Data Quality

Business Transformation requires joined-up thinking. The power of SAP #PowerDesigner will help you with that

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My latest presentation is now available on BrightTalk. The talk is about how organisations can use SAP PowerDesigner to help them ensure that their Business Transformation is effective. I cover the following topics:

– 6 simple questions businesses need to provide the answers to form a framework for enterprise architecture
– How PowerDesigner supports Enterprise Knowledge and Enterprise Governance
– How SAP PowerDesigner provides the essential impact analysis
– Real-world examples of PowerDesigner use

SAP PowerDesigner allows users to build a blueprint of their current enterprise architecture and visualise the impact of change before it happens.

Here’s the link to the webinar – https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/18335/434347

I’m looking forward to my 2 hours talking to UKSUG about #PowerDesigner next week

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Discover the history and key capabilities of SAP PowerDesigner (it’s more than just a data modelling tool), and how it can make life easier for you in Data Governance and Database Development.
This session will show you why you must not use Excel or Visio for data modelling, and find out just how easy it is to get started with PowerDesigner.
Also discover the hidden power of PowerDesigner’s unique customisation capabilities, such as automating the creation of audit tables.

Wednesday June 10th, from 13:00 to 15:00 British Summer Time

(12:00 to 14:00 GMT)

To register, contact Laura Goss
uksug@pbprojects.co.uk

Improve your data modelling productivity with a new #PowerDesigner model extension #FIBO

George McGeachieLeave a comment

The Commercial version of the FIBO Data Model is now available, adding over 800 entities to the free version. That is 800+ more reasons why you need the “Ultimate Parents” PowerDesigner model extension.

If you want to improve your productivity even more (and who doesn’t want to do that?), a more comprehensive model extension will be available soon for the CDM and LDM. This will include the “Ultimate Parents” capabilities, plus features to help you with

  • diagram content and page layout, including
    • symbol visibility
    • set page size and orientation
    • add all possible objects
    • add things linked to an entity
    • add all inheritance links for an inheritance
  • removing Packages cleanly
  • showing and hiding foreign key or inherited attributes
  • creating ‘Proximity’ diagrams
  • applying naming standards
  • custom model validation tests

and more

To find out more, see the Contact page

It’s nice to hear my online #PowerDesigner course is easily worth the small cost

George McGeachieLeave a comment

The first online PowerDesigner training course was released recently, covering the Excel Import Wizard that is supplied with PowerDesigner. This allows you to import practically anything from Excel into any PowerDesigner model without writing a single line of code – if you want to import content into a type of model object or property that does not exist yet, it can even define them for you.

A Canadian customer was kind enough to say that the course easily justifies the cost:

“I found it extremely useful and became aware of a lot more functionality that I was not aware of around how Excel can be utilised within PowerDesigner. This will apply directly to the work that we are doing as it will allow us to get stakeholders to populate Excel templates that our data modeling team can then develop into actual PowerDesigner data models.“

To find out more about this training, see https://metadatajunkie.wordpress.com/online/

Achieve better Data Quality by Improving Metadata Governance with SAP #PowerDesigner – recent webcast from @sandhillna

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At the end of March, my friends at Sandhill Consultants and Axis Software Designs ran a great webinar which was based on SAP PowerDesigner, but was also addressed to a more general audience, who would be interested in various aspects of data management, such as data quality, data governance, and metadata management. Largely, it was about converting “What to do” (our wonderful data management strategy and intentions) into “How to do it” (governance, tools, and best practices). One key topic is the need to be able to trust our metadata (otherwise it could be useless).

Here’s the link to the webcast – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRrj43tkOFI.

For quite a while now, Marcie Barkin Goodwin (from Axis Software Designs) has been helping organisations hit the ground running, with a managed Modelling Environment (known as Enterprise Modelling SOS), which can support the top three data modelling tools (erwin, ER/Studio and PowerDesigner), and includes

  • Established Data Model Lifecycle(s)
  • Quality Control standards for Metadata
  • Repeatable Processes
  • Reusable Data Structures
  • Defined Measures and Metrics
  • a Centralised Communication Mechanism

The whole thing revolves around the strategy of reusing modelling artefacts – which is vital for successful modelling within the enterprise. The modelling tool that they use in this webcast to illustrate the strategy is SAP PowerDesigner, a tool with a long history of providing comprehensive traceability within and between models of various types, not just data models. A key tool feature mentioned is the “Change List” feature, which allows users to check model changes into the Repository to be reviewed – until those changes are approved, the ‘real’ repository model is not updated. This is a much better method than emailing models to your friends, or asking them to have multiple versions of the same model on their workstation at the same time.

For reuse, the PowerDesigner Library is essential – it pushes reusable resources out to users when they connect to repository. These could be tool-specific resources (such as Report Templates), models, or model templates.

Intrigued? Take a look at another recent Sandhill webcast – “The Convergence of Data Modeling and Data Governance”

Take a look at the Sandhill channel on YouTube, or at my PowerDesigner channel on YouTube if you want to see more videos of PowerDesigner in action.