Episode 45: All about the new CDSA & CDS-A

This is episode 45 recorded on April 12th, 2018… where John & Jason take a deep dive on the announcements about the new Common Data Service for Analytics (CDSA) and the new Common Data Service for Apps (CDS-A).

CDSA (Common Data Service for Analytics) and CDS-A (Common Data Service for Apps) are NOT built on CDS

CDSA (Applications) is the logical successor to CDS. And to XRM – All about entities.

Business Apps spring update document – https://aka.ms/businessappsreleasenotes

Announcement from the Power BI team
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/coming-soon-to-power-bi-common-data-service-for-analytics/

Today in the browser you can bring in some data as is (CSV, XLS) & connect to data models.

With CDS-A you get Power Query
– ETL (Power Query) in the cloud
– It’s a Data Lake (warehouses and marts) that you can connect to
– Also includes pre-defined schemas and connectors (specifically Dynamics)
– Connect data models to it

Power BI Desktop today combines ETL and data modeling. CDS-A can help separate those concerns.

Analytics apps (the successor to solution templates) will build on CDS-A

Power BI video on this page – https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/release/spring-2018-release/

Once loaded, data is referred to as “Data Pools”

Get notified when Power BI Insights apps become available

Shameless self-promotion

SharePoint Conference North America
May 21-23, 2018
Use discount code JASEHIMM for $50 off

European Collaboration Summit in Mainz, Germany
May 28-30, 2018

Episode 44 – Power BI Desktop, Gateway, & Developer updates for April 2018

This is episode 44 recorded on April 9th 2018… where John & Jason talk about the Developer Update & the Gateway Update for March and the Power BI Desktop update for April.

Power BI Desktop – April Update

Power BI team blog article

Reporting

Q&A Explorer (preview) *
Buttons to trigger actions * – ACTIONS! (Bookmark, back, Q&A)
Combo chart line styles
Improved default sort for visuals
Numeric Slicer now generally available

Analytics

Update your linguistic schema –

YAML

New DAX function: COMBINEVALUES()

Custom visuals

Data connectivity

John & Jason’s upcoming events

SharePoint Conference North America
May 21-23, 2018
Use discount code WHITE for $50 off
European Collaboration Summit in Mainz, Germany
May 28-30, 2018

Episode 42 – The Power BI Embedded Show

Embedded

This is episode 42 recorded on March 23rd 2018 where John & Jason talk to Megan Assarrane, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft for Power BI Embedded. We dispel some misunderstandings about embedded licensing, discuss the retirement of the old Workspace Collections product and walk through the awesomeness that is the new Power BI Embedded service.

Show Links:

Power BI Embedded Webpage: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/power-bi-embedded/
What’s new for Power BI Embedded: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/?product=power-bi-embedded
Hands-on embedding tool: https://microsoft.github.io/PowerBI-JavaScript/demo/v2-demo/index.html
Migration documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/power-bi-embedded/migrate-from-power-bi-workspace-collections

Episode 41 – The New Power BI Report Server is Here

This is episode 41 recorded on March 15th 2018… where John & Jason talk to Riccardo Muti, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft for Power BI and SQL Server Reporting Services, about the latest Power BI Report Server release & the direction he sees the product going in the future

Power BI Reporting on a Multi-value SharePoint Column

Hey all – John here. One of the things that we get asked frequently is how to report on SharePoint data. The answer is of course, “well, it’s easy, but it depends”.

In the spirit of clearing up the “it depends” part, I’m in the process of writing a series of articles that walks through the nuances of the various SharePoint complex data types. The first one shows some options for reporting on multi-value SharePoint columns, and includes tricks that pertain to more sources than just SharePoint.

You can find the post here. Enjoy!

Episode 32 – Size Matters

This is episode 32 recorded on January 11th 2018… where John & Jason talk about scaling Power BI, it’s limits, and how to overcome them.

iTunes ratings contest

We are actively trying to get our visibility up for the show and one way to accomplish that is through having ratings on iTunes. To that end, we are asking out listeners to take a moment and rate us on iTunes. Once we hit 10 reviews, hopefully before our Feburary 6th show, we are going to raffle off a $50 Amazon gift card to one of the people who rated us. You will need iTunes to be able to do it, but you can find our page here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bifocal-clarifying-business-intelligence/id1266308225

Size & Scale

What are the limits & why?

