Presentations

You can now access my breakout sessions online.  I’m available to present these as webinars, ASUG chapter meetings, or at your location.  If interested, contact me at dallas AT dallasmarks DOT org.

SAP Insider/BusinessObjects Expert Business Intelligence 2012
February 28 – March 2, 2012, Las Vegas, Nevada

I am presenting four sessions at BI2012, speaking on the subjects of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 security,  universe security using the Information Design Tool 4.0, Explorer 4.0, and user adoption of business intelligence.  You can read the breakout descriptions in this blog post.

Ensuring a Successful Business Objects Explorer Deployment — A Systems Perspective

A Comprehensive Introduction to the Business Objects BI Security Model

Guidelines to Secure and Personalize your BusinessObjects Universes

E-learning, Help Desk, and More:
Picking the Right Training and User Adoption Approach for your User Base

ASUG 2011 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference
October 9-12, 2011, Orlando, Florida

Delivering Personalized and Secure Business Intelligence
Do you need to tailor semantic layer security to specific users or groups within your organization? Attend this session to learn about security profiles in the new Information Design Tool in SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 (BI4.0). Understand how security profiles can control objects, rows, query types, and connections. See live demonstrations of each type of restriction and the effect they have on end users’ interactive experience.

ASUG 2010 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference
October 2010, Orlando, Florida

Explore the Universe with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
Like a Hubble telescope for your BI environment, SAP® BusinessObjects Explorer software brings together the simplicity and speed of search with the trust and analytical power of BI to provide immediate answers to casual business users. This session focuses primarily on Explorer Standard Edition, which allows SAP BusinessObjects customers to begin using Explorer right away with existing universes. The benefits of Explorer Accelerated Edition will also be presented.  Learn how your IT organization can deploy and support Explorer effectively to provide users at all levels of the organization with intuitive access to the same “single version of the truth” that powers existing BI applications.

KPIs for Business Intelligence
Many organizations use BI tools to develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure and improve organizational effectiveness. But fewer organizations apply BI to the business intelligence organization itself. Learn how to develop KPIs from the information available from BusinessObjects Enterprise Auditor as well as other aspects of your business intelligence infrastructure. See how these metrics can be utilized in operational, tactical, and strategic dashboards created using familiar tools like Xcelsius, Web Intelligence, and Crystal Reports.

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Security Essentials
In this presentation, learn how the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise security model works. Leverage features, such as inheritance, scope of rights, and custom access levels, to secure the business intelligence system, while reducing overall complexity and maintenance. Techniques will be demonstrated using SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI that are also applicable to SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI. Real-world scenarios drive home the concepts learned and give each attendee the confidence to implement the same techniques back home.

ASUG/SAP SAPPHIRE 2010 User Conference
May 2010, Orlando, Florida

Increasing User Adoption of Business Intelligence
Conventional wisdom states “if you build it, they will come.” But this philosophy often leads to performance management solutions that quickly become shelfware, achieving little return on investment (ROI).
Because they are constantly evolving, user adoption for business intelligence systems looks different from traditional enterprise software rollouts. More than just training, user adoption must be a set of processes and procedures aimed at continuous improvement of how organizations make operational, tactical, and strategic business decisions. In this session, learn how to increase user adoption using a combination of features inside the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise platform and business process improvements outside of the platform.

ASUG/GBN 2009 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference
Fall 2009, Dallas, Texas

Deploying BI to the Masses using SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
SAP® BusinessObjects™ Explorer software brings together the simplicity and speed of search with the trust and analytical power of BI to provide immediate answers to business questions. Explorer leverages your existing investments in security and metadata using innovative Information Spaces built on top of Business Objects universes. Insight obtained from a simple Explorer search can then be exported into a Web Intelligence document for further analysis.

In this presentation, learn how to deploy Explorer effectively and provide users at all levels of your organization with the ability to gain insight from the same “single version of the truth” that powers your existing BI applications.

This presentation is no longer available for download.  See ASUG 2010 breakout, Explore the Universe with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

Getting Personal with Publications and Profiles (updated for XI 3.0/3.1)
If you’re considering effective ways to process and distribute personalized reports to a large audience, this session is for you. Learn how to use SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 publications to minimize database resources using report bursting and how to personalize reports according to individual user or group profiles, even to non-users. See live examples using Crystal Reports 2008 and Web Intelligence and investigate report design techniques that will take your personalized report distribution to the next level.

Universe Design: Evolution, Intelligent Design, Or Just A Big Mess?
Are you new or intermediate universe designer? Or maybe a project manager overseeing the full lifecycle of a BI project? Perhaps a seasoned Crystal Reports developer investigating the benefits of the Business Objects semantic layer?

A well-designed universe is the foundation to a successful business intelligence project and satisfied users. Building this foundation begins long before you click on the Designer application. A combination of evolution and intelligent design, this session presents best practices at each stage of the universe life cycle, including requirements gathering, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.

Avoid the big mess and deploy successful implementations now.

ASUG/GBN 2008 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference
Fall 2008, Dallas, Texas

CMC Security Essentials
This presentation is no longer available for download.  See ASUG 2010 breakout, SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Security Essentials

Insight 2007 BusinessObjects User Conference
October 2007, Orlando, Florida

Secure Universes Using Restriction Sets
Do you need to tailor universe security to specific users or groups within your organization? Attend this session to learn about restriction sets and how they can apply security to selected groups or user accounts for the universe. Hear how applied restrictions can control objects, rows, query types, and connections. See live demonstrations on how to use each type of restriction and the effect they have on Web Intelligence documents and Crystal Reports.

Insight 2006 BusinessObjects User Conference
October 2006, San Francisco, California

Getting Personal with Publications and Profiles
If you’re considering effective ways to process and distribute personalized reports to a large audience, this session is for you. Learn how to use BusinessObjects XI Release 2 publications to minimize database resources through single-pass report bursting, and how to personalize reports according to individual user or group profiles. See live examples of both methods of traversing profiles (Tree Walk and Walk-and-Merge), and investigate several Desktop Intelligence features that will take your personalized report distribution to the next level.

This presentation is no longer available for download.  An updated version of this presentation was given at ASUG SBOUC 2009.