Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Power BI

Thirteen Power Query Tips

Published 2025-07-03 by Kevin Feasel

John Kerski has a baker’s dozen:

When I first started with Power Query, it was in Excel, through the Power Pivot feature. I was amazed at how I could transform data with just a few clicks and quickly create PivotTables. Then, when Power Query appeared in Power BI, I began working with larger data sources and more complex projects.

Through many trials and tribulations, I learned the capabilities of Power Query and the M language (the functional language that actually transforms our data), as well as its idiosyncrasies. Unsurprisingly, with Power BI adoption and rapid growth, many newcomers are learning the same lessons I did.

Read on for some of John’s early pain points. By the way, regarding John’s banker’s rounding note, that’s the norm for .NET, though not for Excel or SQL. It’s also more accurate in the aggregate than “to the 5’s” rounding, though it can be confusing to people who aren’t expecting it.

Leave a Comment

Month-over-Month and Year-over-Year Calculations in Power BI

Published 2025-07-03 by Kevin Feasel

Boniface Muchendu does a bit of comparison:

Power BI variance measures are essential for delivering actionable insights through dynamic comparisons like month-over-month (MoM) and year-over-year (YoY) performance. This guide shows how to build flexible, filter-aware DAX measures and apply them within clean, user-friendly visuals to enhance your reports.

Click through to see them in action.

Leave a Comment

Enumerating Template Types in Power BI

Published 2025-07-01 by Kevin Feasel

Oscar Martinez lays out the list:

A Power BI Template can mean very different things depending on who you ask. Are we talking about a .PBIT shell, a JSON theme, a turnkey Template App, or merely a thin report wired to a central model?

In this post, we cut through the ambiguity and lay each option side‑by‑side. You’ll learn what’s inside every “template” type and the trade‑offs that matter in real‑world projects—so the next time someone says “just use a template” you’ll know exactly which one fits the bill.

Click through for the post. Also, note that each section is in a drill-through div, so you might accidentally miss some information if you haven’t expanded each topic.

Leave a Comment

Changes to Power BI’s Publish to Web

Published 2025-06-30 by Kevin Feasel

Boniface Muchendu looks at some changes:

Power BI includes a powerful feature called Publish to Web, which allows users to share interactive reports publicly without requiring viewers to sign in. While this tool simplifies access, it can also create security risks if misused. In this guide, you’ll learn what “Publish to Web” does, how Microsoft updated it for better governance, and how to manage access responsibly.

Click through to see what’s new.

Leave a Comment

Choosing Fields to Hide in Power BI

Published 2025-06-26 by Kevin Feasel

Reza Rad has something up his sleeve:

To tidy up your Power BI solution, there are some options, and one of them is hiding fields from the report view. This option, although simple, has a significant impact on making your Power BI solution very tidy and clean and easier to maintain. However, you might wonder what are fields that have to be hidden in Power BI? In this article, I will explain how to hide a field in report view, and then what are fields which are a good candidate for this option. If you like to learn more about Power BI. Read Power BI book from Rookie to Rock Star.

The very short answer is, hide things that business users won’t (or shouldn’t) care about. Reza gives much more guidance on the topic.

Based on the comments section, this appears to be a re-post from several years ago, but still worth reading because the content is evergreen.

Leave a Comment

Writeback Options in Power BI

Published 2025-06-25 by Kevin Feasel

Jon Vöge comes continues looking at Power BI writeback:

This blog has previously covered the basics of native Microsoft Fabric / Power BI write-back with Translytical Task Flows.

In my first post on the subject, we created a simple Comment/Annotation solution, allowing the user to input free text comments on Data Points directly in Power BI.

However, Translytical Task Flows do not only support Free Text as an input type for the users of your reports. All of the new & updated Power BI Slicer visuals work with Translytical Task Flows, and we can use List and Button slicers for users to add categorical data to our task flows too.

Read on to see these other options in action.

Leave a Comment

It’s Always Permissions (or DNS)

Published 2025-06-24 by Kevin Feasel

Kristina Mishra takes us through troubleshooting a problem:

Ah, you’ve setup a deployment pipeline and let your people know it’s ready for them to do the thing. Everything looks fine on your end, so you shoot off a message to the group and go about your busy day. (Nevermind your Test environment was set up 4 months ago, Production 3 days ago, and Development was replaced 2 months ago with a new Development environment because your region changed.) You’ve added all the permission groups to each environment and added your “contributors” as Admin to the deployment pipeline (no comment), so everything should be grand.

Famous last words, indeed.

Leave a Comment

Creating a Power BI Date Picker without Custom Visuals

Published 2025-06-23 by Kevin Feasel

Boniface Muchendu lets users pick the date:

Many users need the ability to select a single date not a range to filter their entire report. While Power BI’s default slicer shows a long list of dates or uses relative filters like “Today” or “Yesterday,” these options can be limiting.

Additionally, relying on the filter pane often isn’t ideal for dashboards meant for end users, especially when the pane is hidden or locked. An on-screen date picker provides a more intuitive and controlled experience.

Read on to see how.

Leave a Comment

Exfiltration Opportunities in Power Query

Published 2025-06-23 by Kevin Feasel

Oscar Martinez lays out the risks:

Data exfiltration is the act of moving sensitive data outside a trusted environment without authorisation. In the context of Power Query (the data transformation engine behind Excel, Power BI, dataflows, etc.), this means an insider could use a Power Query script to siphon data from secure sources (like databases) out to an external destination. Microsoft defines data exfiltration as the movement of sensitive business data outside a trusted boundary, whether intentionally or unintentionally.^1

Click through to learn more about what is possible, as well as practical tips on how to reduce this risk.

Leave a Comment

Farewell, SSRS

Published 2025-06-20 by Kevin Feasel

SQL Server Reporting Services is done-zo:

Starting with SQL Server 2025, Microsoft is consolidating all on-premises reporting services under Power BI Report Server (PBIRS). No new versions of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) will be released. PBIRS becomes the default on-premises reporting solution for SQL Server.

You can expect more information about specific editions when SQL Server 2025 is in General Availability (GA).

This article outlines the implications of these changes for you as a customer, and addresses any questions you might have.

The article claims that Power BI Report Server is a superset of SSRS. That might actually be so, but there’s a nagging part in the back of my brain saying that there are things we can do in SSRS that we can’t in PBIRS and that this won’t be the smooth transition that the article claims. But it’s been long enough since I’ve worked on SSRS in earnest to be able to say with certainty whether it’s the case.

H/T Blake McNeill.

1 Comment