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Month: October 2021

Adding Columns to a Published Data Model with TMSL

Published 2021-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

Kristyna Hughes wants to update an existing schema:

Goal of this demo: Update a Power BI model schema by adding a column to the data model without opening a PBIX file and ensure the scheduled refresh still works.

Why would this be useful? Updating the schema in the desktop tool requires an entire refresh of the data model which can take a while if your model is large. Also, app developers could systematically add new elements to existing data models using a formulaic XMLA script through SSMS, saving your report designers time when new fields need to be added.

Read on for limitations, as well as the process.

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Starting SSMS with a Different Windows Login

Published 2021-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

Jack Vamvas does a thing I wish we could do innately in SQL Server Management Studio:

I  am logged onto my desktop with my primary Active Directory ID.  I need to log onto a SQL Server with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) with another Active Directory ID – the alternative ID has   valid  SQL Server security privileges on the target SQL Server. 

How can I log onto the target SQL Server with the alternative login  , remain on my desktop and use the alternative Active Directory ID ?

By the way, if you need to connect to a remote domain but your machine isn’t a member of that domain, add the /netonly flag to Jack’s answer. I’ve had to do this before when VPN’d into a network with a laptop not registered on that domain. Another tip is that, if you do this a lot, you might want to create a Windows shortcut which includes the full command.

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Automating Data Collection with Extended Events

Published 2021-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

Ed Pollack continues a series on extended events:

While using Extended Events is not overly complex, building a reliable system to collect, parse, and store events over time without any data loss can be challenging.

This article dives into one method for collecting and retaining all event data for a specific set of events. A system like this is highly customizable and provides a solid starting point for Extended Events development. This should be viewed as a collection of puzzle pieces; individual pieces can be adjusted as needed to produce a monitoring solution that fits the needs of a given situation, even if it is vastly different from what is demonstrated here.

Read on for the process. Shredding XML isn’t pretty, but the good news is that with a setup like this, you only need to do it once…unless you need to change it later, so get it right the first time and bam, problem solved.

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Sharing Short Code Examples

Published 2021-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

John McCormack lays out the parameters for this T-SQL Tuesday:

T-SQL Tuesday this month is going back to basics and its all about code. I’d like to know “What are your go to handy short scripts”?

What are those little short bits of code that you can’t live without? I’m talking about little snippets that are only a few lines, that you may even have memorised. It could be T-SQL, PowerShell, Python or anything else you use day to day.

Click through for two of John’s.

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UDFs and STRING_AGG

Published 2021-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a bone to pick with STRING_AGG():

If you’re like me and you got excited by the induction of STRING_AGG into the T-SQL Lexicon because of all the code odd-balling it would replace, you were likely also promptly disappointed for a few reasons.

Read on for one post which covers all of those reasons. Even with that disappointment, I’m still happy with STRING_AGG() on the whole, myself. There are some extra steps it’d be nice to eliminate in certain circumstances, but 60% of the time, it works every time.

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Apache Flink 1.14.0 Released

Published 2021-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Stephan Ewen and Johannes Moser have aa round-up of the latest Apache Flink updates:

The Apache Software Foundation recently released its annual report and Apache Flink once again made it on the list of the top 5 most active projects! This remarkable activity also shows in the new 1.14.0 release. Once again, more than 200 contributors worked on over 1,000 issues. We are proud of how this community is consistently moving the project forward.

This release brings many new features and improvements in areas such as the SQL API, more connector support, checkpointing, and PyFlink. A major area of changes in this release is the integrated streaming & batch experience. We believe that, in practice, unbounded stream processing goes hand-in-hand with bounded- and batch processing tasks, because many use cases require processing historic data from various sources alongside streaming data. Examples are data exploration when developing new applications, bootstrapping state for new applications, training models to be applied in a streaming application, or re-processing data after fixes/upgrades.

Read on for the list of changes.

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Emulating Visual Deficiencies with Edge DevTools

Published 2021-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Chris Webb shows off a feature in Microsoft Edge:

I’m not an expert on Power BI report accessibility like Meagan Longoria but I do know how important an issue accessibility is. I also know how difficult it can be to remember to check for accessibility issues when building reports which is why, when I was watching this video on new features in Edge DevTools, I was pleased to see that Edge now makes it easy to see how your report looks like when viewed by someone with vision deficiencies.

Click through to see this extension in action.

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Working with DACPACs

Published 2021-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Chad Callihan has a two-parter. First up is the process of creating a DACPAC:

DAC is the abbreviation for data-tier application and is an item containing the objects of a database. When put together into a versioned file to be used for deploying in SQL Server, that package is called a DACPAC. You can point a DACPAC at an existing database to deploy changes or use a DACPAC to create a brand new database with tables, procedures, and the rest of the database objects built in.

And once you have a DACPAC, you of course need something to do with it:

What if we want to use our DACPAC to create a new database using SSMS? Our first step will be to right click on Databases and select Deploy Data-tier Application.

As a concept, DACPACs are really great: I can package together tables, database code, and reference data in one bundle and import it into a variety of products (e.g., database projects, other SQL Server instances, Azure SQL Database). The problem is that once they get beyond a certain size, DACPACs are rather unwieldy and failure-prone to create and to extract.

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Implementing LAG() and LEAD() in Power Query

Published 2021-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Nick Edwards wants to perform a lag on data in Power Query:

I’m sure you’ve all heard of windowing functions in SQL Server? But what if you need to replicate these windowing functions in Power Query?

Here I have a sample CarSales.csv dataset of car sales per brand, per year, per month and the number of units sold. I will use this dataset to demonstrate how we can replicate the windowing LAG function in Power Query.

Click through to see the process.

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