Author: Jason Himmelstein

Episode 66 – Power BI Desktop Update & Ignite Session picks

This is episode 66 recorded on September 14th, 2018 where John & Jason talk to about the September release of Power BI Desktop and make picks for Microsoft Ignite 2018.

Show Notes:

Power BI Desktop – September 2018
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-september-2018-feature-summary/ 

Here’s the complete list of September updates:

Reporting

Analytics

Custom visuals

Data connectivity

Data preparation

Stuff to watch

Unlock petabyte-scale datasets in Azure with aggregations in Power BI
Scott Hanselman & Christian Wade
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Azure-Friday/Unlock-petabyte-scale-datasets-in-Azure-with-aggregations-in-Power-BI

Ignite Sessions to highlight

GS007 – Microsoft PowerApps, Power BI, and Flow: Power platform vision and roadmap
Arun Ulagaratchagan,  Charles Lamanna,  Keith Whatling,  Richard Riley
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66664

BRK3107 – Microsoft Power BI Premium: Building enterprise-grade BI models for big data
Christian Wade,  Josh Caplan
https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/65442

BRK3108 – Microsoft Power BI: Enabling and governing self-service analytics
Adam Saxton,  Lukasz Pawloski
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/65444

BRK2218 – Microsoft Power BI Desktop: Data exploration, analysis and storytelling
Amanda Cofsky,  Will Thompson
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/65435

BRK2099 – Upgrade your social communities to knowledge-based communities
Dean Swann,  John White
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/65625

Episode 65 – Meetup with Reza Rad

This is episode 65 recorded on September 11th, 2018 where John & Jason talk to Microsoft MVP and Regional Director Reza Rad about Reza’s Power BI background, and our joint meetup at Microsoft Ignite.

Reza Rad is an Author, Trainer, Speaker and Consultant. He has a BSc in Computer engineering; he has more than 15 years’ experience in databases, programming and development mostly on Microsoft technologies. He is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP for seven continues years (from 2011 till now) for his dedication in Microsoft BI. Reza is author of Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star and some other books. He is training and consulting on Microsoft BI and Data Analytics technologies.

Show Notes:

Meetup at Ignite with John, Jason & Reza
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66510

RADACAD
radacad.com

Power BI Helper
http://radacad.com/power-bi-helper

Upcoming Events

Microsoft Ignite 9/24-9/28 
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

European SharePoint Conference 11/26-11/29
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/

SharePointFest Chicago
https://sharepointfest.com/Chicago/

SPTechCon Boston – February 10 – 13, 2019
https://www.sptechcon.com/west 

North American Collaboration Summit – March 14 – 16, 2019
http://www.collabsummit.org/

SPFest DC – April 29 – May 3, 2019
https://sharepointfest.com/Chicago/

SharePoint Conference 2019 – May 21 – 23, 2019
http://www.sharepointna.com

Eurpoean Collaboration Summit – May 27 – 29, 2019
http://www.collabsummit.eu



Episode 63 – Interview with Christian Wade

This is episode 63 recorded on August 30th, 2018 where John & Jason talk to Christian Wade, Senior Program Manager for Analysis Services at Microsoft, about Power BI in the Enterprise, the upcoming Manage Aggregations feature, and more.

Show notes

Capacity monitoring
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-monitoring-capabilities-for-power-bi-premium-capacities/ 

Ignite session scheduler & Twitter

Ignite session scheduler & Twitter
https://link.tygraph.com/IgniteSessions
https://link.tygraph.com/IgniteTweets

Christian’s Talks at Business Application Summit

Building a data model to support 1 trillion rows of data and more with Microsoft Power BI Premium
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit/video/BAS2018-2172

Building Enterprise grade BI models with Microsoft Power BI Premium- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit/video/BAS2018-2115

Upcoming Events

Microsoft Ignite 9/24-9/28 
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

European SharePoint Conference 11/26-11/29
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/

SharePointFest Chicago
https://sharepointfest.com/Chicago/

SPTechCon Boston – February 10 – 13, 2019
https://www.sptechcon.com/west 

North American Collaboration Summit – March 14 – 16, 2019
http://www.collabsummit.org/

SPFest DC – April 29 – May 3, 2019
https://sharepointfest.com/Chicago/

SharePoint Conference 2019 – May 21 – 23, 2019
http://www.sharepointna.com

Eurpoean Collaboration Summit – May 27 – 29, 2019
http://www.collabsummit.eu

Episode 57 – Business Application Summit 2018 Recap

This is episode 57 recorded on July 23rd, 2018 where John & Jason recap the announcements at the 2018 Business Application Summit in Seattle, Washington.


Show Notes:

The Digital Feedback Loop

All about machine learning

Nothing is new – until now with data and predictions

Demos of CRM, Talent, Integration of LinkedIn Reporter

Remote Assist with AR and CRM data

Future of Modern and Enterprise BI

3 focus areas

  • Unified Platform for  both self-service & enterprise BI
  • Intuitive experiences
  • Pervasive AI for BI

July Desktop Release – for another show…….

Enterprise

  • Performance enhancements – 1.5 trillion rows, .25 PB of data was instant
    • Aggregation feature – aggregations caching
    • Showing direct connect to Spark
  • Composite Models – multiple direct query
  • SSRS – first see in August
  • Multi Geo
  • ALM – ALM Toolkit for Power BI from MAQ
  • Data Flows is the final name for Data Pools – magic is open data lake storage direct connected.

