Power BI Weekly

Issue #95 - 2nd February 2021

The long wait for some Power BI updates has passed! We've been provided feature summaries for Paginated Reports and Power BI Report Server, and we've been told about some very handy Step Folding Indicators for Power Query Online (let's hope they make it into Power BI Desktop soon). Also, while not being "announcements" as such, the Power BI 2021 release wave 1 plan has been released along with the wider Power Platform release notes. Some great features to look forward to here - my personal favourites being Power BI Embedded Gen2 (i.e. Premium Gen2 for Power BI Embedded), and Background validation for dataflows - so you'll no longer be blocked after saving and closing a Dataflow while it validates your queries! Do take a look at the rest of the release notes, though - there are many exciting things coming up.

Elsewhere this week, Gerhard Brueckl has provided a handy M function to read Delta Lake Tables natively in Power BI, and Antriksh Sharma has taken a deep dive into one of the quirks of DAX: Context Transition - Behind the scenes.

🛠️ Data Prep

On the Power BI blog, Colin Popell blogs about Step Folding Indicators for Power Query Online
Matthew Roche (@SQLAllFather) wonders Will it fold? Look in Power Query Online!
On the RADACAD blog, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) describes How to modify a linked entity in Power BI dataflows
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) compares The Performance Of Importing Data Into Power BI From ADLSgen2 Direct And Via Azure Synapse Analytics Serverless, Part 2: Transformations
Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) describes Power BI Get Data: Import vs. DirectQuery vs. Live (2021)
On the Power BI community blog, Xiaoxin Sheng describes how to Use a query table to initialize other query tables
Matthew Peterson (@mattpetersonbi) explains how to Remove Duplicates And Keep Most Recent Records in Power BI
Vivek Ranjan (@imvivran) talks about Power BI: Changing Data Source from Excel to SQL
Gerhard Brueckl (@gbrueckl) talks about Reading Delta Lake Tables natively in Power BI
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about a DATE TABLE for Power BI
Neil Hambly (@Neil_Hambly) shares the recording: Power BI Data Preparation Power Query and M
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) talks about 2 useful Power Query tricks that you can't do with the UI
Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) talks about What is Unpivot in Power Query | Pivot and Unpivot in Power BI | Data Cleaning
Melissa de Korte (@_EnterpriseDNA) explains How To Unpivot Multiple Column Pairs Dynamically In Power Query
Philipp Lenz (@lenz_philipp) writes about Incomplete Data at a self service BI project with Power BI
Marcus Wegener (@PowerBIler) writes Business Central DateFormula mit Power Query vom MS SQL Server auslesen [German]

🧩 Data Modeling

On the Power BI community blog, Antriksh Sharma delves into Context Transition - Behind the scenes
Martin Schoombee (@MartinSchoombee) discusses Fixing incorrect drill-through results in Analysis Services – Part 1
Lars Schreiber (@SchreiberLars) shares a Chat with Alberto Ferrari
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) talks about DAX Modeling Best Practices with Marco Russo
Gilbert Quevauvilliers (@GilbertQue) describes Setting the Default Format String with Calculation Groups in Power BI
On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) talks about Multi-Level Sankey Chart in Power BI using DAX Technique
Allison Kennedy writes about Tabular Editor for Power BI
Ruth Pozuelo Martinez (@CurbalEN) talks about 3 things you need to watch out for, in Power BI
On the dev.to blog, Graeme T-Gill (@GraemeTGill1) explains how to Replace (Blank) with 0 in Power BI

📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity

On the Power BI blog, Swati Gupta shares the Paginated Reports January 2021 Feature Summary
Roseanne Levasseur covers Getting Started with the Power BI Desktop
Daniel Marsh-Patrick (@the_d_mp) shares the "Deneb" Prototype Dev Log: 0.1.0.70
On the Power BI community blog, DataZoe explains how to Create a slicer panel in Power BI with bookmarks
Also on the Power BI community blog, Kelly Yang describes How to change the granularity of date in X-axis of line chart with Power BI
On the Towards Data Science blog, Nathan Cheng covers a Minimum Viable Streaming Dashboard in Power BI: Part 1
Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about a Slicer Panel in Power BI and describes how to Highlight Datapoints in Power BI
On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) describes Getting Started with ZEBRA BI Visuals
Reid Havens (@HavensBI) talks about Creating an Always Visible Focus Mode Icon in Power BI
Parker Stevens (@PowerBIElite) writes about a Dynamic Date Axis in Power BI and describes a Dynamic Date Axis Granularity Drilldown Alternative
Hima Bindu Marri (@sivahimabindu) describes how to Dynamically add or remove columns in Power BI and describes How to Use Drillthrough in Power BI
Also on the Power BI community blog, Hemant Brijesh and Shreya Choudhury write about the Custom Geographic Map in Power BI
Also on the Towards Data Science blog, Nikola Ilic (@DataMozart) writes about Custom fonts in Power BI—everything you wanted to know
Parv Chana (@parvchana) describes Using Conditional Formatting to Display a Message Instead of a Blank Visual
Also on the Towards Data Science blog, Freddie Tasker (@tasker_fred) writes about Two Advanced Tips for Event Logs in Power BI

🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations

On the Power BI blog, Danny Kadyshevitch explains how to Get up to speed with Power BI and Microsoft Cloud App Security and provides an Introduction to data protection in Power BI Desktop
Gil Raviv (@gilra) talks about Masking confidential data in Power BI reports
Adam Saxton (@GuyInACube) explains how to Avoid the full refresh with Incremental Refresh in Power BI Premium
On the CSG Pro blog, Gregory Petrossian (@gregpetrossian) shares The Ultimate Power BI Licensing Guide
Mara Pereira (@maraft_per) describes how to Escalate data driven alerts using Power Automate
On the MSSQLTips site, John Miner (@JohnMiner3) explains how to Manage Power BI Reports with PowerShell
On Qiita, Yugo Shimizu (@yugoes1021) writes [Power BI Tips] Power BI で Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive など Microsoft 365 利用状況分析を利用して、さらに PBIX をダウンロードする [Japanese]

🌐 General

On the Power BI blog, Jeroen ter Heerdt (@jeroenterheerdt) provides the Power BI Report Server January 2021 Feature Summary
Sam McKay (@_EnterpriseDNA) describes Data Analytics in Government with Greg Philps and provides an Introduction To DAX Formulas In Power BI [Webinar]
On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) present Episode 177 - Tales From the Real World
The Knee-Deep in Tech team (@KneeDeepinTech) present Podcast episode 141
On the RADACAD YouTube channel, Reza Rad (@Rad_Reza) shares Doing Power BI the right way - by Paul Turley
Nicky van Vroenhoven (@NickyvV) writes about the Power Platform 2021 Release Wave 1 Plan
Wolfgang Strasser (@wstrasser) discusses The future of Power BI (in the next six months aka 2021 release wave 1 plan)
Adam Saxton and Patrick Leblanc (@GuyInACube) presents 🔴 Power BI tips from the Pros – LIVE (Jan 30, 2021)
On the Power GI blog, Cyrus Christian writes about the New Power BI Feature Availability in GCC
On Le CFO Masqué, Sophie Marchand (@Mon_Cher_Watson) writes about 8 nouveautés Power BI à découvrir [French]