Scenario: You need to rename many columns in a Power BI table. Usually, I rename measure-related columns with "Base" suffix and hide them, and then I create explicit measures. Since renaming one column at the time is no fun, you're looking for an automated solution. Having heard about the Tabular Editor scripting feature, you're tempted to whip out a script like this: You select all…
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Scenario: You use SSIS to load data for on-prem BI solution. As a last step of the ETL pipeline, you want to refresh a Power BI dataset. There's quite a bit of misinformation on the Internet about how to do this, hence this blog. Solution: If the dataset is hosted in Power BI Pro workspace, the only way is to use the Power BI REST…
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Please join us online for the next Atlanta MS BI and Power BI Group meeting on Monday, September 12th, at 6:30 PM ET. Shabnam Watson (Microsoft MVP) will discuss how to reduce the dataset refresh time with incremental refresh policies and how to implement tables with hybrid storage. For more details and sign up, visit our group page. Presentation: Incremental Refresh and Hybrid Tables in…
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BI practitioners, myself included, have been following the Kimbal tenets for dimensional schema design for years. In fact, it's a second nature to dimensionalize every BI project the "proper" way. You identify fact tables, grain, dimensions, etc. Dimensions of course would have surrogate keys – your insurance against weird things happening down the road, such as tracking Type 2 changes, unreliable business keys, acquisitions, and…
Read article Please join us online for the next Atlanta MS BI and Power BI Group meeting on Monday, August 1st, at 6:30 PM ET. We'll have two presentations by 3Cloud. For more details and sign up, visit our group page. Presentation: 1. “Power BI Meets Programmability – TOM, XMLA, and C#” by Kristyna Hughes 2. “Automation Using Tabular Editor Advanced Scripting” by Tim Keeler Date: August…
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I sent a proposal for implementing a classic BI solution: Azure SQL-based datamart (not Power BI datamart please), ETL, semantic model, and reports. The client had a sticker shock. Return to sender … as other BI companies that quoted can do it for half! Upon digging, it turned out the other companies would build the semantic model (aka Power BI dataset) directly on top of…
Read article Please join us online for the next Atlanta MS BI and Power BI Group meeting on Monday, July 11th, at 6:30 PM ET. For more details and sign up, visit our group page. Presentation: Pushing the Query Folding limits with Power Query Date: July 11th Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM ET Place: Click here to join the meeting Overview: One of Power Query’s most powerful…
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Coming back from a long vacation and I almost missed this new Power BI killer feature: Field Parameters! Not to be confused with Dynamic M Query Parameters that I ranted about here, field parameters solve a long-standing limitation of Power BI that prevents binding dynamically fields to a visual. Dynamic binding isn't an issue with measures because they are dynamic and can evaluate runtime conditions,…
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As Microsoft announced here, Power BI datamarts are upon us. I can almost see an important enterprise client demanding "self-service datamarts me now or else… ", thus inspiring an opportunity for another premium feature, spearheaded with great vision and effort, but questionable practical value. In a nutshell, a Power BI datamart is a combo of Power BI Premium and a Microsoft-hosted Azure SQL Database aiming…
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Microsoft BI practitioners have three options for hosting semantic models: SSAS (on prem), Azure Analysis Services (cloud), and Power BI (cloud). AAS is somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. Given that Power BI gets the most attention for cloud deployment, why would you consider AAS at all? There are two main reasons: Cost – Organizational semantic models might require a lot of…
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