Today, I will be marking my calendar with a bright color. (Probably pink.) I’m taking a plunge into the world known as “The Internet” and launching cathrinewilhelmsen.net! It’s quite exciting to have my own little place online 🤓
I have a few reasons for launching cathrinewilhelmsen.net. The first reason is entirely selfish: I want to tell everyone hi, hello, my name is Cathrine, this is who I am and this is what I like to do. The second reason is because I want a place where I can learn and experiment with web design and web development. And the third reason is that I want to keep a tiny library of useful links and code snippets and tips and tricks.
I have no idea yet what this website will grow into, but I’m excited! Welcome to cathrinewilhelmsen.net, I’m happy to have you here 🥳
Hi! I’m Cathrine. I love data and coding, as well as teaching and sharing knowledge 🤓
When I was 10 years old, I decided to learn HTML and CSS because it was fun! That curiosity and passion for solving technical challenges has stuck with me ever since.
I’ve now worked with Azure Data and the Microsoft Data Platform for over 17 years, mainly focusing on Business Intelligence, Data Integration and Data Warehousing projects. My core skills are Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, and T-SQL development, but I enjoy everything from programming to data visualization.
Outside of work, I’ve been an international speaker, author, blogger, organizer, and chronic volunteer for over a decade. Because of my community involvement, I received the Microsoft Data Platform MVP Award from 2015-2026.
…yeah, there’s a reason I call myself a full-time geek. I also love sci-fi and fantasy, design and typography, coffee and chocolate, I’m a dog mom and cat lover, and you will never take my emojis from me! (I made custom 8x8 pixel smilies to use on my first blog back in 2001, I’m allowed to enjoy the emoji keyboard in Windows 😁)
The last BimlExpress update was in 2019. BimlExpress is not compatible with the newest versions of Visual Studio, and there are also issues with BimlExpress in the last compatible version of Visual Studio. Varigence has not made any statements about the future of BimlExpress, and have not responded to any forum posts or support tickets for years. Because of this, my time as a BimlHero and Varigence Partner is over. In my personal opinion, Biml is dead, and I can no longer recommend anyone to use it. My old Biml content will be available, but archived.
On this page, you will find my collection of Biml resources and references, blog posts, presentations, videos, and slide decks 🤓
These are my key blog posts. I regularly remove outdated blog posts, such as posts about older products or specific releases. You can find the full archive of my Biml blog posts by browsing the Biml category.
Presentation Recordings and Slide Decks
Biml for Beginners
Are you tired of creating and updating the same SSIS packages over and over and over again? Is your wrist hurting from all that clicking, dragging, dropping, connecting and aligning? Do you want to take the next step and start automating your SSIS development?
Stop wasting your valuable time on doing the same things over and over and over again, and see how you can complete in a day what once took more than a week!
Level Up Your Biml
Is your Biml solution starting to remind you of a bowl of tangled spaghetti code? Good! That means you are solving real problems while saving a lot of time. The next step is to make sure that your solution does not grow too complex and confusing - you do not want to waste all that saved time on future maintenance.
Start improving your code today and level up your Biml in no time!
Biml Tips and Tricks
“Wait, what? Biml is not just for generating SSIS packages?”
Absolutely not! Come and see how you can use Biml (Business Intelligence Markup Language) to save time and speed up other Data Warehouse development tasks. You can generate complex T-SQL statements with Biml instead of using dynamic SQL, create test data, and even populate static dimensions.
Don’t Repeat Yourself, start automating those boring, manual tasks today!
Learn Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) for automating much of the repetitive, manual labor involved in data integration. We teach you how to build frameworks and use advanced Biml features to get more out of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Transact-SQL (T-SQL), and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) than you ever thought possible.
