It’s time for BACon

Our business analytics conference, BACon 2019 is right around the corner (Aug 7 - 8) and it’s shaping up to be a truly exceptional data and analytics event. Our team is working hard to bring you an elite lineup of training sessions, workshops, and presentations. See what’s in store:

Keynotes

State of the Market

Day One’s keynote will look at the current state of the analytics marketplace, including a deep-dive into data and analytics trends for customers, a pulse-check on analyst opinions, and a review of emerging technologies.

IBM Analytics Roadmap

Join IBM Global Business Unit Executive, Brian McGoff, for exciting, forward-looking news about the IBM Analytics portfolio

Customer Success Story

Learn how PMsquare partnered with a large Midwest power and utilities company to re-design their business intelligence practice around IBM's new features to enable more insights.

Sessions

Hear from some of the industry's leading experts about market trends and the future direction of IBM Analytics.

Watson AI Assistant

Join IBM's Manager of Technical Sales for Watson AI in a 2-part hands-on lab where attendees will learn about the capabilities of Watson AI Assistant and build a customer care chat bot. *Hands-on: laptop pre-work required.

Migration from Tableau to Cognos

Learn how we helped the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm give their executives and other global finance leaders current financial performance data in an extremely simple, user-friendly and intuitive interactive dashboard. After creating an initial version in Tableau based on extracts from IBM TM1, our client ran into scalability issues. Therefore, they brought in PMsquare and collaborated to reimagine and expand the tool in IBM Cognos Analytics 11, pulling data directly from IBM Planning Analytics and tying directly into Planning Analytics security.

Cognos Analytics on Planning Analytics

Leveraging Cognos Analytics on top of Planning Analytics-a powerful combination. Comprehensive financial reporting and beautiful, fast, interactive, dashboards are just waiting to be built. But with tools like TM1Web and PAW available as part of Planning Analytics that provide some similar functionality to Cognos Analytics, which tool should be used for what? And once you decide what to build in Cognos, what design techniques are most effective to leverage your Planning Analytics cubes? This session will provide critical insights into these topics.

Using Timeseries Forecasting to Predict your Plans

Wouldn't your planning be easier if you knew what was going to happen? Katie Robbert will walk through predictive forecasting, specifically using time series data to get a better understanding of trends and patterns that you may not have been aware of. You'll learn whattime series forecasting is, how to use it, the pitfalls to avoid, and a variety of examples and use cases from different industries.

Make Me Like Cognos Paul: JavaScript and Hacks

From writing extensions to extend RS capabilities, to using the browser console to fix bugs, attend this session and learn how to take a hacker's approach to Cognos from the one and only CognosPaul! *Hands-on: laptop pre-work required.

A Microservices Approach with IBM Cloud Pak for Data (ICP4D)

What are microservices? And how do they relate to your analytics environment? Learn how a microservices approach (ICP4D) can simplify your data ecosystem by enabling you to connect to your data, govern it, find it and use it for analysis from a single, unified interface.

The 5 U’s of Machine Learning

In this talk by IBM certified AI practitioner Christopher Penn, learn what AI is (and isn't), why you don't necessarily need to learn how to code, and what to do to future-proof your company and career. You'll explore key problems like untapped data, forecasting, and dealing with very complex datasets.

How to Develop and Execute a Successful Rollout Strategy

Users often dislike change, even if it's helpful to them. In this session, we will explore how to develop and execute rollout strategies to maximize user adoption and value from new Cognos features and reports.

A Practical Approach to Going Mobile with Cognos Analytics

The reality of developing modern reports and dashboards is that users expect intuitive, elegant designs--and expect them to function on various devices and screen sizes. In this session, we'll explore a variety of approaches and specific techniques for building beautiful analytics that thrill your users regardless of the device used for consumption. Topics will include implementing custom CSS, using javascript / custom controls, Active Reports vs normal reports, and more.

Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace a web-based interface for IBM Planning Analytics (TM1). It provides an interface to TM1 data, with ways to plan, create, and analyze your content. In this session Mike Sloger will walk through the compelling uses and benefits of using Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) with your TM1 data.

Inside the PMsquare Labs

Cognos continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, but often our BI practice has trouble keeping up. In this session, Sr. Solution Architect Ryan Dolley will dive deep into how features like Data Modules, Explore and Dashboards are key unlocking real self-service and modernizing BI delivery in your organization.

Workshops

Take a deep dive into the topic and truly expand your skillset. Our hands-on technical workshops equip you to bring new ideas and value to your organization.

Predictive Analytics in Watson Studio

In this 2-part workshop, join IBM's Ben Chard for a review of the SPSS guided machine learning modeling tool available in IBM's data science platform Watson Studio. The session will include an overview of the model development environment as well as cover best practices when aligning analytical use cases with the correct machine learning techniques.This will be followed by a hands-on lab where attendees will provision their own instance of Watson Studio in the Cloud, then build and deploy a predictive classification machine learning model. *Hands-on: laptop pre-work required.

Cognos Analytics - Data Modules

In this 2-part workshop, Consultant and Trainer, Sonya Fournier, will guide students through a hands-on workshop using Data Modules in Cognos Analytics version 11.1.2. Topics include uploading an excel file, adding data sources, and modeling data for reporting and dashboards. *Hands-on: laptop pre-work required.

Cognos Analytics - Dashboards

In this 2-part workshop, Consultant and Trainer, Sonya Fournier, will guide students through a hands-on workshop using Dashboards in Cognos Analytics version 11.1.2. Topics include customizing an existing dashboard, creating a new dashboard, adding data sources (including uploading an external file), and working with visualizations. *Hands-on: laptop pre-work required.

Next Steps

If you have any questions or would like PMsquare to provide guidance and support for your analytics solution, contact us today.