Upcoming Power BI Events in Atlanta

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Time is running out to sign up for these exclusive Power BI Events brought to you by Prologika and Microsoft!

FORMULATING POWER BI ENTERPRISE STRATEGY
Date: Aug 31st , 8:30-12:00
Place: Microsoft Office in Alpharetta
Cost: Free
To learn more and register: http://bit.ly/powerbiseminar
2-DAY APPLIED POWER BI TRAINING CLASS
Date: Sep 14-15, 8:30-5:00
Place: Microsoft Office in Alpharetta
Cost: $999/person
(use coupon POWERBI20160914 to get 10% discount when signing up two or more people)
To learn more and register: http://bit.ly/powerbiworkshop

“Enter Data” Feature in Power BI Desktop

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Power BI Desktop has a very useful feature that lets you create tables by manually entering the data. This could be useful in a variety of scenarios, such as entering some reference data, defining KPI goals, creating simple lookup tables, or prototyping some data. If you’re familiar with creating tables in Power Pivot by copying and pasting tabular data, think of Enter Data as the Power BI Desktop equivalent. However, Enter Data is more flexible because it lets you also the edit the data! This makes it more similar to the Power Pivot linked tables that automatically synchronize changes in the Excel source tables.

Creating a new table is straightforward. You click the Enter Data button in the Home ribbon. Don’t confuse this with the New Table button in the Modeling ribbon that allows to create a read-only table from a DAX table-producing expression. While entering the initial data and columns is easy, finding how to make changes is not that obvious. To do so:

  1. Click the Edit Queries button in the Home ribbon to open the Query Editor.
  2. In the Queries pane, select the query that corresponds to the “Enter Data” table.
  3. In the Applied Steps pane, click the gear icon next to the Source step.

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New USERPRINCIPALNAME DAX Function

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Now that Power BI Desktop supports Row-level Security (RLS), modelers have a little predicament. On the desktop, the USERNAME() function returns the user’s domain login (domain\login). However, when the model is deployed to powerbi.com, Username() returns the user principal name, which typically (but not always depending on how your AD is set up) is the user’s email address. To simplify dynamic security based on the user identity, DAX introduces a new USERPRINCIPALNAME() function that can help you secure on a column that has the user principal name. This avoids having to use an OR filter to support both deployment scenarios.

Notice that if your computer is not joined to a domain, both USERNAME() and USERPRINCIPALNAME() return the same thing (domain\login).

Configuring Power BI Embedded

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There is a lot of interest surrounding Power BI Embedded from organizations looking for cost-effective ways to embed customer-facing (external) reports in custom apps. And there will be even more interest now that Microsoft reduced the Power BI Embedded cost dramatically by switching from per-render to a session-based pricing model. The best way to get started with Power BI Embedded is with the Microsoft sample app, which is well documented here. Here are a few notes for a better configuration experience:

  1. Register a native Azure app even if your custom app is web-based. That’s because the ProvisionSample console app (inside the sample solution) expects to be configured in Azure as a native app.
  2. Instead of using the Azure Portal, the easiest way to register the app is to go to http://dev.powerbi.com/apps. On the registration page, specify app name (it should typically correspond to your web app name although you can enter anything), and then enter https://login.live.com/oauth20_desktop.srf as a redirect URL because it’s hardcoded in the ProvisionSample app. Once you register the app, the registration page will give you the client id, which you need to enter in the App.config file of the ProvisionSample app, together with your subscription id, azureresourcegroup, and access key (the most important piece) of your Power BI Embedded Service. You can obtain the subscription id, access key, and azureresourcegroup settings from the Power BI Service page as explained here.

