Let's Talk about .. Excel 2007-Freeze the panes

You may got the problem to read when your spreadsheet is too large. You will not be able to know that what the column is. The way to solve this problem is freezing the panes.

The instruction to freeze the panes

• If you would like to freeze the selected panes,
  Go to View->Freeze Panes-> Freeze Panes


• If you wolld like to freeze the top row,
  Go to View->Freeze Panes-> Freeze Top Row


• If you would like to freeze the first column,
  Go to View->Freeze Panes-> Freeze First Column

• For the example, I selected Freeze Top Row. The result is here. The Top Row is freezed so I can see what each column is.

Let's Talk about .. SQL Server 2005-Reporting Services

Because next year I will have to use the Reporting Services for the project at my office, thus I need to know about it. I read from some resources from the internet. And it's summarized that the Reporting Services is a server-based solution for creating management, and delivery of traditional, paper-based report, and interactive, web-based reports.The Full Reporting Write Cycle Support contains 4 steps:-

1. Report Authoring: Report Developers create report by using Report Definition Report (RDL) design tools.
2. Report Management: Administrators use SQL Server Management Studio to organize report and data sources, schedule report execution and delivery, and track reporting history.
3. Report Delivery: Users view reports in Web-based format or in E-mail.
4. Report Security: It implements a flexible, role-based security model to protect reports and reporting resources.

Ref. http://www.microsoft.com/sql/technologies/reporting/overview.mspx

Let's Talk about .. Word 2007-Insert File Object

My friend, Net, just told me how to insert the file as an object to the document. It's also possible to do the same method in other office applications.

1. Go to Insert->Object->Object...


2. You can Create the new one or insert your exist file.


3. For my case, I inserted my exist file named DropDownList Excel file.


4. Tick Display as Icon if you would like to show your file as the icon. You can also change your icon to be other image.


5. The file appears in the document.

Let's Talk about .. Microsoft Innovation Days-Software + Services

I went to Microsoft Innovations Day on November 13, 2007 at InterContinental Hotel, Bangkok. The main topic was about Software + Services.

This is a little summazation from this seminar. In the seminar, they talked mostly about Software + Services and Office Business Applications (OBA)

Services Transformation consists of

• Service Delivery (SaaS)
• Service Composition (SOA)
• Service Experience (Web2.0)
• Other Services

If we are asked which one should we choose, the answer is all of them.
And that's the new trend of application.. SOFTWARE+SERVICES. What we get when software meets services are Consistent across multiple clients + On-premise & hosted + Extending tools & Platform to cloud + Expanded monetization opps

Building Applications consists of 2 main parts:-

1. Composition
   a. Multiple layers of the stack
   b. Mash-ups
   c. Office Business Applications
2. Building for service
   a. Scale
   b. Customization
   c. Billing
   d. Federation
   

Application Classes can be classified into three types:-

1. Office Business Application
2. Windows Applications
3. Rich Interactive Applications

What I understand about the OBAs is they are applications, that are calling some services, added on to Office programs such as Word, Excel, SharePoint, Access, etc.

Let's Talk about .. MOSS2007-Create New Task

Task is one of the Component come with MOSS2007. It's used to assign the task for whom.
The Instruction to create the Task

1. Go to Site Actions->Create
2. Click Tasks
3. Type the Name of Task, Description, and E-Mail Notification
4. The Task appears.
5. You can set the list upon your requirement. For example, change some properties of column, etc. Go to Setting->List Setting
6. If you want to modify the view, you can go to View:, then select Modify this View. However, if you would like to create new view, you can create if by select Create View.
7. For this example, I selected the Calendar view because I want to create the Schedule Time Table Task.
8. The view is changed.

Let's Talk about .. Microsoft Solutions Summit 2007-PerformancePoint Server 2007

In the summit, Microsoft also displayed the new product that will be launched in 2008. Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.

It uses the concept of MAP or Monitor+Analyze+Plan.
1. Monitor (What?): by Scorecard, Dashboard, and Report
2. Analyze (Why?): by Analytic & Ad-Hoc query
3. Plan (How?): by Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting
Anyway, it's not important how the order is, but it's important at the process.

And who care these information ?
1. Business Executives who want to drive the Performance with fast, flexible to change and able to audit.
2. Information Workers who want to contribute to Performance with the user-friendly, collabolative, and be able to define, modify, and maintain.
3. IT Managers who want to reduce the complexibility.

PerformacePoint Server 2007 will be officially shown in March 2007. Finally, Microsoft said that the list of current-and-future applications that can help each business organization (the requirement is upon the size of the organization) consists of ..
- MS Small Business Server (Premium)
- MS SQL Server 2005
- MS Office Excel 2007
- MS Office SharePoint Server
- MS Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
- MS Visual Studio 2005

I also got Visual Studio 2008 Beta from this summit. Oh I feel like I just started VS2005 :p

Let's Talk about .. Microsoft Solutions Summit 2007-Business Intelligence

Today, I went to Microsoft Solutions Summit 2007 at Bangkok. The theme is Solutions Ready, People Ready. Most of the topics are involving with BI or Business Intelligence.
What I got from this summit is the definition of BI. BI is one of the MIS field (in the topic of DSS). BI is fundamentaly about providing business people with information and tools they need to make both operational and strategic business decision.

What the user need consists of Right information, Right time, and Right format. And who they are?
There are five types of users.
1. CEOs, who need the scorecard.
2. Managers, who need the dashboard.
3. Information Worker, who need the report.
4. Staffs, who need application integration.
5. Planners, who need analytic application.

Then, what these items are ...
1. Business Scorecard is meter or any kind of graphic report that mostly show the status of each process in color, e.g., Green as Finish/Ready, Yellow as Nearly to finish, and Red as Not Finish/Not reach the target. It shows the result by the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which is the current result compared with the past result or the target result.
2. Dashboard is any graphs that show the result which are linked to the detailed information.
3. Report is the normal report that is used by the normal information workers.
4. Application Integration is the output that are used by normal staffs. For example, the result of the Basket analysis that suggest which product should be related the promotion with this product. e.g., selling sci-fi movie with another sci-fi movie, etc.
5. Analytic Application, such as OLAP, which is useful for the planners.