Topic	Exploring PowerPoint and PowerPivot as part of a BI solution
When	Thursday, 24 May 2012 5:00pm – 7:00pm (Snacks & drinks will be provided from 4:30)
Where	Microsoft Cape Town Office, Golf Park 3, Engen House, Raapenberg Road, Mowbray, Cape Town
Speaker	Sarah-Marie Nothling is an Analyst Developer at Open Box Software, located in Tokai. Open Box is a Microsoft Gold Partner, doing custom .NET development and consulting for clients, mostly in the international realty sector. Open Box has recently started investigating the Microsoft BI Stack as a delivery tool for BI solutions, and, as such, are very excited about the new tools distributed with the SQL 2012 and ‘Denali’ releases. As a member of this team, Sarah intends to present a session exploring PowerPoint and PowerPivot as part of a BI solution.
Overview	With the release of SQL 2012, Microsoft has introduced two forms of cubes. Multidimensional mode is the well-known cube structure we have been exposed to in earlier versions of SSAS, whereas the new Tabular mode exploits Vertipaq technology, providing a completely new, intuitive way to create a cube structure. PowerPivot is a free Excel plugin developed by Microsoft that exploits their new Vertipaq tabular cube technology to create powerful pivot tables and pivot graphs in Excel. Working hand in hand with PowerPivot is PowerView, a Silverlight add in for SharePoint 2010, which consumes a tabular cube to provide an intuitive interface for end users to create their own interactive dashboards. Together, these new technologies allow us to rapidly develop and customise BI solutions, also providing the user more ownership over the format and interaction with their data. There will be some great prize giveaways in the form of a R500 Kalahari voucher sponsored by Idera Software , books by MK publishing and loads of other goodies, so spread the word bring a friend.