IEBIStrat: Immersion Event on Developing a BI and Analytics Strategy

Chicago, IL, US: April 30-May 2, 2018


Overview

For decades, traditional structured business intelligence solutions have enabled users to repeatedly ask and answer the questions that are well-known to the organization. In recent years, new technologies have emerged—predictive analytics, big data analytics, machine learning, among others. These technologies allow users to explore new sources of data in new ways and answer questions in ways that were never before possible.

Have these new options for using data sounded the death knell for the Enterprise Data Warehouse? How can you build a BI strategy that preserves the best of your existing investments and lays the groundwork for a future state of your data platform?

In this 3-day Level 200 training class, we discuss the process for assessing your organization’s current level of BI maturity and identifying the future level of BI maturity that aligns technologies and best practices with your users’ business needs. We explore the difference between traditional BI and data analytics solutions and review scenarios for expanding your BI capabilities to include analytics. We also evaluate how various tools and capabilities in the Microsoft stack can support your data analytics requirements.

As we evaluate these tools, we compare and contrast them in regards to their suitability for specific BI & analytics scenarios. We also consider skill levels required to use these tools, the environments required to develop ingestion pipelines and to put them into production, and security options.

This class does not teach you everything you need to know about each of the discussed technologies, but it does teach you the following:

  • How the pieces fit together to create a modern analytics architecture
  • How to select the tools that best suit your organization’s analytical requirements
  • How to prepare yourself and/or your staff to implement these tools

By the end of the class, you’ll have some new ideas and inspiration to get started with your own BI and analytics roadmap and understand which technologies and skills are needed to build a foundation for your organization’s next-generation BI.

Target audience:

  • DBAs who need to support a technical infrastructure for BI, analytics, and data science
  • Managers who need a better understanding of how these technologies fit together to manage data as a strategic asset
  • IT professionals with a data background who want to learn how the BI space is evolving and want to prepare for the future

For a detailed agenda click HERE.

If you need help justifying training to your organization, we can help you:

Event details:

  • Class will run from 8:30am-5:45pm Monday and Tuesday and 8:30am-5:00pm on Wednesday.
  • Detailed agenda:
    • 7:45am Breakfast
    • 8:30am Class begins
      • 9:45am 15-minute break
      • 11:15am 15 minute break
    • 12:30pm Lunch break (lunch is provided as part of the class)
    • 1:30pm Class resumes
      • 2:45pm 15-minute break with dessert
      • 4:15pm 15-minute break
    • 5:45pm Class ends (5:00pm on Wednesday)
  • For those of you planning air travel and departure times after the class completion on Thursday: we do end at 5:00pm on Wednesday and we use every minute of that schedule, and often we run a few minutes over. For most deliveries we end between 5:00pm and 5:15pm. This depends on questions and we often push out the 5:45pm endings earlier in the week if things are running behind but I can honestly say that we’ve never ended early. Our general recommendation is for you to purchase tickets with departures no earlier than 8:00pm. However, each city/location may be a little different. Consider contacting the hotel (or the hotel’s website) for more specific insight into travel times and specific travel options to the airport.
  • Monday evening: “Meet-n-Greet” in the bar. We’ll open a tab and pick up the first round so we can get to know each other better and wind down from the first day.
  • You will receive printed materials for all of the lecture content. Additionally, after the event ends, we will provide all classroom demo content on our website as a zip file.
  • Also included in your registration fee are all-day coffee/tea/soda, full breakfast, snacks and buffet lunch. On the registration page, please let us know if you are vegetarian (other dietary requirements are your own responsibility).
  • Class size is limited to 16 students.

Location details:

  • The Immersion Event will be held in the Hilton Suites Chicago/Oak Brook. We’ve held more than fifty Immersion Events here since 2011.
  • This hotel is 20 minutes from O’Hare airport and is near a large mall with many amenities.
  • The hotel has a special rate for our event, for a two-room suite, of US$134/night.
    • Please use the reservation link HERE to access the special rate.
  • RESERVE YOUR HOTEL NIGHTS EARLY: SQLskills has a LIMITED number of rooms reserved under our group rate and these usually sell out. Even if you’re waiting to officially register for the class – you might want to get your hotel room setup early (ASAP) to ensure that you get the discounted/group rate and that you’re at the hotel where the event is being held. Most importantly, the earlier you get your hotel reservations confirmed, the easier it is for us to add rooms to our block. Thanks so much for helping us out with this!
  • The hotel rate includes:
    • Onsite parking.
    • Wireless internet access for the entire stay.
    • Full breakfast on departure morning.
  • Full American breakfast during the Immersion Event will be served as part of class from 7:45am until 8:30am.
  • Class begins at 8:30am every day.

Pricing Details:

  • Full price for the Immersion Event is US$2,495.
  • Early-bird rate is US$2,195 for registrations received by end-of-day PST Friday, March 2nd, 2018.
  • Past attendee price: If you’ve attended an Immersion Event in the past, you can register any time for US$1,995. Please contact us for instructions.
  • Any discount code entered (for instance, for past attendees) will be reflected in the price during registration.
  • For general discount information please see the F.A.Q.

Cancellation policy:

  • Your class registration can only be canceled up to 6 calendar weeks before the day the class begins, and the cost will be refunded minus a US$250 administration fee (and 5% credit-card processing charges, where applicable).
  • Registrations can be transferred to a colleague to attend the class the registration is for, at any time and at no cost.
  • Registrations can be transferred to a future class at any time before the day the class starts, but for transfers within two weeks of class, there is a US$450 fee to cover our prepaid event costs. Note: A registration cannot be canceled once it has been transferred to a future class.
  • A no-show registration (the attendee does not attend the class) is not eligible for a transfer or refund.

Registration details:

Click HERE to go to our events registration page, and please make sure to select the correct class from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact us.