you may run into this issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2269468

Once installed, add a linked server to your Access database then attempt a SELECT from this database using OPENQUERY as follows.

EXEC sp_addlinkedserver
 @server='access97',
 @provider='Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0',
 @srvproduct='OLE DB Provider for ACE',
 @datasrc='\\Server\fileshare\Access97.mdb'
SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY(access97, 'select * from table')

The following config may be required if you get an error message after attempting to SELECT above.

EXEC master.dbo.sp_msset_oledb_prop N'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0', N'AllowInProcess', 1
EXEC master.dbo.sp_msset_oledb_prop N'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0', N'DynamicParameters', 1

Use a similar method to connect to Excel 2010.  Add the linked server then you can faciliate data transfer using OPENQUERY.

EXEC sp_addlinkedserver
    @server = 'excel2010',
    @srvproduct = 'Excel',
    @provider = 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0',
    @datasrc = 'C:\Temp\ExcelWorkbook.xlsx',
    @provstr = 'Excel 12.0;IMEX=1;HDR=YES;'
   
SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY(excel2010, 'SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]')

Happy extracting!

Power View is the new data visualisation tool that comes with Reporting Services 2012 (Enterprise and Business Intelligence editions only) when integrated with Sharepoint 2010.  PowerPivot (v2 or 2012 edition) is the data integration tool that is a plugin to Excel 2010.  You can download the new PowerPivot for Excel 2010 here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29074.  Both are self service tools that work nicely with each other to allow end users to integrate data then compile data visualisations without needing to bother I.T. much.

Business Users don’t need to know that Power View used to be called Crescent in utero – rather, Power View is ideal for workplaces that like to produce highly visual monthly reports for senior management that show a variety of different data visualisations relevant to running of the business.   The catch is the monthly reports need to be printed out in full colour and bound prior to the monthly meeting but also needs to be presented on the data projector.  There is a degree of chopping that needs to go into compiling these monthly reports and the export to PowerPoint feature of Power View plugs in nicely to this requirement.

Lets get started ….Before you install PowerPivot you will need to download and install Visual Studio 2010 tools for Office runtime http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20479.  Once installed you will be able to install PowerPivot and then the next time you open Excel, PowerPivot will install and you will have your PowerPivot tab available.

You can create your PowerPivot workbook and publish to your PowerPivot Gallery on Sharepoint.   From here you need to create a BISM connection file that points to your PowerPivot workbook which is just the full Sharepoint URL to the location of your PowerPivot XLSX file.  The following reference outlines how to create your BISM connection file to a PowerPivot workbook http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213103.aspx.

Once your BISM Connection File has been created you can click on the little chevron beside the file and a dropdown list of options should hopefully include “Create Power View Report”.   This will launch the silverlight reporting interface allowing you create and save your Power View .RDLX report.  A basic reference for creating Power View reports is outlined here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231522.aspx.  A more detailed reference for creating Power View visuals is outlined here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213579.aspx.

Once you use Power View you will see the benefits for an application such as end of month management reports.

If you like your numeric date keys, you can convert a DateTime value to a number in the format yyyymmdd using the following formula…

=VALUE(TEXT(TODAY(),"yyyymmdd"))

First lets go back 12 years or so when Excel was a dirty word…proliferation of Excel spreadsheets, multiple versions of the truth throughout the organisation and a business rules tier that was hidden on someone’s hard drive with no backup or business continuity process. Now Excel is the comeback kid in the red corner of the ring for managed Business Intelligence.

To tackle the issue of fuzzy data matching, we might normally utilise the SQL Server Integration Services SSIS Fuzzy Lookup task to achieve this. It will work nicely, except when you don’t have Enterprise or Developer editions (Fuzzy components don’t even come with the new Business intelligence edition).

We turn our hand at Excel (the future of business friendly data integration and analysis) and utilise the fuzzy lookup add-in. Its free
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15011 and easier to use than the SSIS alternative.

Simply download the plugin, run the setup, then next time you open Excel 2010 you will get a prompt to install which add a Fuzzy Lookup tab to play with.

Your worksheet should have at least two worksheets to begin with, a list of dirty unsanitised data, and a list of clean reference data to match against. In fuzzy lookup terminology these two tables will be referred to from now on as the Left (dirty) and the Right (reference) table respectively.

Select a new (third) worksheet, then select the Fuzzy Lookup tab and click the Fuzzy Lookup button at top left of screen. This will launch a Fuzzy Lookup workspace where you can create your transformation.

You now need to tell the Fuzzy lookup engine what a partial match will look like and how it will behave. Clear the existing Match columns, then select the column in the Left Columns list you want to match or cleanse against to the column in the Right Columns list (your reference table). For name matching this could be more than 1 column however this example assumes only a one column match. Select the column from your clean reference worksheet in the Right Columns box.

Move the Similarity Threshold Slider to the desired match score which is how strict you the match to be (1 is the strictest i.e. exact match), less than 1 is a partial match. Select the number of matches you want to return (default is 1).

Adjust the Output columns as required which are the combination of columns from your two tables, that will be returned in the new third worksheet.

Once the fuzzy transformation completes you can use this data for further analysis in your Powerpivot database. Convert your new Fuzzy output data to an Excel table (Ctrl+L) then you will be able to create a Linked table into Powerpivot where the data can be further analysed.

The Fuzzy lookup add in for Excel provides a free means of performing fuzzy lookup transformations on data. This will work well for manual executions, however should you require a seamless automated mechanism, you may want to look at SSIS components (either the Fuzzy components or third party SSIS add-ons). The Fuzzy lookup add-in will also support several match criteria.