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  1. Apparently, something has changed in Azure but trying to run the ProvisionSample app gave me an error “AADSTS65005: The client application has requested access to resource ‘https://management.core.windows.net/’. This request has failed because the client has not specified this resource in its requiredResourceAccess list“. To fix this, follow these steps:
    1. Go to the Azure Portal (http://portal.azure.com), click More Services, then Active Directory.
    2. Click the Applications tab and then change the Show drop-down to “Applications my company owns” and then click the checkmark next to it.
    3. Click the application you just registered (PowerBIEmbeddedDemo in my case). In the application page, click Configure.
    4. Click the “Add application” button and add the “Windows Azure Service Management API” application. Expand the Delegated Permissions drop-down and check the only permission there. You need to delegate the necessary permissions to the Power BI Service.

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Now you should be able to run the ProvisionSample console app successfully. If you still have issues, verify the configuration settings in the App.config file.

2-Day Applied Power BI Workshop – Atlanta

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Are you looking for an agile self-service platform that doesn’t require reporting and query skills to get basic analytics done without reliance on IT?  Or, perhaps you’ve heard or evaluating Power BI but not sure where to start or how to take the most out of it? If so, this workshop is for you. A year ago Microsoft unveiled the new Power BI platform consisting of the PowerBI.com cloud service, Power BI Desktop, and Power BI Mobile. Since then, Prologika has helped organizations of all sizes to adopt Power BI. Packed with features, Power BI supports a dizzying variety of features and integration scenarios and it offers plenty to all types of users interested in data analytics: information workers, data analysts, BI pros, and developers.

Reserve your seat today to attend this insightful 2-day workshop for only $999 (use coupon POWERBI20160914 to get 10% discount when signing up two or more people) at the Microsoft Office in Alpharetta, when Teo Lachev (CEO of Prologika, a Power BI Red Carpet Partner) teaches you practical Power BI knowledge and data analytics skills that you can immediately apply to your job. See how Power BI can improve your usability and productivity even further.

Syllabus>>

Key Benefits

  • Understand how Power BI changed the way users (information workers, data analysts, BI pros, and developers) gain and share data insights.
  • Learn how to connect to popular cloud services to derive instant insights, create interactive reports and dashboards, and view them in the browser and on the go.
  • Discover how to integrate and transform data from virtually everywhere and then implement sophisticated self-service models and business calculations.
  • Find how to implement hybrid architectures and strict security requirements by leaving data on premise and deploying reports and dashboards to the cloud.
  • Learn how to share your BI artifacts and collaborate with other teammates.
  • Gain practical skills by creating a self-service model in the lab exercises.
  • Learn Power BI best practices, limitations (every tool has them) and workarounds.
  • Get your questions answered.
  • and much more…

You won’t want to miss this educational and engaging training event! Attend it and get a free paper copy of the book Applied Microsoft Power BI! Please register today as seating is limited.

Audience

  • Information workers
  • Business analysts
  • BI professionals
  • In general, anyone interested in self-service data analytics with Power BI

Prerequisites

Students are encouraged to bring their laptops for the exercises. Detail setup instructions and source files will be sent before the event.

Instructor

Teo Lachev is an internationally-recognized authority on Data Analytics and CEO of Prologika. Teo helps organizations make sense of their most valuable asset: their data. His strategy formulation, trusted advisory and mentoring, design and implementation services empower his clients to apply effectively data analytics in order to understand, improve, and transform their business. Teo has authored and coauthored several books and his latest one is “Applied Microsoft Power BI (Bring your data to life!)” He has been leading the Atlanta Microsoft Business Intelligence group since he founded it in 2010. Microsoft has recognized Teo’s expertise and contributions to the technical community by awarding him the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Data Platform award since 2004.

Formulating a Power BI Enterprise Strategy Seminar – Atlanta

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A year ago Microsoft unveiled the new Power BI platform consisting of the PowerBI.com cloud service, Power BI Desktop, and Power BI Mobile. Since then, Prologika has helped organizations of all sizes to plan and adopt Power BI. Packed with features, Power BI supports a dizzying variety of features and integration scenarios but it might be difficult to understand how Power BI fits in your data analytics ecosystem.