Free vs Pro vs Dedicated Capacity storage limits by licensing

App Workspaces vs Office 365 Groups vs Teams confusion

Personal storage limit in Power BI is 10GB per user & per Office 365 Group/App Workspace

Personal storage limit in Power BI is 1GB per model

Maximum size of a single data model limit in Dedicated Capacity is now 10GB
-does NOT go against the user’s personal storage limit

Episode 10 – May I see your license please sir?

Moving a PBIX file to AAS

Load your data model to AAS
–https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/import-power-bi-desktop-files-into-azure-analysis-services/

Kasper’s trick to repoint the PBIX
–https://www.kasperonbi.com/change-your-power-bi-report-to-point-to-an-external-ssas-model/

Importing from PBI Desktop to SSAS On Prem – BIInsight
–http://biinsight.com/import-power-bi-desktop-model-to-ssas-tabular-2017-using-azure-analysis-services/

Other Stuff to check out

Chris McNulty’s post on Tech Community

SPSEvents site

EDX Power BI Course

John & Jason’s upcoming events

SharePointalooza\North American Collaboration Summit
March 2-3, 2018
SharePointFest DC
March 26-30, 2018
SharePoint Conference North America
May 21-23, 2018
Use discount code WHITE for $50 off
European Collaboration Summit in Mainz, Germany
May 28-30, 2018

Episode 31 – Power BI Desktop January Update

This is episode 31 recorded on January 9th 2018… where John & Jason talk about the January features updates to Power BI Desktop, some things they noticed in the Desktop client, and some User Voice submissions.

Reporting

–Show and hide pages
–Control data label background color for Cartesian and maps visuals
–Increase area used for axis labels in charts
–Bar/column padding control
–Show dates as a hierarchy (preview)
–Add an anchor date for relative date slicer
–Top N selection in Q&A

Analytics

–Correlation coefficient quick measure

Custom Visuals

–PowerApps
–TreeViz
–Funnel with Source by MAQ Software
–Box and Whisker chart by MAQ Software
–Agility Planning Matrix Light
–Image Grid
–Gantt Chart by MAQ Software

Data connectivity

–Support for Azure Active Directory authentication for Azure SQL Database & Data Warehouse connectors

Other

–Advanced language settings for the Windows store app

Power BI Desktop things of note

-Help tab
-Windows Store download was behind the blog post

Previous Month’s Power BI Desktop update episode

Upcoming events

Power BI User Voice submissions

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/32871283-notification-after-updates-have-been-installed

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/32871919-display-the-desktop-version

Episode 30 – New Years News

This is episode 30 recorded in January 1st 2018… where John & Jason talk about the news from the past few weeks in Power BI, Office 365, and Azure.

Show Notes:

On-premises data gateway December update

-includes a number of bug fixes and improvements to previously released features
-matches the Mashup Engine that was released as a part of the Power BI Desktop December update

Sync members from O365 Modern group to a mail-enabled security group

-This is one of the issues that we run into because Power BI is NOT a part of Office 365
-The solution that Adam shows is a viable, one time solution but does not solve the longer term issue
-This can be scripted to run daily, but it is duplicating groups at that point which will ultimately cause problems
-We love Adam Saxton & Patrick LeBlank and recommend people subscribe to the YouTube Channel GuyInACube
-We don’t actually recommend you do this…

The Reddit Solution Template

-Point solution for Reddit
-Similar solutions exist for Twitter, Facebook, & Bing News
-What are Solution Templates anyway?
-Who is this for? Social Media Managers… that use Reddit
Server aliases for Azure Analysis Services

-Aliasing is always a good idea
-migration situations
-easier to remember
-obfuscates actual server information
-allows the use of Azure Traffic Manager
-Users can connect to the server from Power BI Desktop (in addition to other client tools) using the link:// format

