Blog – Page 40 – Prologika

AzureML – Current State of Affairs

September 9, 2016 / No Comments »

Organizations are showing increased interest in predictive analytics. A large retailer that is using Azure Machine Learning (or AzureML) has approached me to help them automate the process. I can't help it but compare AzureML with the Analysis Service Data Mining each time I look at it. It looks like both Microsoft and I agree at this point, that what used to be difficult was made simple and vice versa. On the upside, AzureML provides business users with a cloud environment for creating predictive solutions without involvement from IT. AzureML has more features than SSAS Data Mining. Now that the focus is on the cloud, we probably won't see future investments from Microsoft in SSAS Data Mining (and the Excel data mining add-in for that matter) which is currently limited to nine algorithms. By contrast, not only has AzureML many more algorithms but also it allows users to use R...
Power BI Governance Getting Better

September 4, 2016 / No Comments »

Larger organizations are naturally interested in established procedures for data governance, retention, search and taxonomy. With the rising important of data analytics, such policies are equally important for BI artifacts. For example, a large organization wants to restrict users to access Power BI only from approved devices and/ or on premises. Although it doesn't match yet the SharePoint data governance features, Power BI is making strides in this direction. The tenant admin can access the Admin Portal page (log in to powerbi.com, then click Settings, Admin Portal) to: View Power BI usage metrics and utilization. This fulfills a similar role to the Power Pivot Management Dashboard in SharePoint. Manage users. Set global tenant permissions, such as the ability to publish content pack to the entire organization, allowing sharing content with external users, publish to web (anonymous access), export data, interact with R scripts, Cortana, Analyze in Excel, templates, create audit logs,...
Upcoming Power BI Events in Atlanta

August 25, 2016 / No Comments »

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

August 23, 2016 / No Comments »

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...
New USERPRINCIPALNAME DAX Function

August 18, 2016 / 1 Comment »

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

August 16, 2016 / No Comments »

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: 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. 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...
2-Day Applied Power BI Workshop – Atlanta

August 8, 2016 / No Comments »

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...
Formulating a Power BI Enterprise Strategy Seminar – Atlanta

August 8, 2016 / No Comments »

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...
Going with the Flow

August 1, 2016 / No Comments »

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." 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...
Trend Lines in Power BI Charts

July 28, 2016 / No Comments »

Recently, Power BI charts introduced trend lines. However, they require numeric or date values on X-axis, which must have a continuous type. In fact, if you use a text field for the X-axis, a warning indicator will be displayed in the top left corner of the chart to warn you that non-numeric values are used. This requirement presents issues if the report is connected to a Multidimensional cube because by default all attributes are text-based. As a workaround, in the Multidimensional project set the ValueColumn property of the attribute to a column in the underlying table of a numeric or date data type, and deploy the cube. Back to Power BI Desktop, bind the corresponding .Value field to the X-axis.