Power BI Weekly

Issue #129 - 12th October 2021

The wait is over... Premium Gen2 is now GA! Take another flick through the docs before pressing that button (if you haven't already), and note that the Autoscale feature (free during Preview) is going to start being charged on the 4th November. In other exciting news, Service Principal authentication for PPU workspaces is now possible, with the blog focusing on how this can further help you migrate your Analysis Services models to Power BI and the PPU model. Finally, there's yet another great API helping you govern your tenant: Power BI Unused Artifacts API (preview). You can currently use it to find datasets that haven't been used for the last 30 days within a specific workspace. In the future, additional artifacts like reports and dashboards will be supported.

Elsewhere this week, Alberto Ferrari has written another comprehensive article comparing Header/Detail vs Star Schema models in Tabular and Power BI, and you can probably guess the conclusion: "star schema all the way". Phil Seamark has written a guide around the Power BI Storage Modes for Aggregations, and Sam McKay has shared a video explaining why The Key Influencers Visual In Power BI Is Incredible & We Should Use It More.

🛠️ Data Prep

Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) writes about Multi-Value Parameters In Power Query Online
Ben Gribaudo (@bgribaudo) writes about Resilient Relative Column Reordering
On the Enterprise DNA blog, Melissa de Korte (@_EnterpriseDNA) explains How To Use Power Query Row And Column Selection and writes about Nested Expressions: Power Query Environments
On the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) shares 3 reasons to use views instead of tables in Power BI
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) describes Creating Date Calendar Hierarchy Columns in Power Query
On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) talks about Power BI Date or Calendar Table Best Method | DAX or Power Query and discusses a Power Query Transformation Pattern | Convert Status Log Dates Table to Start and End Date Table
Rick de Groot (@Rickmaurinus) explains how to Perform a Case Insensitive Replace Values in Power Query
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) describes How to do Pagination without knowing the number of pages (Part 2) in Power Query | List.Generate
Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) describes how to Remove Top Rows and Combine Data from Multiple Excel Files
Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) wonders What If I Use Table.RemoveColumns in Power Query? | Power BI
Lars Schreiber (@SchreiberLars) writes Aus kumulierten Werten Tageswerte zurückrechnen – mit gruppierten Daten [German]
On LaDataWeb, Ignacio Barrau (@ignacho_07) writes Dos formas de obtener .parquet combinados [Spanish]
Also on the Towards Data Science blog, Salvatore Cagliari describes how to Change your approach with large datasets in Power BI
Jeff Lenning (@Exceluniversity) shares a PivotTable with Multiple Text Values Alternative

🧩 Data Modeling

On the SQLBI blog, Alberto Ferrari (@FerrariAlberto) talks about Header/Detail vs Star Schema models in Tabular and Power BI, and shares Integer – DAX Guide, Decimal – DAX Guide and Currency – DAX Guide
Phil Seamark (@PhilSeamark) talks about Power BI Storage Modes for Aggregations
On the Power BI community blog, Greg Deckler (@GregDeckler) describes Microsoft Hates Greg's Quick Measures
Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) shares a few videos: How to Create Running Total in DAX in Power BI with FILTER and ALL DAX Tutorial for beginners, How to Stop Running Total in Current Year with DAX in Power BI and How to Create Running Total for Previous Year with DAX in Power BI
Also on the Power BI community blog, Jay Wang explains how to Calculate the Distance between Two Locations
Matthew Peterson (@mattpetersonbi) describes how to Group Values From Column For Visuals - No DAX Needed
Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) describes Using PowerShell to run Power BI DAX queries and extract data to CSV
Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) delves into RANKX in Power BI
Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah16) covers COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTX, COUNTAX, COUNTBLANK, DISTICTCOUNT, COUNTROWS and AVERAGE, AVERAGEA, AVERAGEX
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about TopN Filter Confusion in Power BI
On the SQL Shack blog, Aveek Das (@avikoleum) shares an Overview of Power BI Time calculations
Also on the Power BI Community blog, Amit Chandak (@amitchandak78) writes Customer Retention Part 5: LTD and PeriodYoY Retention is only focused on Year vs Year
Pat Mahoney (@mahoneypa) shares Let's Get It Sorted - Part Two

📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity

Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) shares that The Key Influencers Visual In Power BI Is Incredible & We Should Use It More
Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) describes How to show 5 minute intervals in Power BI
Rick de Groot (@Rickmaurinus) describes how to Set Default Slicer Value to Current Month in Power BI
On the Data Bear blog, Annamarie Van Wyk (@annamarie_wyk) talks about Buttons in Power BI
Daniel Marsh-Patrick (@the_d_mp) writes about the Violin Plot: Custom Visual for Power BI
The Power BI team (@MSPowerBI) explains how to Create quick reports in Microsoft Power BI on the web
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about Page Navigation Hover Effect in Power BI
David Abu talks about the AI Visuals: Decomposition Tree and explains how to AI Visual in Power BI: Increase and Decrease in Line Chart

🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations

On the Power BI blog, David Magar highlights the General Availability of next-gen Premium Platform
The Power BI team (@MSPowerBI) covers the Power BI New Premium Platform - Features breakdown and walkthrough
On the Blue Granite blog, Dawn Clement writes about Power BI Premium Gen2: The Next Generation
Also on the Power BI blog, Kay Unkroth writes that the New authentication option facilitates AAS migrations to Power BI Premium at a low price point
Also on the Power BI blog, Derek Jaeger blogs about the Power BI Unused Artifacts API (preview)
On the Power BI Tips and Tricks blog, Tommy Puglia (@tommypuglia) describes Using the Power BI Scanner API to Manage a Tenant's Entire Metadata
On the Power BI community blog, Ted Pattison (@TedPattison) highlights the Power BI Dev Camp: Oct. 28th 11a PST | Learn ALM in Power BI with Deployment Pipelines
Alex J. Garcia (@AlexG_SmartPBI) discusses Resourcing and Structuring a Power BI Centre of Excellence – Part 4 of PBI CoE Series
On the MSSQLTips site, Kenneth A. Omorodion describes how to Use Power Automate to Export and Email Power BI Reports with Row Level Security

🌐 General

Kasper de Jonge (@kjonge) covers The rise of self-service BI, PowerPivot and Power BI and how it changed the world with Rob Collie
Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) share Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE w/ Alberto Ferrari
On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) share Episode 207 - Power BI News Update
Scott Sewell (@ScottSewell) presents Power BI Dev Camp Session 14 Developing Power BI for Dataverse + Power Apps and Dynamics 365 CE