Search results matching tag 'SSIS 2012'

Announcing the 2013 Biml Workshop 15 Oct 2013 in Charlotte NC!

andyleonard — Sat, 18 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

When:

October 15, 2013
8:45 am - 4:45 pm
Charlotte, NC

Where:

Wake Forest University Charlotte Center
200 North College Street
Charlotte, NC 28202

What:

Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) automates your BI patterns and eliminates the manual repetition that consumes most of your time. Come see why BI professionals around the world think Biml is the future of data integration and BI.

Registration is just $69. Register before July 15th and receive early bird discount of just $49. Breakfast, lunch, & refreshments are also included. Seating is limited. Register now to guarantee your spot.

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Little Data Remains Important in Healthcare IT

andyleonard — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:31:24 GMT

In his article Healthcare's Big Problem With Little Data, author Dan Munro raises salient points about the state of health-related data. Electronic Health Records (EHR) were promoted as the end-all-be-all solution for the industry – a standardization that, I suppose, many thought would organically and naturally occur, stabilize, and be maintained.

It hasn’t. At least not yet.

My doctor and I speak about this almost each time I visit with him. The corporation that operates his practice nowadays seems endlessly locked in cycles of changing billing and EHR systems in search of low-cost compliance and integration. They’ve (literally) spent millions of dollars and my doctor hates the interfaces forced upon him and his patients (well, one, at least) hates the complexity of the billing and patient records systems. Can’t these systems all just get along?

The result? Higher medical data management costs. I’ll give you one guesses who pays these costs.

Munro posits the following from his article:

By at least one estimate (here) there are now about 500 independent EHR vendors. Out of that large group is a subset of about 400 with at least one customer that has applied for Federal stimulus dollars through the labyrinthine process of meaningful use attestation. That would suggest a “first-cut” of about 100 vendors who made some commitment around certification – but have no reported customers (at least to date). That’s a staggering number of single-purpose software vendors for any industry to support – even bloated healthcare. The simple fact is it can’t. While there have been a few high-profile cases of EHR vendors shutting down, this last week was the first high-profile example of a vendor that was effectively decertified by the Feds for both their “ambulatory” and their “inpatient” EHR products. From the HHS.gov website last Thursday:

“We and our certification bodies take complaints and our follow-up seriously. By revoking the certification of these EHR products, we are making sure that certified electronic health record products meet the requirements to protect patients and providers,” said Dr. Mostashari.“Because EHRMagic was unable to show that their EHR products met ONC’s certification requirements, their EHRs will no longer be certified under the ONC HIT Certification Program.”

You may ask yourself, well, how did we get here? This, folks, is a mess. What’s missing? Applied standards.

“But Andy, you’ve told us standards slow down development!”

And I stand by that statement; standards do slow down development…unless you’re building interfaces. And then standards become the means for decoupled snippets, functions, methods, applications, and even platforms to communicate with each other. In some cases, we simply cannot be productive without standards – like TCP/IP. What would happen if everyone coded their own version of internet traffic? If that was the case, very few of you would reading this post.

Yes, standards slow things down. And yes, they are necessary to insure base functionality. In my humble opinion, we have to get this right with healthcare data. We simply must. While we see similar issues of data management across many fields, medical data is too important to mess around with; it’s (often literally) life and death. And it is certainly a high cost.

More to Consider

Standards exist. Administering and certifying 400-500 vendor solutions is hard.

Part of the Solution

From the actions of the Department of Health and Human Services last week, one can ascertain HHS is taking steps to address the matter. But will all 400-500 companies voluntarily congeal their schemas? Possibly, but doubtful.

My experience delivering US state Medicaid ETL solutions informs me there will be a need for data integration – regardless of the existence of standards and in spite of certification. Why? Standards are not static. The idea of de facto standards emerges from the life cycle of software because software is organic. Even if everyone agreed on the same interpretation of rigid standards (and they won’t), versions 2.0 through n.n will – at a minimum – add fields to the schema. And with additional fields comes additional data.

Standards will be revised when enough product schemas adopt the de facto, and this will drive the need for yet more integration. Don’t take my word for it, examine the entropic history of ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes – the direction of progress is more data, not less.

Learn More

This is one reason we at Linchpin People are focusing on Medical Data Integration. The recording of our first (free!) webinar about Medical Data Integration with SSIS 2012 is available here. Kent Bradshaw and I continue the series tomorrow presenting Medical Data Integration with SSIS 2012, Part 2 in which we focus on loading Provider and Drug data.

I hope to see you there!