Azure Analysis Services integration with Azure Diagnostic Logs

-Various scenarios are supported, including the following:
-Auditing
-Monitoring of server health
-Derivation of usage metrics
-Understanding which user groups are using which datasets and when
-Detection of long-running or problematic queries
-Detection of users experiencing errors
-Consume diagnostic logs in Power BI
-give you a text file that contains an M expression, which can be pasted into a blank query in Power BI Desktop
-The expression contains the current Log Analytics query and consumes from the Log Analytics REST API

Episode 29 – 2018 Predictions from the Community

This is episode 29 recorded in December 2017… where John & Jason talk to community members about their 2018 predictions & make a few themselves.

A special thank you to Dan Holme for supporting us in this reimaging of his Penton series of Predictions. This was always a fun series of predictions to read, and we hope that you find this episode entertaining to listen to.

Thanks to everyone who contributed a prediction for 2018. Follow them on Twitter and check out their blogs below:

We wish everyone a happy holiday season and a Happy 2018!

Episode 28 – December’s SQL Server & Power BI Desktop updates

This is episode 28 recorded on December 14th, 2017… where John & Jason talk about the new SQL Server Management Studio 17.4, a new open source SQL Server CLI, a change to Power BI Premium, and the December updates to Power BI Desktop.

iTunes ratings contest

News

SSMS 17.4 is now available – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms
- SQL Vulnerability Assessment tool
Mssql-cli Preview. Open source, requires Python
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2017/12/12/try-mssql-cli-a-new-interactive-command-line-tool-for-sql-server/
Power BI Premium now supports datasets up to 10 GB
- https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-power-bi-premium-support-for-larger-datasets/
Power BI Desktop December Update
- https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-december-feature-summary/
  - Q&A in Designer for report creation. This is used at DESIGN time
  - Bookmarking now supports cross-highlighting states, more granularity about what the bookmark applies to
  - Adding descriptions to field names in the field properties pane
  - Scatter plot improvements
  - Higher density sampling for at/long on maps
  - Responsive slicers – Date, range and horizontal slicers. Works better for mobile too
  - Drill filters other visuals – about freakin’ time
  - Lots of new custom visuals
    - Card browser
    - Table heatmap
    - Data image
    - Power KPI matrix – scorecard like, but not a scorecard
    - Text filter – yes!
    - Chartaccent linechart/barchart
  - New connectors
    - Adobe Analytics
    - HD Insight interactive Query
    - Data.World
    - SAP BW
    - IBM Netezza now GA
- Most of these are preview – need to be turned on

Upcoming events

SharePointalooza\North American Collaboration Summit
- March 2-3, 2018
SharePointFest DC
- March 26-30, 2018
SharePoint Conference North America
- May 21-23, 2018
- Use discount code WHITE for $50 off

Power BI Summit in Dublin – April 24-28 2018
- Presented by PUG and Dynamic Communities

Related episodes:

Episode 24 – November’s Power BI Desktop update & more
Episode 15 – Microsoft Ignite 2017 Bonus Episode

Shameless self-promotion

Power BI Desktop – April Update

John & Jason’s upcoming events

iTunes ratings contest

Size & Scale

Moving a PBIX file to AAS

Other Stuff to check out

John & Jason’s upcoming events

Reporting

Analytics

Custom Visuals

Data connectivity

Other

Power BI Desktop things of note

Upcoming events

Power BI User Voice submissions

Andy Huneycutt – 5:15

Brian Alderman – 7:16

Christina Wheeler – 7:38

Marc D Anderson – 8:20

Chris McNulty – 9:45

Dean Swann – 10:46

Joanne Klein – 11:40

Jeremy Thake – 12:28

Susan Hanley – 12:57

Mark Rackley – 13:10

Mike Fitzmaurice – 13:48

Andrew Connell – 14:48

Vlad Catrinescu – 15:48

David Broussard – 16:02

Richard Campbell – 17:10

We wish everyone a happy holiday season and a Happy 2018!

iTunes ratings contest

News

Upcoming events

Related episodes: