• Forthcoming Workshops: Using Microsoft Excel for Effective Capacity & Performance Management, London & Edinburgh
• Latest Training Course Calendar
• New Article: Microsoft Excel 2007 for Performance & Capacity Management
• New Article: A Ten Step Plan to Effective Capacity Management
• New Article: Importing W3C Web Server Logs using Excel VBA
• New Presentations given at UKCMG 2006 Annual Conference

Using Microsoft Excel for Effective Capacity & Performance Management

Tutor: Neil McMenemy, Principal Consultant.

Capacity and performance practitioners traditionally used SAS to undertake analysis and reporting. However, Microsoft Excel is widely available but its capabilities are surprisingly underused, especially its ability to analyse and report on capacity and performance data. This seminar gives practical advice on how to undertake a multitude of tasks using Excel. The workshop is platform independent, using various sources of data in demonstrations, and focuses on providing a value-for-money approach to capacity and performance analytical tools. Topics covered include:

• Pivot tables: manipulating data quickly and effectively; dealing with gaps in data; summarising; creating interval records from event records
• Filtering: custom filters
• Batch modelling: look-up tables; Gantt charts
• Surface plots: combining 24 hour profiles with monthly growth
• Forecasting functions: FORECAST; GROWTH; linear regression with trend-lines, SLOPE and INTERCEPT functions and the Data Analysis wizard
• Creating GIFs: saving charts separately from the workbook; creating HTML
• Automation: creating Visual Basic modules through keyboard macros
• Charts: dealing with ‘too much’ data; general tips

Feedback from attendees of previous events can be found by following this link. This workshop will cost £450+VAT. To register please email Excel for Capacity and Performance Workshop, or call 020 7841 7431. More details...

London, UK, Training Centre:

Please click on the above links to review the course descriptions or email us at Capacitas Training. More details...

Microsoft Excel 2007 for Performance and Capacity Management

This article gives an overview of the key differences between the forthcoming Excel 2007 and the current Excel 2003. It specifically covers areas that are of interest to the performance and capacity expert and the changes that will assist with reporting, analysis and modelling. More details...

A Ten Step Plan to Effective Capacity Management

Designing and building an effective capacity management function has never been harder: the competition for talented staff is high, as is the current workload of projects and 'business-as-usual'. At the same time salary and training budgets are often constrained. How does the contemporary capacity manager cope with these challenges? Follow our ten-step plan to designing and building an effective capacity management function; wherever your starting point and whatever your challenges you will find useful techniques here! More details...

Importing W3C Web Server Log Files using Excel VBA

Excel is probably the most important commonly-available analysis tool for IT professionals. Visual Basic for Applications can be used to extend the functionality of Excel to support common performance and capacity management activities. This article explains an add-in that is used to import W3C web server log files for analysis using Excel. The add-in allows the user to select a file, which is then opened and automatically edited to ensure that unnecessary and repeated headers are removed. More details...

Please see our Research section for a selection of white papers and presentations on various areas of performance assurance and capacity management.

Capacitas staff recently presented on the following topics at the UKCMG 2006 Annual Conference:

• A Ten-Step Plan to Effective Capacity Management
  (Neil McMenemy & Andy Bolton)
• Cost-Effective Capacity Modelling: A Real-Life Case Study
  (Paul Seaton-Smith)

The presentation material is available on our website Research area.

Capacitas and easyJet: A Success Story

Low-fares airline easyJet has, since 1998, delivered exceptional value to its customers by pioneering online booking of air travel. In addition to reducing operational costs the internet has grown rapidly to become the company’s primary sales channel, with over 98% of sales delivered via the easyJet.com portal. As easyJet grew it recognised the need to adopt a robust capacity management process and tool to ensure future revenues were realised. Read more...

Recent customers of Capacitas include: Nationwide, Orange, Allianz Cornhill, Centrica, easyJet, Prudential, Royal Bank of Scotland, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever and Yahoo!. For more details on what some of our customers have to say about us please have a look at our Testimonials page.

If you are interested in learning more about our services please email Enquiries, or call +44 (0) 20 7841 7431.