A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Devin Knight continues his Power BI custom visuals series:
In this module you will learn how to use the Image Timeline Custom Visual. The Image Timeline is a great way to display data in order across a timeline. If you have images of your data you can also display those images on the timeline.
This is a fun one, and Devin provides a great example of putting the pieces together on an educational dashboard.
Comments closedWolfgang Strasser points out a new feature in Power BI Desktop:
In some cases, sources for Direct Query models are either large (and therefore need some time to bring back the data) or slow (which could maybe be improved by some database tuning :-)).
Before the Nov2017 release, every change in a filter or slicer led to an immediate round trip to the data source which made some of those reports … let’s call it .. not perfect in the context of user experience.
Beginning with the Nov2017 release some options for Query Reduction has been introduced.
Click through for an example of how to use Query Reduction on direct query models.
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I have written while ago, about how to implement a dynamic row level security in Power BI. This post is an addition to that post. I’ve had a lot of inquiries that; “What If I want users to see their own data, and the Manager to see everything?”, or “How to add Manager or Director Level access to the dynamic row level security?” This post will answer this question. In this post, you will learn a scenario that you can implement a dynamic row level security. In this scenario, everyone will see their own data, but the manager will see everything. If you want to learn more about Power BI, read Power BI book from Rookie to Rock Star.
Read on to see one method of solving this dilemma.
Comments closedWolfgang Strasser covers Power BI Report Server’s scheduled data refresh ability in a two-part series. First, he shows how to configure scheduled data refresh:
What needs to be added here is the fact that data refresh can be speeded up to 1 minute refresh intervals. (Which is much more often compared to 8 times for powerbi.com PRO users).
When you are done with the schedule configuration, save it and the definition dialog is updated with the plan information. The last data refresh timestamp plus the last status is also displayed.
Just like Reporting Services, data refresh happens via SQL Agent job. Wolfgang then shows us what’s in the Power BI Report Server’s metadata database:
CAUTION: The PBIRS meta-database is a system database needed for successfully running PBIRS. Do NOT modify objects in that database – a non-functioning PBIRS could be the result!
The table dbo.SubscriptionHistory contains the history of data refresh actions. A SELECT on this table provides you with the following information:
Subscription metadata (SubscriptionID plus Type)
Execution runtime information (HistoryID, StartTime, EndTime, Status plus Message)
I’m pretty jazzed about this feature.
Comments closedChris Koester shows us how to pass data from our .NET applications into a Power BI streaming dataset:
This post will demonstrate how to push data into Power BI Streaming Datasets with C#. For demo purposes I normally use LINQPad to run the code, but you could also create a .Net or .Net Core console application. LINQPad is an excellent, lightweight scratchpad for C# and other .Net languages.
Power BI Streaming Datasets are a very cool feature because dashboard tiles that use them update in real time. You don’t have to refresh the browser window to display new data. With this feature you can watch your data in near real-time. This could be compelling in scenarios involving sensors, IoT, website traffic, etc.
Click through for the demo script. This shows how easy it can be to take your on-premises data and feed it into live Power BI dashboards.
Comments closedChris Webb points out some good news released at PASS Summit:
Power BI Report Server
There’s a new release of Power BI Report Server available, and you can read all about it here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-version-of-power-bi-report-server-now-available/
The blog post highlights the fact that you can connect to SSRS shared datasets via OData – which is basically what I was talking about here.
This is the big one for me, but there are a few other product updates that Chris covers as well.
Comments closedDevin Knight continues his Power BI custom visuals series:
In this module you will learn how to use the Enlighten Stack Shuffle Custom Visual. The Enlighten Stack Shuffle is helpful when you want to display a Top N set of values. For example if you want to display your top 5 selling employees this visual can make that very easy.
This looks pretty good on a dashboard, especially if you have a top-heavy data set, where the top few items are by far the most important.
Comments closedMatt Allington walks through his process of how he creates measures in Power BI:
Killer Tip 1: Create Good Test Data
The first thing I did was to replicate the test data shown above. As I have mentioned many times, good quality test data is essential to getting a quick correct answer to your problem. The data from the OP looked pretty good as it had covered the relevant scenarios (1 ID had just blue, 1 ID had blue and red, several IDs had no blue – this is good test data).
Starting out with good test data is vital—it helps you clarify exactly what it is you want, and if you come up with edge cases, you have the makings of a good test workbench to ensure that your code actually works, and not just in the simplest scenario.
Comments closedThe sections highlighted in red are the parameters and sit in between some of the hard-coded URL text
Code Breakdown:
– Text = http://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/?page=
– Parameter = [Page]
– Text = &view=calendargross&yr=
– Parameter = [Year]
– Text = &month=
– Parameter = [Month]
– Text = &p=.htm
This is a rather clever solution, and if your parameters are functionally dependent (unlike this example, where it was a simple cross join of the three domains), you can still use the solution the same way; you just need to populate your parameter combination table differently.
Comments closedDevin Knight continues his Power BI custom visuals series:
In this module you will learn how to use the Heat Streams Custom Visual. The Heat Streams visual allows you to visualize and compare a categorical value over time.
This looks pretty interesting when comparing a number of elements over time—more elements than a line chart could easily support.
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