Power BI Weekly
Issue #249 - 12th March 2024
This week there have been a few announcements: some big news for Excel + Power BI users is that the creation of connected tables in Excel Online is available in Excel Online for everyone. We've also been told about the Improved image mode in Power BI add-in for PowerPoint, and we've been given the On-premises data gateway February 2024 release which includes a new feature around SQL Trusted Servers.
There's also been a couple of blog posts and articles that have caught our eye this week: firstly, Mihaly Kavasi has written a detailed blog around configuring and reporting over Log Analytics for Power BI: How to start and improve insights for better model performance, and Soheil Bakhshi has written a thorough blog (based on real world experience) around Incremental Refresh in Power BI, Part 3: Best Practices for Large Semantic Models. And, on an indirectly related topic this week, my colleague James has written a thought-provoking blog titled No-code/Low-code is software DIY - how do you avoid DIY disaster?, which aims to address some of the causes that make many no/low code projects fail.
Finally, this is the last week before SQLBits begins, but there's still time to buy tickets. There are over 300 sessions to choose from, covering many technical and non-technical topics. A few of us at endjin will be speaking, including a training day that Barry and I are conducting on Tuesday all about DataOps: How to Deliver Data Faster and Better with Microsoft Cloud. What's more, almost all the endjin crew will be around on Thursday & Friday, and we'd love to meet you all. Hope to see you there!
🛠️ Data Prep
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) discusses the Overhead Of Getting Relationship Columns In Power BI DirectQuery Mode
- Denis Selimovic (@DenSelimovic) describes The best Power Query and M documentation – Introducing PowerQuery.how
- Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) talks about the SWITCH Function in Power Query
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) delves into Power Query + OpenAI API (GPT)
🧩 Data Modeling
- On the SQLBI blog, Kurt Buhler (@kurtbuhler) describes Improving data labels with format strings
- Tom Martens (@tommartens68) writes My favorite windowing function - WINDOW
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) describes Five Tabular Editor 3 Hidden Tips for Power BI (with Morten Lønskov)
- Erik Svensen (@donsvensen) covers Power BI – update your measures without the formula bar
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) describes DAX: SUM vs SUMX misunderstanding
- On the SQL Server Central blog, Farooq Aziz writes about Power BI Auto Detect Relationship Failure
📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity
- On the Power BI blog, Maya Shenhav (@MSPowerBI) writes about Improved image mode in Power BI add-in for PowerPoint
- Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) describes Getting started with Visual Calcs in Power BI (with Jeroen ter Heerdt)
- Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) describes How to Create a Pivot Table in Power BI
- On the Power BI community blog, Xianda Tang describes How to customize open-sourced custom visual
- Michel Dekker (@dekkerm) describes 9 1/2 Tips for Awesome Visualization in Power BI
- Kavita Behera presents Mastering Advanced Visualization Techniques and Features in Power BI with Powerviz
- Luca Liu describes How to Create Dynamic Show Hide Slicer Panel
- On the Learning Science YouTube channel, Learning Science talks about Visual level calculations using template without writing DAX measures in Power BI
🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations
- On the Power BI blog, Shannon Lindsay (@MSPowerBI) announces the creation of connected tables in Excel Online
- Also on the Power BI blog, Nikki Waghani (@NikkiWaghani) announces On-premises data gateway February 2024 release
- Mihály Kávási (@KavasiM) blogs about Log Analytics for Power BI: How to start and improve insights for better model performance
- Soheil Bakhshi (@biinsightnz) writes about Incremental Refresh in Power BI, Part 3: Best Practices for Large Semantic Models
- Miguel Félix covers Power BI Developer – para que serve o TMDL? [Portuguese]
🌐 General
- Greg Low (@greglow) presents Fabric Down Under show 7 with guest Philip Seamark