Join Prologika and Microsoft for a 3-hour free seminar on Wednesday, August 31th, 8:30 AM -12 PM ET, at the Microsoft Office in Alpharetta, when Teo Lachev (CEO of Prologika) and Brian Jackson (Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft) share practical knowledge and experience to help you to formulate a Power BI enterprise strategy. If you’re considering Power BI but you’re not sure how it fits within your organizational data strategy, this event is for you.

Key Takeaways

  • Understand how Power BI changed the way users (information workers, data analysts, BI pros, and developers) gain and share data insights.
  • Learn 10 areas where Power BI excels compared to other popular BI tools, such as Tableau, Qlik Sense, Sisense, Domo, and others.
  • Plan a data access strategy for:
    • Importing data
    • Connecting live to cloud sources with content packs and solution templates
    • Connecting live to on-premises data sources
    • Implementing real-time dashboards
    • Embedded reporting
    • Taking a deep dive to learn how Prologika designed and implemented a hybrid architecture solution for a Fortune 50 organization and meet security requirements that prevented exporting data to the cloud
  • Join in a discussion about other business use cases and gaps between Power BI and other BI products, and find how to address them. Get your questions answered.

You won’t want to miss this educational and engaging event! Please register today as seating is limited: https://prologika.com/event/formulating-a-power-bi-enterprise-strategy/

Agenda

8:30-9:00 – Networking and introductions

9:00-10:30 – How Power BI empowers businesses like yours

10:30-10:40 – Break

10:40-11:45 – Plan a data access strategy and go “under the hood” of a hybrid architecture case study

11:45-12:00 – Q&A

Presenters

Teo Lachev is an internationally-recognized authority on Data Analytics and CEO of Prologika. Teo helps organizations make sense of their most valuable asset: their data. His strategy formulation, trusted advisory and mentoring, design and implementation services empower his clients to apply effectively data analytics in order to understand, improve, and transform their business. Teo has authored and coauthored several books and his latest one is “Applied Microsoft Power BI (Bring your data to life!)” Prologika is a Microsoft Gold Partner in Data Analytics, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft customers’ evolving needs and distinguishing itself within the top one percent of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem. Learn more at www.prologika.com.

Brian Jackson is a Microsoft Certified Architect and Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft. He has deep technical expertise in the SQL Server and Azure platform and served as a subject matter expert for Microsoft’s SQL Server Master and Business Intelligence certification programs. Brian has more than 20 years of experience in solution architecture and software development with a focus on business intelligence, data warehousing and database design. He has strong customer relationship skills with over 15 of years of IT consulting to several Fortune 500 companies and proven success in leading and delivering large scale implementations with globally distributed teams.

Going with the Flow

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Currently in preview, Microsoft Flow is a cloud service for creating automation flows without writing code, similar to Zapier’s “zaps” and IFTTT’s “recipes”. How is this useful for BI? Let’s consider an example. Power BI has recently introduced data-driven alerts in Power BI Service (previously alerts were supported on iPhone only). Currently, alerts can be created only on single-card and gauge dashboard tiles that are connected to imported datasets. You can go to the tile properties and click the Manage Alerts (bell) icon to create an alert rule, such as “SalesAmount is above 1,000,000.”

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When the alert rule condition is met, you are notified in the Power BI notification center and by e-mail. But what if you want to broadcast the alert to a large audience? Currently, this feature is not a Power BI native feature. Sure, you can forward the email manually but what if you’re on vacation or the alert is triggered outside working hours but you need to notify certain people immediately? Enters Microsoft Flow that allows you to create simple if-then-else flows. In the screenshot below, I’ve created a trigger that checks my Office 365 email account for emails sent from noreply@powerbi.com and the subject contains “Alert”. If this condition is met, the “yes” action forwards the email to additional people.

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Microsoft flows has a comprehensive list of triggers and actions for integration with many popular services, such as Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, SQL Server, MailChimp, SharePoint, Facebook, GitHub, and many more. Naturally, Microsoft Flow integrates very well with Microsoft cloud and on-prem services. It also has an extensible architecture that allows developers to plug in additional services. Together with PowerApps, Microsoft Flow has a bright future to help you automate your business processes and get actionable insights.