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Scripting and SSIS - Free Webinar!

andyleonard — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:51:00 GMT

Join SQL Server MVP Tim Mitchell (blog | @Tim_Mitchell) and I as we demonstrate and discuss the many uses of scripting in SQL Server 2012 Integration Services 8 May 2013 at 11:00 AM EDT! In this demo-packed session, two co-authors of the book SSIS Design Patterns share their experience using the Script Task and Script Component to accomplish difficult transformations and improve data integration performance.

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Medical Data Integration with SSIS 2012, Part 2 - 1 May 2013 11:00 AM EDT

andyleonard — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:27:00 GMT

Kent Bradshaw and I are pleased to announce another free webinar: Medical Data Integration with SSIS 2012, Part 2 - Providers and Drugs. Register today!

The recording of the first part of this series is available here.

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Presenting at SQL Saturday 189–Costa Rica!

andyleonard — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:00:00 GMT

I am honored to present Creating a Custom SSIS Task this Saturday – 13 Apr 2013 – at SQL Saturday 189 – Costa Rica!

Espero que se unan a mí!

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Presenting Hacking the SSIS 2012 Catalog to PASS DW/BI VC Tomorrow!

andyleonard — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:57:00 GMT

PASS Data Warehouse / Business Intelligence Virtual Chapter Co-Chair

Web: http://bi.sqlpass.org | Email: PASSDWBIVC@sqlpass.org | Twitter: @PASSBIVC

Friday February 22nd 11am EST(US)

Hacking the SSIS 2012 Catalog
Speaker: Andy Leonard

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=H4C3NK&role=attend&pw=7%3Ec%2FM5PwM

Integration Services 2012 offers a brand new way to store, log, and execute SSIS packages – the SSIS Catalog. How does the Catalog work? Can it be customized? Can it be extended? Yes it can! In this presentation, Andy Leonard shows you how!

BimlScript: Incremental Load Design Pattern

andyleonard — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Are you using Biml yet? Why not?!

Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) speeds and simplifies SSIS development and improves code quality. There's a good reason that sounds like a win/win - it is a win/win! Best of all, BidsHelper supports Biml and it is free.

BimlScript.com contains a collection of sample, functional Biml snippets and code that demonstrate all kinds of cool functionality. And again, it is also free.

I wrote about Biml in SSIS Design Patterns and deliver a presentation titled Using Biml as a Design Patterns Engine. I like it. A lot. I have started publishing Biml code at BimlScript.com - beginning with an example from the book: Incremental Load Design Pattern. Check it out and let me know what you think... and happy Biml'ing!

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Presenting at the Greenville SC SQL Server Innovators Guild 5 Feb 2013!

andyleonard — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:00:00 GMT

I will be unveiling a shiny new presentation – Hacking the SSIS 2012 Catalog – at the SQL Server Innovators Guild in Greenville South Carolina 5 Feb 2013! The location of the meeting is:

ECPI, Greenville, SC
1001 Keys Dr
Greenville, SC 29615

If you will be in the area that evening and if you read this blog, stop by and introduce yourself. I’m the fat guy with a fu.

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From Zero To SSIS Training: 4-8 Mar 2013 in Reston Virginia

andyleonard — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Want to learn more about SSIS? I can help. In my course - From Zero To SSIS – I teach you how to effectively use SSIS to deliver data integration solutions.

This is not a market-y survey of the bells and whistles contained in SSIS. I focus on the tasks data integration and ETL developers will use to produce SSIS packages in the enterprise.

How do I know which tasks are used most?

I have been using SSIS since the early beta versions. For over two years, I managed a team of ETL developers at Unisys as we built Medicaid solutions for two state governments and maintained the Medicaid solution for another state. When we needed more people, I had a hard time finding experienced SSIS developers. I needed a way to bring less-experienced developers up to speed quickly. I found a way to train data integration developers to use SSIS to build enterprise-ready, metadata-framework-driven SSIS applications in less than one week. The experience served as the basis for this course which has been delivered publicly and privately to hundreds of students over the past two years.

You can learn more about – and register for – the course here.

Advanced registration is available until 1 Feb 2013: $2,749 USD

Registration after 1 Feb 2013: $2,999 USD

I hope to see you there!

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Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task Series

andyleonard — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:00:00 GMT

A while back I asked myself: “Self, do you think it is possible to create a custom SSIS 2012 task using Visual Studio 2012 Express?” That question launched a quest to learn the answer. In this series of posts I describe what I learned:

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – The Rambling Introduction

Creating a Custom Task in SSIS 2012 – Getting Started

Creating a Custom Task in SSIS 2012 – Configuring the Project

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Signing the Assembly

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Preparing the Environment

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Coding the Task

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Coding the Task Editor

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Binding the Task and Editor

Creating a Custom SSIS 2012 Task – Notes From My Experience

Enjoy!

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