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Building Simple Reports with Reporting Services (Part 2 of 5)
In this part we will go through step by step on how to build a query. We will do a drill down demo and analyze the results from it. We will then cover how to share your work.
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Time_Master_tbl_ForcedParameterization
This Script is the Step 1 for creating a table in order to see the impact of Forced Parameterization… (read more)
How to Grow a DBA – Members Comments
I received lots of tips from our members. Many people shared how they were able to take part of their daily work and enhance it with the help of a co-worker who knew how to use/program databases. They established a mentor relationship with the development team working on departmental or personal projects that helped with their current role.
When new opportunities came about in their company, they applied for the position. Having a relationship established with the development staff, and demonstrating their ability to learn provided that extra something allowing them to transition to another role.
Following are a couple of mentoring experiences that we shared with us. In the mean time, keep the comments rolling to btaylor@sswug.org .
Cheers,
Ben
"I do mentoring a lot. It is a way to practice what I know and have learned and I use it as a way to share the knowledge I have gained on the job. I have mentored an Office Specialist into a role as DBA in training because of her eagerness and willingness to work as well as a natural ability to "figure things out" as you mention.
My strategy for her was first to assess what she had to bring and where she was headed in her career. She was conducive to the idea of moving in an IT direction and specifically into data/programming arena. She had identified a few things in her department that she wanted to fix and knew that she lacked any tools to address these other then excel and a strict following of processes.
So starting from a zero base in database knowledge and relational data architecture I worked at associating what she knew that was sound to relational database concepts. Tables and fields as rows and columns. Then we discussed data types and their importance. With these concepts in a good grasp ( and not till we had that settled and understood well enough to be able to apply it) we turned focus to one of her projects. We designed the first run at the tables she needed to work with.
This brought about a conversation and concepts of Database Normalization. We discussed why a perfectly normalized database design may be overly complicated and in many cases may not be the right choice but that there was a script of questions or evaluations to consider and that each had a cost/benefit that must be weighted before applying them. She got hands on by being the one to build the databases and tables.
From here we split the conversation in 3 directions. The first was SQL and specifically TSQL. I told her that a TRUE DBA will be able to do as much in SQL as they do in the SSMS interface. I this she learned joins, where conditions, aggregates, sub queries and calculated fields. The second thing was User interfaces and business logic. How to weigh where the logic resides and what the cost benefit is on front loading or back loading the app. Third was security. We discussed user, roles and permissions from a DB perspective as well as from an application perspective.
Her applications became fully functional systems with a user base and went a long way towards stabilizing the processes in her department. She has since moved into a position that is shared between IT/Finance/HR in support of technical development and support of agency objectives. She works on reports now in efforts of leveraging the data we now collect.
This has been a very fruitful endeavor for her, myself and the agency as a whole. It has also occurred in near record time of about a year and a half to two years from first discussions of interest in the field to being a fully accepted member of the development team.
I have personally always established mentor/mentee relationships any place I have worked. I have played both roles and typically liked participating in both simultaneously. Develop my skills by finding someone to be candid with me and who has what I want as well as establishing a trusted counselor relationship with those willing and wanting to be mentored.
My two cents…
Daniel"
"I transitioned initially from running a call center for troubleshooting water heaters to an IT help desk. There I was given the task of managing Remedy. I had to work with the in-house DBAs so much, that I learned quite a bit from them. That’s how I decided it was the path I wanted to go down. I applied and got the next opening and was very fortunate to have a mentor who got me quickly ramped up. Been doing it for over 12 years now and still love it.
Donna"