Usability

  • Fit and finish in Power BI Desktop. Now relationship editor, Design guides, visuals to the top
  • PRINTING – PDF.
  • Select on data to filter out
  • OOB Themes
  • Expression Based properties – even text properties like SSRS
  • Pivot tables
  • Commenting

AI

  • Quick insights gets a big improvement
  • Q&A within reports. “Explain the increase” with Quick insights.

Episode 56 – Developer & Gateway news and MVP Renewals

This is episode 56 recorded on July 12th 2018 where John & Jason talk about Microsoft Research Open Data, Developer & Gateway news, Power BI Desktop vs Service, and MVP renewals.

Notes:

Jason & John got renewed as Office Servers & Services MVP! John is now a double MVP in Data Platform for Power BI. Then Microsoft changed the categories again and they are Office Apps & Services MVPs now… either way, we are BACK!

MSR Open Data

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/announcing-microsoft-research-open-data-datasets-by-microsoft-research-now-available-in-the-cloud/

Power BI Desktop vs Power BI Service

https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/4139/compare-power-bi-desktop-vs-power-bi-online/

Power BI Developer community June update

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-developer-community-june-update/

On-premises data gateway June update is now available

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/on-premises-data-gateway-june-update-is-now-available/

Power BI Workspace Collections is being deprecated – was supposed to happen June 30… get out now!!!! Get on Power BI Embedded

End of Microsoft Fiscal, 4th of July, O’Canada Day, and the looming Business Application Summit all lead to slow news time.

Coming events

Business Applications Summit 7/22-7/24 – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit

SPSNYC 7/28 – http://www.spsevents.org/city/nyc

SPFest Seattle 8/20-8/24 – https://sharepointfest.com/Seattle/

SPTechCon 8/26-8/29 – http://www.sptechcon.com/

Microsoft Ignite 9/24-9/28 – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

European SharePoint Conference 11/26-11/29 – https://www.sharepointeurope.com/

Ep 54 – Miscellaneous news & the looming Power BI Embedded deadline

This is episode 54 recorded on June 21th 2018… where John & Jason talk about mobile app configuration of PBIRS settings, a new way of analyzing Excel in Power BI, and the upcoming Power BI Embedded deadline.

Show Notes

Report Server configuration with MDM/EMM tools

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/drill-through-and-report-server-configuration-with-mdm-tools/

 

Analyze in Power BI coming to the SharePoint UI – Kerem Yuceturk

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-BI/New-feature-Create-Power-BI-reports-from-tables-in-Excel-files/td-p/201843

 

Use Outlook to organize Power BI reports – Chris Finlan

https://christopherfinlan.com/2018/06/11/use-outlook-shortcuts-to-organize-your-favorite-power-bi-reports-and-dashboards/

 

Business Application Summit – Sessions are up

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit

 

Power BI Embedded deadline is coming up!

https://www.bifocal.show/2018/03/27/episode-42-the-power-bi-embedded-show/

Megan Assarane interview

 

Coming events

Business Applications Summit 7/22-7/24 – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit

SPSNYC 7/28 – http://www.spsevents.org/city/nyc

SPFest Seattle 8/20-8/24 – https://sharepointfest.com/Seattle/

SPTechCon 8/26-8/29 – http://www.sptechcon.com/

Microsoft Ignite 9/24-9/28 – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

European SharePoint Conference 11/26-11/29 – https://www.sharepointeurope.com/

Episode 53 – New initiatives

This is episode 53 recorded on June 13th 2018… where John & Jason talk about new initiatives in their world, discussed MyAnalytics, Azure Machine Learning, and some of the Power BI Service limits & what to do about them.

 

Jason – working on:

  • New product launch
  • Changes in my role
    • Microsoft Inspire & Ready
    • Partnerships
    • A renewed focus on process
      • Leads to more Power BI
      • Newly on E5
        • MyAnalytics
  • Summer plans

 

John – working on:

  • Azure ML and ML Studio – why does this stuff matter? The predictive part of BI
  • The PBIX Grow up story. Hitting the limits of the service.
  • tyGraph
    • For SP, OneDrive and Teams
  • New stuff based on CDSA
  • Power of the Cloud – June 22 – https://powerofthecloud.net/

 

Upcoming events

           TSPUG 6/20 – https://www.meetup.com/TorontoSPUG/

SPSNYC 7/28 – http://www.spsevents.org/city/nyc

SPFest Seattle 8/20-8/24 – https://sharepointfest.com/Seattle/

SPTechCon 8/26-8/29 – http://www.sptechcon.com/

 

The Intrazone: Episode 6 “The Desktop Diet”

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/The-Intrazone-episode-6-The-desktop-diet/ba-p/203323

Episode 52 – Power BI Desktop June update

This is episode 52 recorded on June 7th 2018… where John & Jason talk about the new Power BI Desktop update & the role of Power BI Desktop.

Power BI Desktop June Update

Reporting

Custom Visuals

Modeling

Data Connectivity

Other

 

Previous Power BI Desktop Update – May

Episode 51 – Power BI news & updates

This is episode 51 recorded on June 7th 2018… where John & Jason talk about news in the Power BI space, the Power BI Developer community update for May, and some twitter shenanigans.

 

News & Updates

Power BI Developer community May update

Episode 50 – Live from SPC18 in Las Vegas

This is episode 50 recorded live on May 21st 2018… where John & Jason talk the announcements & other things happening at the SharePoint Conference North America in Las Vegas.

Facebook Live show: https://www.facebook.com/bifocalshow/videos/255860991644964/ 

Notes:

  • Power BI Insights baked into lists
  • Was that a modern BDC built in?
  • 3D editor site of course
  • SP2019 – still waiting on deprecation statements for PP and PP4SP
  • Our tutorial…. What were people looking for?