Power BI Weekly

Issue #124 - 7th September 2021

It's a bit of a bumper edition this week, what with the 2 week pause, so grab yourself an extra large cup of tea (or coffee, if you're so inclined) and take a look through this week's issue. Let's start with all the announcements. Something I mentioned in the editorial of the last edition has been made-good - and that's some official documentation on the public preview of automatic aggregations. We've also been given a heads-up about Power BI and Excel functionality: Expanded Feature Availability for Power BI Free License Users which is 'coming soon', and will allow Free users to connect Excel to Power BI datasets backed by a Premium capacity. There have been a couple of updates related to Goals in Power BI: Announcing automated statuses and improved filtering for Power BI Goals and Power BI Mobile apps now support Goals. We've also been told that:

Lots of information there to sink your teeth into, and much more in the main body of the newsletter! Enjoy.

🛠️ Data Prep

Ben Gribaudo (@bgribaudo) shares a few blogs: M Mysteries: The Mysterious Type Action—An M-Internal Means to Write Data Modifications to External Systems, Power Query M Primer Part 22: Identifier Scope II – Controlling the Global Environment, Closures and M Language Proposal: Cleaning Up Function Chains with the Pipeline Operator
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) describes How Query Folding And The New Power BI Dataflows Connector Can Help Dataset Refresh Performance and covers Connecting To REST APIs With OAuth2 Authentication In Power Query/Power BI
Mike Allen (@MikeAinOz) shares that Planner Reporting available in App Source
Djordje Medakovic (@DjMedakovic) covers Connecting Dropbox Excel files to Power BI
On the Power BI community blog, Paul Zheng covers Power Query: Insert Sum Rows for Dynamic Periods
Gil Raviv (@gilra) discusses Handling Excel Formula Errors in Power Query
Mimoune Djouallah (@mim_djo) explains how to Calculate the shortest Path in a network in PowerBI
On myOnlineTraininghub, Philip Treacy (@OnlineTrainingH) talks about IFERROR in Power Query Using TRY OTHERWISE
Matthew Peterson (@mattpetersonbi) talks about Power BI: Artificial Intelligence and Power BI: Artificial Intelligence Post 2 Q&A Visual
Allison Kennedy talks about Refreshing COVID-19 NZ Data: RelativePath and Query options with the Web.Contents M function and shares Tokyo 2020: Power Query Data Source Update and Error Troubleshooting
Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) explains how to Refer Previous Row for Subgroup | Power Query Challenge
On the SQL Shack blog, Aveek Das (@avikoleum) describes Working with Python in Power BI
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) describes how to Change a column regional settings on the fly in Power Query shorts and explains how to Add a grand total row to a table in Power Query
Rick de Groot (@Rickmaurinus) describes how to Check if Column Contains Item from List in Power Query - Create Text.ContainsAny
Melissa de Korte (@_EnterpriseDNA) shares Demistifying Enter Data - Varied Uses For Direct Data Entry In Power BI, Power Query To The Max - Splitting Multi-Lined Excel Cells In Power BI and How To Dynamically Work With Mixed Fixed Column Width In Power BI
Asanka Padmakumara (@asanka_e) walks through Reducing No of Meta Data Queries send from Power BI to Synapse
On the Data Bear blog, Annamarie Van Wyk (@annamarie_wyk) describes how to Troubleshoot file changes in Power BI
Gerhard Brueckl (@gbrueckl) blogs about Doing relative-time Slicers properly in Power BI
Matt Allington (@ExceleratorBI) explains how to Rename Many Columns at Once in Power BI
Also on the Power BI Community blog, Lucien Wang describes how to Sort when with same value
On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) explains how to Analyze Azure Data Factory logs - part 3: Power BI

