Visual Intelligence - Book Review

Time for something a bit different on my blog, a book review! I haven't done any book reviews on here before because I'm not much of a book reader and especially not technical books. Usually I just skip around and reference the chapters that I need, but for this book I actually read it cover to cover. And on top of all that I'm reviewing a book that I actually know all of the authors, so no pressure.

The book that I'm reviewing is "Visual Intelligence: Microsoft Tools and Techniques for Visualizing Data" by Mark Stacey (blog | Twitter), Joe Salvatore (blog) and Adam Jorgensen (blog | Twitter) published by Wiley on April 2013. The first thing that you will notice about this book is that it is published in color, and no I'm not just talking about the cover, but the pages in the book actually have color printing throughout. While most of you may think that this isn't a big deal, for technical books it is very rare that you can get a publisher to take this risk since it does add to the cost of the printing the book. In the case of this book though, it is required that it be printed in color because of the different visualizations being shown throughout along with helping to highlight points throughout about good and bad use of color in visualizations. There are many diagrams, screenshots and pictures throughout the book, which help to summarize the various tools that are being referenced. This is probably the strongest point about this book is that it does a great job outlining exactly what each Microsoft visualization tool does and does not do. The technologies covered are all Microsoft in this book, so you will not find any comparisons in detail on the Microsoft tools over a competitor, which I think helps to narrow the focus of this book and prevents it from becoming overly complex in explaining what each tool can or cannot do. The Microsoft technologies covered span from Microsoft Excel, SQL Server Reporting Services, PerformancePoint to the newest PowerPivot and Power View and few others in-between.

This book is great for anyone that is evaluating various Microsoft visualization tools and having a hard time deciding which ones to use in their applications. It is also great review for those that have used most or all of these technologies over the years to make sure you understand them and help to explain the newer ones that you may not know so much about. I have used all of the tools mentioned in this book in various applications over the years, so for me this book provided a great resource for clearing up why certain tools only do things in a very specific way. In the end I think that I will use this book in the future as a reference tool when I go into a client that is not sure what visualizations they want to use to help make the discussions go quicker and be able to provide quick samples of each.

I also want to mention that there are exercises that you can do in just about every section of this book. I did not actually go through these exercises at this time, but I do hope to have the time to go back and do that in the near future. To do all of these exercises you will need quite a bit of software since Microsoft has all of these tools spread across the SQL Server, SharePoint and Office families of products. There are instructions provided or links mentioned in the book for how to get all of this software setup along with where to get the sample data used. There is also a website setup by Wiley for this book that contains more information related to the book.

Overall, I found this book to be a very easy read and provided a great overview of lots of different tools in the Microsoft product list that can be used for visualizing data. The book also throws in some of the history of visualizations too, which I found really fascinating, especially the pictures of some very early ones. If you are thinking about using Microsoft tools for data visualization and unsure which tools to use, this book would be perfect for you since it will give you the details for each tool and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Even if you are a developer that works with these technologies, I'm sure just like me you still can get confused on which tools do which visualizations better than others, so it works as a great quick reference for that as well. And if you are looking for just that type of comparison, Appendix A has all of the features for each tool summarized in tables that makes it very easy to find the right tool for the job.

If you are interested in getting this book, below is the link to Amazon.com to pick it up and it is also available in Kindle format, but I would recommend only reading that on a color device (Kindle Fire, iPad, Surface or any other color capable tablet/e-book reader).

http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Intelligence-Techniques-Visualizing-ebook/dp/B00CGH75AS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369770521&sr=1-2&keywords=visual+intelligence

Building a Microsoft BI Demo Environment

I've been asked at multiple meetings in the last month what is the best way to build a Microsoft BI demo environment. There are a few ways that you can do this:

Excel 2013

If you have access to Excel 2013 (you can get the 60 day evaluation version here), both PowerPivot and Power View are included as add-ins that don't require additional downloads (or SharePoint), just activate them from the File menu, select Options.

Then select Add-Ins from the Options left navigation panel. In the Add-Ins panel change the Manage dropdown at the bottom of the panel to COM Add-ins and click Go....

From the COM Add-Ins popup, check the boxes for Microsoft Office PowerPivot for Excel 2013 and Power View and then click OK to close the popup.

That should add the POWERPIVOT menu to your Excel 2013 menu bar and allow you to build PowerPivot workbooks.

To create Power View reports, just go to the Insert menu and click on the Power View button that should appear between PivotChart and Sparklines items in the ribbon.

With Excel 2013 you can create the PowerPivot/Power View workbook and save them as normal Excel workbooks without requiring SharePoint or other software on your computer.

Microsoft Virtual Labs

Microsoft has posted virtual labs that you access with an internet connection. All of these labs are provided free of charge, but there is a limit of time you can access each lab. This link will take you to a list of all available labs, or use this link to go right to the Power View lab or this link for the PowerPivot lab. There are also some TechNet virtual labs that you can access from this link as well.

Virtual Machine

The last and most complex to setup option is to build your own complete VM (or VMs). For this option you will have full control over the environment, but you will need to install and configure all of the software yourself. For a complete environment you will need to install Windows Server, SQL Server, SharePoint and Office. For help getting all of this installed and configured in the correct order, see this post put together by Microsoft. This guide is also available, but it is a bit dated since it is using SQL 2008R2 and SharePoint 2010. There is also a guide for specifically setting up SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2010. All of the software that is required for setting up this VM(s) is available in evaluation versions, just keep in mind that these versions will expire after a period of time (180 days max). The other thing to keep in mind is that you can buy a TechNet Professional annual subscription for $349 (renewal $249 after first year), you might also find this cheaper online. I recommend the TechNet Professional license over the other versions of TechNet because it does include license keys for all of the Enterprise server products that Microsoft offers.

Microsoft has also provided a version of a VM (previously referred to as the Microsoft All-Up BI Image) that you can download, this VM can be run in HyperV, VirtualBox or VMWare and is available at this location. Here is a review of this VM from Dan English. Microsoft has said that they are working on a new version of this image, but it is currently not available for download.


Personally I like the control of having everything in a VM that I have built, but it is a lot more work. The good thing is you will become very knowledgeable on how to install and configure all of this software (comes in very handy for Microsoft Certifications). I do buy a TechNet Professional license for my own use every year, so this is how I am able to license all of the Enterprise versions of the OS, SQL Server and even SharePoint. I also have Excel 2013 installed on the laptop itself as well, so that I can do a quick demo if necessary without spinning up a whole VM.

Installing PowerPivot and Power View

For those that want to have all of the newest SQL BI toys installed in a VM or on your laptop, I have found a couple of really good resources that I use each time I need to install them.

Step by step guide on installing PowerPivot for SharePoint on a single machine
Checklist: Reporting Services, Power View, and PowerPivot for SharePoint

The first link is from PowerPivot-info.com, which is a great resource for PowerPivot. The second is an MSDN article that provides the Microsoft perspective on getting it setup. Both of these resources were posted before SQL 2012 was RTM and have been updated since RTM, so they both work very smoothly.

For those that are new to PowerPivot and Power View and wondering why these tools require detailed installation resources is because both of these tools require SharePoint Server 2010 be installed. For those that have not installed SPS2010 yet, it can be challenging, especially to make sure you get the PowerPivot Gallery installed correctly. Thankfully Power View, the newest SQL BI tool on the block, works very well with PowerPivot, so once you have PowerPivot setup Power View is not too hard to add on.

Have fun and enjoy PowerPivot and Power View!