Power BI Weekly
Issue #122 - 10th August 2021
Some amazing announcements this week. The biggest one (IMO) came somewhat out of the blue, which is the public preview of Power BI REST API support for DAX Queries (yes - you read that right!) This will open up so many extensibility possibilities which aren't limited to Premium-only workspaces. So excited for that one. Not only that, but we've also been told about the:
- General availability of backup and restore for Power BI datasets
- Data gateway support for Single Sign-On (SSO) with Azure Active Directory
- Refresh history updates for models utilizing XMLA endpoints
- Power BI Angular Component
Elsewhere this week, Ken Puls has described a method to Label Duplicates with Power Query to keep track of original records amongst the copies, and Marco and Alberto have written about a common conundrum when modeling data in Power BI - whether to choose a Date or Integer to represent dates in Power BI and Tabular. Long story short - it doesn't make a huge difference, but using a Date as the key column often makes writing your DAX simpler and slightly more performant. Take a read for the justification!
🛠️ Data Prep
- Ben Gribaudo (@bgribaudo) writes that Equals Is Not Always Equivalent: Power Query Joins vs. SQL Joins
- Mike Allen (@MikeAinOz) writes about the Planner Reporting Beta Release and Planner Reporting Beta - Data Stage
- On the Power BI community blog, Liang describes how to Group Bin in Power Query
- Gil Raviv (@gilra) explains how to Convert Column1 to A and talks about Power Query Magic with Wyn Hopkins
- On the Excelguru blog, Ken Puls (@kpuls) describes how to Label Duplicates with Power Query and writes that Master Your Data is Now Available
- Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) describes a Quick VLOOKUP in Power Query
- Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) describes How To Create Ranking in Power Query with Table.Selectrows & Table.AddIndexColumn
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) discusses The Evolution and Integration of Power Query (with Miguel Llopis)
- Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) shares a few videos: Create your first Dataflow in Power BI, Linked Tables and Compound Tables in Power BI Dataflows, Export and Import Dataflows as JSON, Power BI Dataflows - Feature Comparison - Pro Vs Premium, How to consume Power BI Dataflows in Power BI Report and Connect Power BI Dataflow as DirectQuery Mode in Power BI
- Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) describes Column From Examples - My Favorite Feature Within The Power Query
- On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) discusses Building an End-To-End Analytic solution in Power BI: Part 2—Preparing the Data
- Maya Raviv writes about Excel Compare: Audit your workbooks
🧩 Data Modeling
- On the Power BI blog, Kay Unkroth announces the public preview of Power BI REST API support for DAX Queries
- On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo & Alberto Ferrari describe Choosing between Date or Integer to represent dates in Power BI and Tabular
- Also on the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) discusses Exploring attribute hierarchies in Power BI and Analysis Services – Unplugged #31 and on the CSG Pro blog, talks about My Power BI Report is Slow: What Should I Do?
- Also on the SQLBI blog, Alberto Ferrari (@FerrariAlberto) shares a few tutorials: EXCEPT – DAX Guide, ROLLUPISSUBTOTAL – DAX Guide and TOPN – DAX Guide
- Also on the Power BI community blog, Priscilla Camp (@ITDataDiva) writes about What You Should Know about the Sort By Column setting in Power BI
- Fowmy Abdulmuttalib (@ExcelFort) describes Setting Default Dynamic Date Filters in Power BI
- Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) describes how to Fix my Calculation Group in Power BI
- Allison Kennedy blogs about Tokyo 2020: RANKX
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) explains how to Calculate active items with DAX in Power BI and How to Power BI explains how to Improve your visuals | How to turn a measure into a KPI in Power BI
- Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) writes about SQL vs DAX - SELECT vs SELECTCOLUMNS DAX for SQL developers
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) describes Calculating the Top Name & Value Using DAX in Power BI
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) writes about Excel Cube Functions, Dynamic Arrays And Lambdas, Part 3: Grouping And Histograms
📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity
- On the Power BI blog, Noam Raveh announces the Power BI Angular Component
- On the Enterprise DNA blog, Mudassir Ali shares a few blogs: Round Bar Chart – A Visualization For Your Dashboard, Lollipop Charts In Power BI Custom Visual and Heat Map – A Great Visualization For Power BI Reports
- On the Power BI community blog, Pragati Jain (@pragati1187) writes about the Comicgen Visual in Power BI
- Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) talks about Bringing Paginated into Power BI reports – insane amazing!
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) shares Gauge – Bad and Good Power BI Charts and writes about the 100% Stacked Column Chart – Bad and Good Charts in Power BI
- Allison Kennedy shares a report Tokyo 2020: Per Capita Medal Rankings
- On the Tessellation Tech blog, Hayley Hadges describes How to Create Toggle Switches and When to Use Them
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) describes How to set conditional drill-through destinations and describes a Target area for Line Chart in Power BI
- On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) describes a Power BI bookmark with or without data
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) describes Adding handwriting comments and drawings to Power BI report
- Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) describes Why Hiding Pages Make Your Power BI Reports More Application-Like - Power BI Design Tips
- Matt Allington (@ExceleratorBI) writes Do Not Build a Column Chart Like This – Please!
🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations
- On the Power BI blog, Kay Unkroth announces the general availability of backup and restore for Power BI datasets and announces data gateway support for Single Sign-On (SSO) with Azure Active Directory
- Also on the Power BI blog, Ogbemi Ekwejunor-Etchie announces refresh history updates for models utilizing XMLA endpoints
- Marc Lelijveld (@MarcLelijveld) explains how to Transform a local into a global Power BI solution – Dataset discoverability
- Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) talks about Deployments – Part 8 Migrating from AAS to PPU
🌐 General
- On the Power BI blog, Will Thompson (@Will_MI77) describes Power BI Ideas site updates
- On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) share Episode 201 - Power BI July 2021 Feature Summary
- Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) share Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE (August 7, 2021)