Power BI Weekly
Issue #102 - 23rd March 2021
It's that time of the month again - the Power BI March 2021 Feature Summary has been released. A number of smaller tweaks to existing features this month it seems, but still plenty to be excited about. That being said, a lovely bit of new functionality has been added to the CALCULATE function, which now allows you to write logical OR filters inside a single filter argument, without having to use the FILTER function. We've also been told that Support of external tools in Power BI Desktop is GA, which is great. Don't forget about the Business Ops tool the Power BI Tips team made to put all the main external tools under a single roof to make it easy for you to browse and install external tools as you please.
Elsewhere this week, the Visual Data Prep (Diagram View in Power Query Online) is now GA, the On-premises data gateway March 2021 update is now available, and ODBC support available for Paginated Reports is in public preview, opening up a bunch of new connectivity scenarios.
Finally, I highlighted a blog last week describing the various Power Platform components working together. This week Charles Sterling has joined Reid Havens to run through a bunch of use-cases when it comes to integrating the products, giving a couple of demos along the way. Well worth checking that out - Power BI by itself is amazing, but integrating Power Apps and Power Automate opens up so many new doors.
🛠️ Data Prep
- On the Power BI blog, Swati Gupta announces that ODBC support available for Paginated Reports in public preview
- Also on the Power BI blog, Dharini Sundaram (@heydharini) announces the Announcing Visual Data Prep general availability (Diagram View in Power Query Online)
- On the Access Analytic blog, Wyn Hopkins (@wynhopkins) explains how to Consolidate Excel worksheets with Power Query and shares some Power Query Simple Documentation Tips
- Ben Gribaudo (@bgribaudo) writes Power Query M Primer (Part 20): Metadata
- Michal Dvorak (@nolockcz) writes about Parquet, ADLS Gen2, ETL, and Incremental Refresh in one Power BI Dataset
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) writes about Improving The Performance Of Importing Data From ADLSgen2 In Power BI By Partitioning Tables and discusses Parquet File Performance In Power BI/Power Query
- Andy Cutler (@MrAndyCutler) shares an Azure Synapse Analytics Serverless SQL with Power BI Dataflows PDF
- Jon Acampora (@excelcampus) blogs about Shortcuts to Open the Power Query Editor in Excel
- Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) describes how to Fill up/ down with conditions in Power Query
- Melissa de Korte (@_EnterpriseDNA) talks about the Extended Date Table Power Query M Function - Updated
- Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) describes Using Microsoft Forms data with Power BI
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) describes how to Import from CSV in Power BI | Fixing missing decimals and columns
🧩 Data Modeling
- On the Power BI blog, Kay Unkroth announces that Support of external tools in Power BI Desktop is GA
- On the Power BI community blog, Mike Carlo (@PowerBITips) writes about Business Ops - The largest collection of Power BI External Tools
- On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) talks about Tabular tools and workspaces – Unplugged 11
- Also on the SQLBI blog, Alberto Ferrari (@FerrariAlberto) shares a few tutorials: MIN, MINA, MINX – DAX Guide, MAX, MAXA, MAXX – DAX Guide, DISTINCTCOUNT, DISTINCTCOUNTNOBLANK – DAX Guide, COUNTROWS – DAX Guide and COUNTBLANK – DAX Guide
- On the Business Intelligist blog, Business Intelligist (@bizintelligist) discusses a Price Volume Mix (PVM) Calculation in Power BI with New and Discontinued Products (Power BI Dax Tutorial)
- Also on the Power BI community blog, Jay Wang describes how to Use DAX to create a calendar table with holidays
- Also on the Power BI community blog, Steve de Peijper discusses Lineage between your DAX measures
- On the MSSQLTips site, Scott Murray covers Power BI Anomaly Detection
- Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) describes How to get multiple slicer items filtered using the DAX TREATAS function
- Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) talks about the Date table in Power BI
- Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) delves into Calculating Percentage % Margins In Power BI Using DAX
- Jarret Moore talks about Conditional Formatting With ROUND Function In Power BI
- Erik Svensen (@donsvensen) walks through Using Calculation Groups in Power BI to implement a Many 2 Many (M2M) filter
- On the Power BI Community blog, Antriksh Sharma writes about the Thinking Behind Use of KEEPFILTERS
- Also on the Power BI Community blog, Liang Lu describes Using a slicer to show different measures
- Sophie Marchand (@Mon_Cher_Watson) writes Créez vos propres formats personnalisés [French]
📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity
- Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) shares 5 IDEAS to take Power BI reports to the NEXT LEVEL
- On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) writes about Customizing Google Analytics visual in Power BI
- Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) talks about a Dynamic Line Chart in PowerBI
- On the Data Bear blog, Mariska Oosthuizen blogs about a Bubble chart in Power BI
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) writes about Dynamic Titles in Power BI
- Parker Stevens (@PowerBIElite) discusses Crossover Analysis in Power BI
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) presents Power BI Days NW - Visualization Magic in the Age of Numbers & Science
- Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) explains How to Sync Two Slicers on the Same Page in Power BI
- Bruno Zurita writes UX uso de Botones [Spanish]
🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations
- On the Power BI blog, Arthi Ramasubramanian Iyer (@ArthiRamasubra1) shares that the On-premises data gateway March 2021 update is now available
- Darren Gosbell (@darrengosbell) writes about Power BI Report Server – fixing the Server is not reachable Error and walks through Fixing Attempted to read or write protected memory Refresh Errors in Power BI Report Server
- On the Prologika blog, Teo Lachev (@tlachev) writes about When Something Goes Wrong (Unable to Load the Model)
- Just Blindbæk (@justblindbaek) describes how to Save money with Power BI Premium Gen2
- Mara Pereira (@datapears) shares some Report performance best practices
- On the CSG Pro blog, Gavin McLaughlin (@GavinCSGPro) writes about What You Need to Know About Power BI Embedded (With Examples)
🌐 General
- On the Power BI blog, Jeroen ter Heerdt (@jeroenterheerdt) shares the Power BI March 2021 Feature Summary
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) shares Power BI Days NW - Must Know Ways to Integrate Power BI with SharePoint with Ansh Purohit and talks about Microsoft Power Platform Integration with Charles Sterling
- On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) talks through a Microsoft (MSFT) | 5 Years Income Statement Financial Report in Microsoft POWER BI (2016-2020)
- Kevin Chant (@kevchant) writes about Using Azure DevOps Analytics Views and Power BI to create Sprint review dashboards
- Philipp Lenz (@lenz_philipp) writes Power BI Adoption?
- On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad and Leila Etaati share What is Power BI Summit?
- Laura Graham-Brown (@Laura_GB) shares some Paginated Report Resources