Jim Bolleboom has recently joined Stellar Consulting Group as a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant. However, Jim is not a complete newbie. Initially, he joined Stellar back in January 2015 and spent four years working across multiple clients, with a strong focus on engagements for Toyota NZ.
Taking a break
At the end of 2018, Jim decided it was time to take a break. So, he spent a couple of years working for an infrastructure company just north of Auckland with a very handy commute. This business has some legacy Business Intelligence and reporting solutions and have embarked on developing an Enterprise Data Warehouse and Reporting Solution from the ground up.
In his career, there have been few opportunities to work on a green-fields data warehouse project. So, this was an awesome opportunity and one which he thoroughly enjoyed. His team developed an Enterprise Datawarehouse (EDW) Framework for the solution around an initial “Health and Safety” subject area. Health and Safety data is very interesting, and this was the first time for him. The human element of the data adds some importance to reporting and analysis. The EDW solution his team developed was mission-critical for the client. It had to be robust, reliable, and timely with tight month-end deadlines, and executive-level visibility.
Gaining valuable skills
The solution Jim worked on uses the full Microsoft Business Intelligence stack. This includes an on-premise SQL Server Data Warehouse, and an Azure Analysis Services Tabular Model configured for scale-out. The Azure Data Gateway connects these two. The solution uses the latest version of SQL Server – SQL Server 2019 Enterprise Edition. All front-end reporting is serviced through dashboards, and reports built in PowerBI.
Jim has really enjoyed the project and gained valuable skills and experience, particularly around Azure Analysis Services, Tabular Models and PowerBI. An especially important part of the project was also developing good DAX skills to ensure optimal reporting performance and functionality for a great end-user experience. One of the interesting aspects of dashboard development was the utilisation of visual design experts to really focus on that standardised look and feel. As you can guess it was a busy and productive couple of years.
Back at Stellar
“It is great to be back at Stellar!”, Jim says. “Some things have changed, and some things have remained the same, and all for the good.” It has been a busy first couple of weeks back for Jim and he is right back into it with the Toyota team, and enjoying the work-life balance that work-from-home allows.
“Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. It is fantastic seeing some familiar faces but also meeting the new members of the team.”, says Jim. He is looking forward to working with the team and is hopeful some of the new skills he has acquired (as well as the old) will be helpful for the projects ahead.
