General Sessions

In this hands-on session, Lynn will share, show and teach how to get more value of your data by using her favorite free tools for analysts. 
She will take you through the common data projects stages (survey, clean, locate, process, store, query and analyze) and will show you tools which can help you be more effective at each of these stages. 
Tools shown will include those which help you to find and fix mistakes in your source data, to tools which visualize your data in a useful way and many more.

Session Type:
Pre-Conference Session (full day)

Track:
Unlocking Big Data

Level: TBD

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This session will be rapid fire, fast-paced experience, focusing on all sorts of reporting tips.  This session is for the YouTube generation.  Do you have a short attention span?  Are 15-second commercials too long to sit through?  Do you want the very best reporting tips collected from watching hundreds of videos and reading a library of books, plus years of reporting experience?  Come to this session.  We have tips on Excel, data visualization, interviewing stake holders, organizing reporting teams, securing reports, consolidation, dashboard design, SSRS, SSIS, and T-SQL authoring.  You're guaranteed to learn something actionable that will make you more effective in your career.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Visualize & Inform

Level: TBD

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Most organizations lack an approach that lets them specify their requirements for BI or for analytics more broadly. Their ability to find opportunities for, and successfully use, more advanced analytics is limited. In this session, James Taylor will introduce decision modeling with DMN, a new standards-based approach to modeling decisions. He will introduce the core concepts of the approach and show how it can be used to drive more effective requirements for BI, dashboard and analytic projects. Attendees will learn how to begin with the decision in mind, defining their BI requirements in terms of the decision-making they need to improve.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Analyze & Interpret

Level: TBD

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Anybody can create an add-in for Excel. They're fast to create and easy to setup. Creating one which will work right out of the gates can take some time. In this session we will discuss an overview of "why" and "when" to go the route of an add-in. This session will assume you already know what an add-in is and how to create one, and will be targeted to a more advanced audience, perhaps those who've already created several add-ins.
In many cases your business may have a resident Excel expert on-hand, or that might even be you. Going for outside help or consultancy can be an extremely expensive endeavor (not to mention how many bad developers there are). This means any add-in need which comes up could be handled by the resident guru. Is that you?
Ranging from logical coding scenarios to shared add-ins over a network, this session will have pearls for your guru. Add-Ins can give your tools a beautiful and elegant UI and save you and your users countless hours of work by automating tasks.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Visualize & Inform

Level: TBD

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Join us in this demo packed session where we look at how the new Power BI designer can solve complex business problems with ease. This session will explore new functionality in the Power BI designer around complex relationships between tables and additions to the DAX language to support new types of business logic. We will use many demo's using real world examples to highlight these new features. 

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Analyze & Interpret

Level: TBD

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Predictive Analytics (PA) has emerged as a “go to” approach to creating data-driven business decisions. The science of PA is not new, the algorithms are not new. What is new is how these techniques are applied to big and small data as organizations collect and integrate data that provide better information for predictive modeling.
This sessions will provide a practitioners overview to Predictive Analytics and four of the most misunderstood topics: data preparation, sampling, the strengths and weaknesses of algorithms, and how to assess model accuracy. 

Session Type:
Pre-Conference Session (full day)

Track:
Analyze & Interpret

Level: TBD

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There has been a lot of hype about the potential of increasingly available data and analytics. However, the investments are not turning into expected top line and bottom line impact for most organizations. Decision Engineering is a new paradigm that turns traditional data first thinking on its head and shows how you can utilize data to deliver measurable and attributable business impact throughout the organization – while, becoming the business hero that all organizations have been looking for.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Visualize & Inform

Level: TBD

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PowerPivot is a revolutionary technology from Microsoft that allows Business Analysts to rapidly develop meaningful business tools with speed and flexibility that was previously impossible.  
After an Analyst creates value-added reports, the next step is to multiply the value and business benefits by sharing their tools across the organization.  
In this practical “how to” session, you’ll learn how to quickly deploy PowerPivot Workbooks across the organization using SharePoint, extending the value from the reports while reducing the effort to refresh reports. You’ll learn patterns that can be replicated to help you get started without having to be a SharePoint expert or the need for IT support.  
From this session, you’ll head back to work understanding the optimal way to present data for business executives to consume via a “positive web browsing experience.” You’ll also have the practical advice on how to explain the value to your organization’s decision makers.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Visualize & Inform

Level: TBD

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Critical decisions need to be made anytime, anywhere, and on any device.  Delivering immediate answers to questions when and where your consumers need it most, in the field or on the go, can be a bit of a challenge.  With half of the world's businesses adopting bring-your-own device (BYOD) policies by 2017 and more than 80% of employees already using personal mobile devices in the workplace, it's more important than ever to effectively deliver actionable insights to a variety of mobile devices.  In this session, we will walk through common challenges, considerations, tips, tricks and best practices for designing mobile dashboards.  Be sure to bring your own tablet or smart phone to this session to participate in live demos.

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Visualize & Inform

Level: TBD

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So you’ve played around with Power Query in Excel; now it’s time to put it to work. In this session you’ll learn how to ‘think’ in Power Query. You’ll see a number of examples of how Power Query can be used to solve real world problems and understand the best practices and patterns that you can take back to work and use immediately. Examples will include:
• Creating and using a parameter table
• Combining data from multiple Excel workbooks into a single data set
• Handling errors and unavailable data sources
• Calling web services, handling authentication and working with XML
• Performing sentiment analysis in Excel with Power Query and Azure Machine Learning

Session Type:
Breakout Session (60 minutes)

Track:
Discover & Integrate

Level: TBD

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