Downloads from this Issue

• Email Robot by Amy Lester (download now)
• Access Code by Tom Trombly(download now)

Table of Contents

Editorial: Hancock Information Group by Steve Jones

All About Hancock Information Group by Andy Warren Andy is a the manager of the Development group at Hancock and brings us a short introduction to the team, their environment, and their goals. A look at the business of HIG, the team and their equipment and a bit of history that explains how they got to the position they are in currently.
	Reporting: Once Clients Get the Data In, They Want the Data Out Again by Amy Lester Reporting is often the primary focus of what HIG does and what their clients need. Amy Lester brings us a look at the evolution of their reporting process and a few tricks that you might want to use in your environment.
Building Dynamic Reporting Services Reports by John Moffet Reporting Services has been a major coup for the SQL Server product team and Hancock has started to make use of its capabilities. However, there are a few shortcomings and the team had to develop some techniques to maximize their use of the product. John Moffet brings us a look at how they have used Reporting Services.
	Is Certification Worth It? by Tom Trombly How many certifications from Microsoft do you have? Tom Trombley has accumulated a quite a few of them and he spends a few minutes talking about the experience as well as some thoughts on their value.
HIG Event Processor by Leon Platt HIG has automated quite a few of their processes and one of their main systems is one that moves leads through the sales pipeline. With revenue on the line, building a "bulletproof" system was critical to ensuring that clients' needs are met. Read about this amazing system.
	The Master Process by Tom Trombly Along with the event processor, the master process is an automated method of keeping the Hancock business moving along. Tom Trombly brings us a look at how data imports are handled in the HIG environment.
Building a Jr. DBA by Chris Rock Hiring is DBA isn't something that everyone can afford and in many cases, one of the developers must assume the role as part of his or her duties. Rather than just default it to someone, HIG came up with a method of sharing the load as well as building some skills for the team.
	Stored Procedure Tricks by Kevin Jacobs Experienced developer Kevin Jacobs brings us a few tricks that he's learned over the years in working with SQL Server. A great set of guidelines that you can give your new developers. Use them as is or modify them to match your environment. A Duplicate Key Gotcha by Kevin Jacobs An intriguing problem that stumped the HIG team for awhile until they finally tracked it down. If you appear to have some strange goblins in your systems when you supposedly have unique keys, you might want to read about this one.
Using Access with SQL Server by Tony Strileckis Access is often used as a basic database, one from which applications often grow out of and move to SQL server. But working with SQL Server doesn't mean that Access has to be abandoned. Tony Strileckis brings us a look at how Access is used in conjunction with SQL Server at HIG. (download now)
	Client Initiated Batch Processing with XML by John Moffet XML integration is something that SQL Server DBAs find themselves using more and more. But XML isn't necessarily noted for being the most efficient method of working with data. Read about how HIG has harnessed the power of XML to pass a list of data efficiently to SQL Server.
HIG Email Robot by Amy Lester Email is a part of SQL Server that is fairly immature. Read any bulletin board and you'll find lots of entries on SQLMail. When they needed to add email functionality to their application, the HIG team turned to SQL Server to meet their requirements for tracking and complex sending rules. Read about their ideas and design for how SQL Server can work with email. (download now)
	Data Store or Development Platform by Joe Sanantonie and Vivek Sethi Is SQL Server just a data storage mechanism or should it be used as a platform for development. There will be opinions on both sides and two of the HIG team bring us a look at this debate from the development side of the fence.
Q&A with 2005 PASS European Conference Speakers by the PASS Staff Some questions and answers with a number of well respected SQL Server professionals that will be speaking at the May 2005 PASS European Conference.

In this issue, we are looking to profile the use of SQL Server at a single company. Coming from another brainstorming session between Andy Warren and myself at the PASS 2004 Summit, we were looking for new ideas. The case study idea came up since Microsoft has asked us to do some of those in the past. But we wanted it to be detailed, something we were proud of publishing. So we thought of an in depth look at one company, covering different aspects in detail of their use of SQL Server.

Andy had been a manager of his IT development team for a little less than a year and we thought they might be a great choice for this project. A couple of them had already written for us and with him advocating and pushing the project, it had a chance of success. After all, how many managers would be willing to give up some of their valuable time, much less developers' time to write about their systems? I'm sure there are a few, but finding them and having them follow through on the project would be tough.

Fortunately Andy's senior management was enthusiastic about the project and they got right to work. While a number of the developer's weren't writers before, I bet they are a little more interested now. Both Andy and I worked with them to gather ideas, work through drafts and rewrites, trying to tell different stories about SQL Server use in the real world. I tried as much as possible to let their voices show through and limit my edits to grammar and spelling, so I hope you enjoy the look at SQL Server from a company and corporate developer point of view.

This has been a fun project and one that I'd love to repeat, so please feel free to contact me if you think your company would be interested and you could get a team, preferably a team of DBAs, to do some writing. All of the developers under Andy have been great and I'd like to thank Amy, Chris, Joe, John, Kevin, Leon, Tom, Tony, and Vivek. And of course, Andy for their efforts on this issue.

So welcome to the Hancock Information Group issue of the SQL Server Standard and dive into the story of SQL Server in corporate America.

Steve Jones