Power BI Weekly

Issue #100 - 9th March 2021

What better way to mark the 100th edition but with a flurry of exciting Ignite announcements? Arun Ulag announced the Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) general availability and autoscale preview for Gen2, with the main point of interest probably being the announced price point of PPU: $20. Which, I think, is a pretty reasonable price point for the additional functionality you get with PPU. Of course, there are the considerations that have been detailed in the PPU FAQs documentation, but I still think that's a fair price point. The autoscale feature has warranted its own blog which can be found here: Announcing Premium Gen 2 Autoscale Preview. Again, the price point is $85 per vCore, per 24 hours. Sticking with the Gen2 announcements - the utilization analysis app is now available, giving us similar monitoring that is avaiable for Gen1 capacities to help us understand the workloads on our capacities.

Also announced is the new Power BI embedded analytics playground (preview), which I think is amazing. Even if you don't use Power BI Embedded now, you might have a requirement in the future. Go and check it out and appreciate how easy the team is making it to get up and running with embedding reports in Power BI. Finally, there is new VNet Connectivity for PBI Datasets (Public Preview), allowing you to connect from Microsoft Cloud services to your Azure data services within a VNet without the need of an on-premises data gateway. Very exciting feature!

🛠️ Data Prep

Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) writes a few blogs: Testing The Performance Impact Of AzureStorage.DataLake() Options On Power BI Refresh Performance, Measuring The Performance Of AzureStorage.DataLake() Using Power Query Query Diagnostics and Parquet Files In Power BI/Power Query And The “Streamed Binary Values” Error
On the Power BI community blog, Rico describes how to Filter Twice to Get the Table We Need
On the MSSQLTips site, Kenneth A. Omorodion writes a Deep dive on Using Column from Examples in Power BI on Dates
On the Marquee Insights blog, Treb Gatte (@tgatte) explains How to use Power BI Parameters in DAX and Power Query
On the SQL Server Central blog, Additional Articles explains how to Create Calendar Table Using Power Query M Language
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) describes How to extract text with an if condition in one step in Power Query
Melissa de Korte (@_EnterpriseDNA) describes Extract Values From Records And Lists In Power Query
On the DEV.to blog, Sergei Semenkov describes How to load data from Mondrian to Power BI Desktop
Lars Schreiber (@SchreiberLars) shares Moderne Datenanalyse fürs Controlling mit Power BI-Teil2 [German]

🧩 Data Modeling

James Serra (@JamesSerra) talks about Power BI and a Star Schema
On the RADACAD blog, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) shares a Power BI Design Tip: Disable the Auto-Detect Relationship and talks about Day of Year and Day of Quarter – DAX calculations for Power BI
Lars Schreiber (@SchreiberLars) shares a Chat with Jeffrey Wang
On the Blue Granite blog, Dan Szepesi (@szBigDan) explains How to Improve Power BI Performance - Part III
Imke Feldmann (@TheBIccountant) writes that Power BI Cleaner now fully covers Calculation Groups
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about DAX comments in Power BI and about the DIVIDE Function vs DIVIDE operator in Power BI
On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) shares a webinar: Fundamentals of DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) | Power Pivot | POWER BI | Best Practices & Concepts
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) talks about [DAX] Time Intelligence Problems When Using the TODAY() Function
Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) talks about Group By in Power BI without DAX and talks about Measures vs Calculated Columns in Power BI
Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) describes how to Format Negative Numbers with Red Brackets in Power BI
Brian Julius talks about Fixing Card Visual Results in Power BI and writes about Dynamic Power BI Report with Calculation Groups
On the Towards Data Science blog, Peter Hui describes Filter vs Row Context
On the Power BI Community blog, Yang Liu describes How to put the row and column subtotals in front of the matrix

📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity

Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) discusses Using Power BI reports from an end user perspective (2021)
Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) asks Ever wanted a notification in your Power BI Reports?
On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) covers Bookmarks in Power BI—What does this Data mean?
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about Custom format strings in Power BI | Making sense of ##0,.0 K
On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) provides a Visualization Tip Change to Filter instead of highlight Control the Interaction in Power BI
Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) explains how to Take Reports And Visuals To Another Level Combining Filters And Interactions In Power BI
On the Business Intelligist blog, Business Intelligist (@bizintelligist) talks about Dynamic Dropdown Navigation in Power BI
Paul Turley (@paul_turley) shares Paginated Reports Recipe eBook – first two recipes
Mara Pereira (@maraft_per) explains how to Edit your data directly from Power BI using PowerApps Part 2 - Building an approval workflow
Mike Allen (@MikeAinOz) provides an Adaptive Cards Date Format dd/MM/yyyy Update
On the Data Bear blog, Annamarie Van Wyk (@annamarie_wyk) blogs about the Selection Pane in Power BI
On the MSSQLTips site, Scott Murray writes about the Power BI Smart Narrative

🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations

On the Power BI blog, Arun Ulag (@arunulag) announces Power BI Premium Per User general availability and autoscale preview for Gen2
Also on the Power BI blog, Arthi Ramasubramanian Iyer (@ArthiRamasubra1) announces VNet Connectivity for PBI Datasets (Public Preview)
Also on the Power BI blog, David Magar announces Announcing Premium Gen 2 Autoscale Preview and announces that Premium Gen2 utilization analysis app now available
Philipp Lenz (@lenz_philipp) writes about Which user does really need a Power BI Pro license? and explains how to Write Azure Automation Output to Azure Blob Storage
Mara Pereira (@maraft_per) writes about the Dataflows Power Automate connector: fully automate your data refresh
Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) explains how to Configure OLS in Power BI using Tabular Editor to limit access to non-financial measures
Parv Chana (@parvchana) writes about Object Level Security in 3 Easy Steps
The Power BI team (@MSPowerBI) introduces Power BI Premium Gen 2
Also on LaDataWeb, Ignacio Barrau (@ignacho_07) writes about Power Bi Apps - ¿Para qué sirven? [Spanish]
Olivier Travers (@otravers) writes about Row Level Security & Beyond in Business Intelligence Applications: A Practical Overview
Parker Stevens (@PowerBIElite) writes about Object-Level Security in Power BI

🌐 General

On the Power BI blog, Amit Shuster (@ShusterAmit) announces the new Power BI embedded analytics playground (preview)
Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) share the Ignite March 2021 Social Hour with BIFocal
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) reviews the best Power BI announcements made on Ignite 2021
On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) explains how to Earn a FREE Microsoft Certification Exam | Microsoft's Cloud Skills Challenge March 2021
Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) share the recording: Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE /w Chris Finlan (Mar 6, 2021)
Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) talks about Azure Synapse for the Power BI developer - by Wolfgang Strasser
Matt Allington (@ExceleratorBI) writes about The Best Way to Install Power BI Desktop