Power BI Weekly
Issue #259 - 21st May 2024
A handful of announcements and updates have been presented to us in preparation for Microsoft Build this week, and I dare say more are to come. You can find Arun's summary blog here: Unlock real-time insights with AI-powered analytics in Microsoft Fabric which includes an overview of some of the recent and upcoming innovations, and more generally, you can monitor all the Announcements on the Microsoft Fabric directly on the Fabric blog. Aside from Build, a very exciting announcement is that there is a new Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Europe to complement that which took place in Vegas a couple of months ago. It's taking place in Stockholm from September 24-27 (24th being a training day), and you can preregister now to receive a 50% discount code.
Over on the Power BI side, this week we've received the Power BI May 2024 Feature Summary, which includes new Layout modes for the Matrix visual (akin to those you get in Excel PivotTables), announces that the DAX Query View is now GA and highlights that there is now Git integration support for Direct Lake semantic models. Aside from the feature summary, Kim Manis has announced that Copilot in Microsoft Fabric is now generally available in the Power BI experience (which, for those of you that are slightly lost in all the places the term "Copilot" is being used, corresponds mainly to the Copilot pane that is docked on the right-hand-side of reports in the Power BI Service (when it is enabled)).
Elsewhere this week, Antriksh Sharma has written a detailed article about Understanding how Time Intelligence functions are evaluated in Row Context, Davide Bacci has shared his Gantt 2.0 chart offering a suite of exciting new features, and Marco Russo has shared an entertaining video on Writing DAX with ChatGPT-4o – Unplugged #58, reinforcing the fact that these LLMs need to be guided, rather than using them to do all the work for you!
🛠️ Data Prep
- Rick de Groot (@Rickmaurinus) describes Understanding Enumerations in Power Query M
- Vahid Doustimajd (@VahidDoustiM) hosts Tips for Defining Custom Functions in Power Query - Omid Motamedisedeh (Persian)
- Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) describes How to Pivot Data in Power Query
- Ignacio Barrau (@ignacho_07) covers [PowerQuery] Combinar tablas de cualquier origen [Spanish]
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) writes about Practical Azure Databricks for Power BI (with Alex Barbeau)
🧩 Data Modeling
- On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) covers Writing DAX with ChatGPT-4o – Unplugged #58 and writes about Strings list to table in DAX
- On the Tabular Editor blog, Kurt Buhler (@kurtbuhler) explains how to Write DAX for a semantic model
- Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) writes about Understanding how Time Intelligence functions are evaluated in Row Context
- Reid Havens (@HavensBI) talks about Best Practices for Integrated Notes & Annotations in Power BI
📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about Power BI Themes with Custom Icons, describes Extra Ranking Labels in Bar Charts and explains how to Compare to Previous in Power BI | Visual Calculations DAX
- On the Learning Science YouTube channel, Learning Science explains How to clear a slicer dynamically based on another slicer's selection in Power BI?
- On Acuity Training, Ben Richardson (@AcuityTraining) delves into Creating A Bullet Chart In Power BI
- Davide Bacci shares the Gantt 2.0 chart
🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations
- On the Power BI blog, Nikki Waghani (@NikkiWaghani) announces On-premises data gateway May 2024 release
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) walks through Diagnosing Power BI DirectQuery Connection Limit Performance Problems With Execution Metrics and writes that Migrating From Power BI P-SKU Premium Capacities To F-SKU Capacities Is Not The Same Thing As Enabling Fabric
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) explains how to Update Power BI Dataset (Semantic Model) More Than 8 Times a Day (Without Premium)
- Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) describes Using Sempy to Authenticate to Fabric/Power BI APIs using Service Principal and Azure Key Vault
🌐 General
- On the Power BI blog, Jason Himmelstein (@jasehimm) shares the Power BI May 2024 Feature Summary
- Also on the Power BI blog, Arun Ulagaratchagan (@arunulag) shares Announcing Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Europe
- Also on the Power BI blog, Kim Manis (@kimmanis) writes that Copilot in Microsoft Fabric is now generally available in the Power BI experience
- On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) present Episode 277 - Power BI & Fabric News