PROLOGIKA BLOG · IDEAS FROM THE FIELD
Practical perspectives on Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, semantic models, and the work of turning data into insight.
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In the "Processing Tabular from Exotic Clients" blog, I said that if you Azure AS model retrieves data from an Azure database, such as Azure SQL Database, it should also be located in the same Azure data center for faster processing and to avoid data transfer fees between data centers. Let's elaborate a bit on this and share some performance results from a real-life project.…
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Mark your calendar for the next meeting of our Atlanta MS and Power BI Group on September 25th when we will compare Power BI and Qlik. Presentation: Did Qlik run out of BI Power? Level: Intermediate Date: September 25, 2017 Time 6:30 – 8:30 PM ET Place: South Terraces Building (Auditorium Room) 115 Perimeter Center Place Atlanta, GA 30346 Overview: Haters are gonna hate. Lovers…
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Processing Tabular models from SSMS or .NET client apps is pretty straightforward. For example, you can connect with SSMS and issue processing commands through the UI or via TMSL. You can also use custom apps with Tabular Object Model (TOM) and you can send XMLA commands directly if you have an app perhaps that's already doing that. For Azure AS, it's generally a good idea…
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Veteran Excel users might have used the Excel What-if feature that let you try several different sets of values in one or more formulas to explore various outcomes (scenarios). The August release of Power BI Desktop introduces a similar feature. You start by defining a What If parameter from the Modeling tab. Don't confuse the What If parameter with a query parameter which is used…
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I've never thought I'd see this one coming but today I got a marketing email from Pyramid Analytics (previously an ardent Microsoft partner) citing a head-to-head comparison with Power BI. Et tu, Brute? "Let’s start with a clear pricing model – one that doesn’t require an online calculator to figure out annual costs. Let’s add in fundamental capabilities and features like dashboarding, KPI’s, dicing, time…
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Related to the previous blog, let's show how to create a detail report in Power BI that mimics an Excel PivotTable report in a flattened layout. Consider the report below. To create it, use the Matrix visual and add the necessary fields to the Rows bucket and measures to the Values bucket. By default and similar to Excel, Matrix would use a Stepped layout so…
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Nobody likes watching a report spinny. Interactive detail reports that perform well from an Analysis Services semantic layer have been the bane of my BI career. A "detail report" is a report that requests data at a lower level, e.g. policy in the insurance business, customer in Sales, etc. A detail report typically has many dimension attributes, eustomer Name, Account Number, Product Name, Product Number,…
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Got awarded for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Data Platform again. This will make my 14th consecutive year to be recognized by Microsoft for my expertise and contributions to the community! Apparently, it became difficult (or not cost effective) to count years, so the ring is for 2017-2018 but the tower doesn't lie.
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I often ask prospects if they've done any estimates of the value that the envisioned BI solution would bring to them. The Microsoft Solution Framework actually recommends partners do this during the planning phase. Alas, the answer is almost always negative. Then I ask what criteria would be used to evaluate if my price (I give fixed value-based prices as I don't sell time) would…
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Scenario: Consider a SQL Server configured for AlwaysOn Availability Groups where a set of databases can fail over to another node. You have SSIS jobs and you created them on both nodes. However, you need to check if the current node on which the job is running is the primary node. If you don't do this, the job fails because the database isn't accessible. Solution:…
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