🧩 Data Modeling

On the Power BI blog, Christian Wade (@_christianWade) announces the public preview of automatic aggregations
On the SQLBI blog, Alberto Ferrari (@FerrariAlberto) describes Using ALLEXCEPT versus ALL and VALUES, explains Implementing running total from arbitrary dates in DAX – Unplugged 34 and describes Fixing “Top N and others” report when filtering by date – Unplugged #35
Also on the SQLBI blog, Alberto Ferrari (@FerrariAlberto) shares a few tutorials: GENERATE, GENERATEALL – DAX Guide, ADDMISSINGITEMS – DAX Guide, CROSSJOIN – DAX Guide, TOPNSKIP – DAX Guide, GENERATESERIES – DAX Guide, ROLLUP – DAX Guide and NATURALINNERJOIN, NATURALLEFTOUTERJOIN – DAX Guide
Also on the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) describes Using CONTAINS in DAX, discusses Differences between ALLSELECTED and KEEPFILTERS – Unplugged #33 and talks about Launching the Mastering Tabular video course
Also on the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo & Alberto Ferrari share Power BI Push Tools
On the Enterprise DNA blog, Jarrett Moore (@BuckeyeJarrett) shares DAX Measure Analysis: Breaking Down Long DAX Measures
On the Power BI community blog, Fowmy Abdulmuttalib (@ExcelFort) describes how to Highlight Values Above & Below Average in Power BI with DAX and Conditional Formatting
Mimoune Djouallah (@mim_djo) discusses Filtering by Dynamic Distance in Power BI and explains how to Calculate route distance, Tableau vs Power BI
Phil Seamark (@PhilSeamark) provides an Intro to Power BI Aggregations
On the MSSQLTips site, Kenneth A. Omorodion talks about Power BI Desktop External Tools and Why You Should be Using Them
Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) wonders Can you refresh a single table in Power BI?
Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) discusses the Case of the slow Power BI report: Hierarchies and RLS
On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) explains How I speed up my Power BI report 5x
On the Prologika blog, Teo Lachev (@tlachev) talks about Chasing SSAS Connection Timeouts
Allison Kennedy describes a Categorical Date Slicer in Power BI
Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) writes that Data Modeling makes DAX easy!, shares 3 Complex DAX Examples and writes about the TOPN Function in DAX
Imke Feldmann (@TheBIccountant) writes that Power BI Cleaner Gen2 now covers Analysis Services Models as well
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) describes how to Turn measures into KPIs in Power BI and explains how to Supercharge Constant Lines to Highlight a Date Range in Power BI
Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) describes how to Extract Numbers from Text with DAX in Power BI with ADDCOLUMNS GENERATESERIES MID CONCATENATEX SUMX, writes about Current Year vs Previous Year calculation in DAX Year over Year Power BI and describes how to Sort Columns in a Matrix in Descending order with DAX in Power BI
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) describes Implementing Different Date Table Hierarchy Types in Power BI and discusses Current & Future Power BI Trends with Alex Powers
Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) blogs about Week Over Week in Power BI and discusses SamePeriodLastYear in Power BI
Avi Singh (@powerbipro) discusses Power BI Relationships Not Working? How to Fix 🛠️ Missing and Blank Values [Part 2] and Power BI Relationships Not Working? How to Add Missing Values Yourself 💪 [Part 3]
Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) talks about New way to compare Date and DateTime Value in Power BI - August 2021 Feature Summary
Brian Julius covers The Hidden DAX Trap In Power BI
Also on the MSSQLTips site, Eduardo Pivaral (@EduardoDBA) writes about Real-Time Streaming using Power BI Streaming Dataset
On the CSG Pro blog, Brian Grant (@BrianGrantBI) provides An Introduction to Grouping Tables in Power BI: A Bridge Table Too Far
On the Purple Frog Systems blog, Nick Edwards describes How to change the summarization of multiple columns in Power BI.
Dan English (@denglishbi) shares the Power BI / AAS Model Optimization Presentation
Salvatore Cagliari writes To weigh or not to weigh — this is the Average question
Also on the Power BI Community blog, Greg Deckler (@GregDeckler) shares some First Impressions - Tabular Editor 3 and writes that Size Does Matter
Brian Julius talks about The Four Horsemen of the Power BI Apocalypse
On LaDataWeb, Ignacio Barrau (@ignacho_07) writes Contar fechas consecutivas bajo condición [Spanish]

📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity

On the Power BI blog, Maya Shenhav highlights that Power BI Mobile apps now support Goals
Also on the Power BI blog, Carly Newsome announces automated statuses and improved filtering for Power BI Goals
On the Marquee Insights blog, Treb Gatte (@tgatte) shares a few blogs: Power BI Goals and OKRs, Power BI Goals Update First Look – Aug 2021 and Power BI Goals Mobile – First Look
Parker Stevens (@PowerBIElite) explains How to Build a Native Quadrant Chart in Power BI and describes How to Add a Vertical Text Box in Power BI
Soheil Bakhshi (@biinsightnz) shares a Quick Tip: Enabling Modern Visual Styles on Old Reports in Power BI Desktop
On the Enterprise DNA blog, Mudassir Ali shares a number of blogs: Line Charts – A Common Yet Great Visualization, Dumbbell Chart – A Performance Tracking Visualization, Donut Chart: Create A Custom Visual Using Charticulator, Fill Bar Chart – A Bar Chart Variety For Power BI Reports and Bullet Chart: An Information-Generating Visualization
Matt Allington (@ExceleratorBI) discusses Overlaying Trends from Different Dates
Fowmy Abdulmuttalib (@ExcelFort) describes how to Highlight Above and Below Average in Power BI and shares Part 1 – Learn how to highlight events on Power BI chart timeline
Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) talks about Crushing requirements with Small Multiples in Power BI
On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) blogs about Building an End-To-End Analytic solution in Power BI: Part 4—From Chart to Insight and Building an End-To-End Analytic solution in Power BI: Part 5—Action, please
On the Visual BI blog, Mukesh Kasilingam describes how to Write-back into SQL Database using Power BI with Power Apps
Denis Selimovic (@DenSelimovic) describes how to Display websites within Power BI dynamically and blogs about Reporting for Everyone – Create accessible Power BI reports in just a few steps
Allison Kennedy discusses the Preview Feature: Data Point Rectangle Select and shares a report: Welcome to Level 3: Lockdown with Takeaways
On the Blue Granite blog, Elayne Jones provides A Step-by-Step Overview of Paginated Reports in Power BI
On the Burningsuit blog, Alison Box writes Charticulator In Power BI #14 – The Line Plot Segment
On the CSG Pro blog, Brian Grant (@BrianGrantBI) describes how to get Totals at the Top of a Power BI Matrix Visual
How to Power BI shares a number of videos: Combining Reference Lines and Parameters in Power BI, Dynamic quadrant analysis in Power BI, Highlight a Date Range in Power BI, Combining actuals and forecast as one line in Power BI and Quadrant Chart in Power BI
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) shares DAX Fridays #212: VALUES vs SELECTEDVALUE to conditional format a line chart and presents 2 ways to activate the search bar in a slicer
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) discusses Analyzing Breakdowns Between Two Categories with a Waterfall Chart, covers the Design Thought Process for Power BI Reporting with Miguel Myers and talks about Dynamic Waterfall Breakdown & Y Axis Range Selection in Power BI
Pat Mahoney (@mahoneypa) discusses Charticulator - 10 Tips, shares a PureViz Demo, talks about Conditional Formatting of Calculation Group Columns in Power BI and wonders Are you still not using Calculation Groups?
Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) explains how to Get Best Result from Q&A Visual in Power BI, introduces the New Shapes with Customize shape formatting and describes how to Draw X Axis Constant Line with Dynamic Value for Power BI Line Chart
David Abu presents Don't Summarize Visual in Power BI
On the xViz blog, Prachi Mishra talks about a Marimekko Chart – Various Configurations in Power BI
On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) shares a Page Level Security workaround in Power BI
On the Power BI community blog, Priscilla Camp (@ITDataDiva) explains How to Add a Toggle Feature to Your Power BI Report
On the Tessellation Tech blog, Zac Zinda explains How to Optimize Your Jupyter Notebooks with Embedded Power BI Reports
Matt Allington (@ExceleratorBI) describes Comparing Events in Power BI
Also on the Power BI Community blog, Yingying Ruan describes a Dual Y axis values in one grouped column chart
Also on the Power BI Community blog, Jing Zhang wonders Do you know the Anchor Time in Relative Time Filter and Slicer?

🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations

On the Power BI blog, David Magar writes that the New Premium Metrics App preview now available
Also on the Power BI blog, Anton Fritz (@AntonFritz15) announces Announcing Default sensitivity label preview and other top asked MIP features in Power BI
Also on the Power BI blog, Arthi Ramasubramanian Iyer (@ArthiRamasubra1) highlights that the On-premises data gateway August 2021 update is now available
On the Power BI blog, Yarden Albeck writes that the Scanner API is now in GA
Marc Lelijveld (@MarcLelijveld) continues the series: Transform a local into a global Power BI solution – Ownership and descriptions and Content endorsement
On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) writes about the Virtual Network Data Gateway for Power BI
Abhinav Singh describes how to Work with Multiple Developers using single Power BI Dataset
Philipp Lenz (@lenz_philipp) writes about Continuous Deployment of Power BI Reports with Azure DevOps (Part 1, Direct Query and Import Mode), Continuous Deployment of Power BI Reports with Azure DevOps (Part 2, Live Connection to a OLAP Cube) and describes How to add users into roles with Azure DevOps by using PowerShell to a Analysis Service Cube
On the Power GI blog, Cyrus Christian describes Power BI Inventory, Audit log and Gateway management with PowerShell
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) describes Matching DAX Queries To Individual Visuals In A Published Power BI Report
Wolfgang Strasser (@wstrasser) talks about Azure Purview – Enhanced Power BI Integration
Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) shares: Costs – Part 10 | Migrating from AAS to PPU, Conclusion of Migrating AAS to PPU | Part 11 and How I added my Report Names to the Log Analytics Report
Kevin Chant (@kevchant) provides an Azure Test Plans example for Power BI
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) presents Explaining the XMLA Endpoint and its Use Cases (with Just Blindbæk)
On the MSSQLTips site, Kenneth A. Omorodion describes how to Schedule, Export and Email Power BI Reports using Power Automate
Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) highlights 3 signs it's time to optimize your Power BI report
On the SQL Shack blog, Aveek Das (@avikoleum) describes Implementing Security in Power BI Workspaces using User Roles
On the Power BI community blog, s-richert explains how to Embed Power BI Goals in your app and explains how to Combine scorecards spanning multiple workspaces in the same Power BI app
Olivier Travers (@otravers) writes about Row Level Security & Beyond in Business Intelligence Applications: A Practical Overview
Laura Graham-Brown (@Laura_GB) discusses Refreshing datasets automatically with dataflows

🌐 General

On the Power BI blog, Arun Ulagaratchagan (@arunulag) writes that Microsoft named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Augmented BI Platforms, Q3 2021
Also on the Power BI blog, Ikechukwu Edeagu talks about Power BI and Excel: Expanded Feature Availability for Power BI Free License Users Coming Soon
Also on the Power BI blog, Lauren Faber highlights that Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical Company Leverages Power BI and ValQ for Strategic Planning
Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) shares Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE (August 28, 2021) and Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE (Sept 4, 2021)
On the Tessellation Tech blog, Spencer Baucke (@JSBaucke) covers Understanding the Basics of Power BI Service
On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) present Episode 203 - Power BI August 2021 Feature Summary
The Knee-Deep in Tech team (@KneeDeepinTech) shares Podcast episode 158