ASUG BI + Analytics Conference – Day 0 #ASUGBIA

It all started over a year ago with this:

We (as ASUG volunteers) were given these buttons, announcing the conference location.  Since then, the name of the conference changed to ASUG BI + Analytics, covering more than just BusinessObjects.  This year too, for the first time, pre-conference sessions were offered.

Industry luminary Wayne Eckerson provided a pre-conference session on “The New Analytics Ecosystem: Organizational and Architectural Models for Data-Driven Organizations”.  Don Loden and Jonathan Haun of Protiviti provided a pre-conference on implementing SAP HANA.  I attended pre-conference given by Ingo Hilgefort on SAP® BusinessObjects™ Design Studio Deep Dive (Advanced Topics).

The last time we tried offering pre-conference sessions at this conference was a few years ago, and they did not succeed.  Fortunately this year some of the sessions were sold out.  These were half-day sessions, starting Monday afternoon, October 17th.  I confess I was very skeptical at first about offering these pre-conference sessions, and I am happy I was wrong.

Source: ASUG/Visual BI

David Stocker, SAP, assisted Ingo Hilgefort with this pre-conference session.

Ingo Hilgefort, above, recapping the day.

This was an advanced session, assuming some familiarity with Design Studio.  A few attendees had contacted the event producer a few weeks before, saying they had no experience with Design Studio but would spend 2 weeks before the event getting familiar with it.  I am glad to report they had a good experience.

Above is the result of the geo map exercise

Source: ASUG / Visual BI

On this slide, the class had a good discussion about why to use a filter line – it is small enough to fit your mobile device.

Source: ASUG / Visual BI

On this slide, we had a discussion about “checking the charts”

Source: ASUG / Visual BI

It is important to note that templates only work with BW and HANA datasources

Source: ASUG / Visual BI

We had a good discussion on Lumira 2.x (one product, 2 clients)

Source: ASUG / Visual BI

One of the key features Lumira gets in 2.x is BW online connectivity

Next year the conference will be in Nashville, October 9-11.  This is your chance to see the Grand Ole Opry live, in person, a must-see.

Can I get a wahoo? 🙂