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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What options does a PowerPivot user have to refresh data in a PowerPivot model on the desktop, aka PowerPivot for Excel? Prior to Excel 2013, the answer was just one – manual refresh by either clicking the Refresh button in the PowerPivot window or the Refresh button in the Existing Connections dialog box. Note that the Refresh button in the Excel ribbon doesn't work since…
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Besides the usual hassle configuring PerformancePoint, including insufficient permissions to databases and service accounts, version 2013 requires the SQL Server 2008 R2 drivers. This is surprising considering that SharePoint 2013 shipped after SQL Server 2012. In a previous blog, I explained how to configure the SharePoint 2013 BI Center. When you go to any of the PerformancePoint-related links, such as Dashboards or PerformancePoint Content, you'll…
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Where should I put my BI reports? Should I upload them to department-level SharePoint sites or put them in one place? These are common questions that we get from customers. Delivering on the promise of pervasive BI, my preference is to centralize BI artifacts in a single place. Ideally, this BI depository should be the SharePoint Business Intelligence Center. If organizational security is required, you…
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In a previous blog "Installing HDInsight Server for Windows", I introduced you to the Microsoft HDInsight Server for Windows. Recall that HDInsight Server for Windows is a Windows-based Hadoop distribution that offers two main benefits for Big Data customers: An officially supported Hadoop distribution on Windows server – Previously, you can set up Hadoop on Windows as an unsupported installation (via Cygwin) for development purposes.…
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As another year is winding down, it's time to review and plan ahead. 2012 was a great year for both Prologika and BI. On the business side of things, we achieved Microsoft Gold BI and Silver Data Platform competencies. We added new customers and consultants. We completed several important projects with Microsoft acknowledging two of them. 2012 was an eventful year for Microsoft BI. SQL…
Read articleMicrosoft announced yesterday the availability of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 With Power View for Multidimensional Models (aka DAXMD). As a participant of the CTP program and I'm very excited about this enhancement. Now customers can leverage their investment in OLAP and empower business users to author Power View ad-hoc reports and dashboards from Analysis Services cubes. Previously, Power View…
Read articleI'll be presenting What's New in Excel 2013 and SharePoint 2013 BI at our Atlanta BI Group on Monday, December 3rd. Microsoft has recently released the 2013 version of Excel and SharePoint. Both technologies include major enhancements for self-service and organizational BI. Join us to review these new features. Learn how business users can quickly analyze and understand data in Power Pivot which is now…
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As I wrote before, Power View in Excel 2013 and SharePoint with SQL Server 2012 SP1 supports mapping. The map region supports geocoding and it allows you to plot addresses, countries, states, etc, or pairs of latitude-longitude coordinates. The key for getting this to work is to mark the columns with appropriate categories. Using latitude-longitude If you have a SQL Server table with a Geography…
Read articleI've recently had the pleasure to read the book "Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services – The BISM Tabular Model" by Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari, and Chris Webb. The authors don't need an introduction and their names should be familiar to any BI practitioner. They are all well-known experts and fellow SQL Server MVPs who got together again to write another bestseller after their previous…
Read articleI hope you watched the SQL PASS 2012 Day 1 Keynote live. There were important announcements and I was sure happy to see BI being heavily represented. For me, the most important ones were: The availability of SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 For some reason, this announcement went without being applauded from the audience although in my opinion it was the most important news…
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