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Category: Power BI

R + Power Query

Published 2016-12-07 by Kevin Feasel

Ryan Wade makes his argument that R can be more powerful than M inside Power Query:

I want to leave you with two more things. If you look at the trade balance data set you will notice that it is not in a good format for data analysis. Here is a link to the file if you want to take a closer look. When you are doing data analysis you want your data to be in a “tidy” format. A “tidy” format means that each column represents a variable and each row represents an observation. To make this data set “tidy” you need to reformat the data into the following format: Country, Year, Trade Balance, Exports, and Imports.

This was an interesting example.

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Sankey Custom Visual

Published 2016-12-07 by Kevin Feasel

Devin Knight looks at the Sankey visual in Power BI:

In this module you will learn how to use the Sankey Power BI Custom Visual.  The Sankey is a type of diagram that visualizes the flow of data between a source and destination.

Sankey diagrams are among the most information-dense diagrams out there.  They aren’t general-purpose diagrams, but for someone willing to take the time to unpack them, they can be quite informative.

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Custom Functions In Power BI Desktop

Published 2016-12-06 by Kevin Feasel

Reza Rad explains custom functions:

Benefits of Custom Function

  • Re-Use of Code
  • Increasing Consistency
  • Reducing Redundancy

With a Custom function you are able to re-use a query multiple times. If you want to change part of it, there is only one place to make that change, instead of multiple copies of that. You can call this function from everywhere in your code. and you are reducing redundant steps which normally causes extra maintenance of the code.

I like Reza’s example of reading from a holidays table, as it’s easy enough to follow without being so trivial that it leaves you to wonder what the real value is.

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Custom R Visuals In Power BI

Published 2016-12-05 by Kevin Feasel

Ginger Grant notes that there are R-powered custom visuals for Power BI:

Interacting with R visuals works differently than with other report visualizations as you cannot click on elements within the visualization and filter other items on the page. Other visuals on the page will filter the data contained within the R visual. For example, let’s say my report contains a total field, a slicer which contains years and a correlation plot which contains products. If the slicker is changed to select a year, total field and the data within the R visual will change to reflect that. If on the other hand, I choose to click on the R visual to select one of the product categories, the total field will not change and the R visual will not change. The R visual’s appearance will not change in any way.

Read on for more.

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Data Wrangling: R Versus M

Published 2016-12-05 by Kevin Feasel

Ryan Wade argues that R is a better language choice for working with data in Power BI than M:

Now let’s do something that I think is pretty slick. Let’s create a data set that combines the home games of the Pacers (IND) and the home games of the Hawks (ATL). Given the naming convention used by the files we will have to identify the files in our working directory that starts with an eight numeric digits > then a period > then a 3 character team abbreviation for the away team > then either “ATL” or “IND” > then finally “.csv”. We can create a regular expression to find the files that matches that pattern. I did so in the code below:

I’m interested in catching the rest of the series.  This is a controversial statement that I’m not entirely sold on yet, but Ryan does set the stage for his full argument.

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Row-Level Security With Power BI

Published 2016-12-02 by Kevin Feasel

Callum Green shows how to use row-level security with Power BI Desktop:

In the June 2016 monthly Power BI release, Row Level Security (RLS) was introduced into Power BI desktop. This is great news for people using the application, especially as the configuration is stored within the Power BI model.  Previously, you had to create the security in the web environment, which could easily be overwritten when publishing multiple times from a desktop workbook.

In this blog, I will show you how to set up RLS in Power BI desktop and how to test it works. My example uses the AdventureWorksDW2014 database (download here), specifically applying permissions for a manager. Each manager will only be able to see data for the Sales Representatives that report to them.

This is different from the SQL Server 2016 feature of the same name, but the concept is the same.

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Sharing Power Query Queries

Published 2016-12-01 by Kevin Feasel

Chris Webb shows how to use Azure Data Catalog to share queries from Power Query:

While I’m really happy to have this functionality back, and I think a lot of people will find it useful, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Some thoughts:

  • This really needs to extended to work with Power BI Desktop too. In fact, it’s such an obvious thing to do it must be happening soon…?

Given how quickly the Power BI team iterates, that’s probably the case.  Anyhow, read the whole thing.

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Power BI Synoptic Panel

Published 2016-11-30 by Kevin Feasel

Devin Knight’s series on Power BI visuals continues with the synoptic panel:

  • The Synoptic Panel allows you connect areas in an image with attributes in your data model.

  • Using the Synoptic Designer you can convert an image that you have to one that is compatible with plotting out data points on it.

  • You can fill each area with a color or a saturation of a color.

The Synoptic Panel is definitely a more advanced visual, but it’s very powerful.

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Controlling Power BI Interactions

Published 2016-11-29 by Kevin Feasel

Reza Rad shows how to control what happens when you interact with a Power BI visual:

This behavior also can be set to None. For example let’s say you want to have a total of sales amount regardless of gender selection, and then a total of sales amount for the selected gender in slicer. To do this copy the SalesAmount Card Visual, and then click on Gender Slicer. click on Edit Interaction, and set one of the card visuals to None, the other one as default with Filter.

Count me among the people who did not know about this.

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Downloading Power BI Reports

Published 2016-11-29 by Kevin Feasel

Ginger Grant notes that it is now possible to download Power BI reports as PBIX files:

Now that anyone can use a report which has been uploaded to the service as a starting point for a new report, there may be a decreased use of the template feature. Any report created on the desktop can be saved as a template, by selecting save on a desktop report file and changing the file type to a template. Unfortunately, templates do not contain links to the datasource used. The person creating the report must determine what data to use and if there was a dataset presently used which is refreshing the data, or create a dataset and it’s respective refresh features as part of creating a report.  Content packs provide the connections to datasets, but since the reports cannot be saved as a file for versioning, this feature is not often used instead of templates. Downloading the file and then modifying it is does resolve the issue as the starting point is then a working report with a connection to an existing dataset.

Read the whole thing.

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