Episode 106 – A Bearless interview with Chris Finlan

This is episode 106 recorded on June 11th, 2019 at the Microsoft Business Applications Summit where John & Jason talk to Chris Finlan, Senior Program Manager for Power BI at Microsoft, about the recently release features around Paginated Reports in the Power BI Service, Power BI Report Server, and more.

User Voice Picks

John

Allow for simpler account switching between tenants

It is next to impossible to switch between accounts/tenants in the Power BI mobile client. The user must first log out of the existing account/tenant, and then establish a connection with the different tenant. This is a multi-multi step process.

Contrast this with the multi tenant capabilities of the Teams mobile app, or of Outlook, SharePoint etc. We need better account switching in the Power BI mobile app.

Jason

Add an interface in Power BI Reports for browsing shared datasets on the Report Server.

A current capability we use in Power BI Reports on our Power BI Report Server is consuming Shared Datasets that are already on the server. We should have a “Shared Dataset” connector option in Power BI Optimized for Report Server that helps users identify which Shared Dataset are available on the server and the parameters(if any) are required to use the shared dataset. This would be a similar capability that exists in Report Builder when adding shared datasets.

This could be a simple UI that ultimately results in an OData source using the PBI REST API. This would simplify adding shared datasets rather than forcing users to under the REST API. Seems like a low overhead improvement that has high potential

Chris

Paginated reports – please make it available in Pro as well as Premium

Paginated reports – please make it available in Pro as well as Premium .. thank you

Episode 75 – PASS Summit News & Dataflows

Thisis episode 75 recorded on November 9th, 2018 where John & Jason talk aboutthe news coming out of PASS Summit and break down the introduction of Dataflows.

Show Notes

Power BI delivers dataflows, enterprise reporting, and major updates to Power BI Desktop

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-delivers-dataflows-enterprise-reporting-and-major-updates-to-power-bi-desktop/

Dataflows expand self-service data prep in Power BI

SQL Server Reporting Services technology now in Power BI

Power BI Desktop November Update
- Will cover in detail on a future show once this drops

Introducing: Power BI data prep with dataflows

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-power-bi-data-prep-wtih-dataflows/

Self-service data prep for big data in Power BI

Advanced Analytics and AI with Azure

Support for the Common Data Model
- Getting started with self-service data prep
- Ingesting large amounts of data with Incremental Refresh
- Building complex ETL projects with Linked entities

Gaining further insights with Computed entities
- Connecting datasets to your data

Public Preview of Paginated Reports in Power BI Premium Now Available

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/public-preview-of-paginated-reports-in-power-bi-premium-now-available

Power BI Paginated Reports also available in Power BI Mobile Apps(preview)

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-paginated-reports-also-available-in-power-bi-mobile-apps-preview

Paginated report metrics and dataflow metrics now available in Premium Capacity Metrics app

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/paginated-report-metrics-and-dataflow-metrics-now-available-in-premium-capacity-metrics-app/

Premium Capacity Metrics app – query metrics histogram now available

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/premium-capacity-metrics-app-query-metrics-histogram-now-available/

Episode 73 – Interview with Chris Finlan

This is episode 73 recorded on October 22nd, 2018 where John & Jason talk to Chris Finlan, Senior Program Manager for Power BI at Microsoft, about the Power BI Report Server, Paginated Report in the cloud via Power BI, and much more.

Show Notes

Power BI Report Server release timing update

Chris Finlan on Twitter

PASS Summit (Focus Groups)

Episode 60 – SharePoint Business Intelligence – The End of an Era

This is episode 60 recorded on August 7th, 2018 where John & Jason talk about a new initiative for Power BI Beginners & the deprecation and removal of BI Features in SharePoint 2019.

Show Notes:

Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2019

What’s deprecated or removed from SharePoint Server 2019 Public Preview

Self-service BI and enterprise reporting on-premises with Power BI Report Server

Upcoming webinar – Building a KPI Scorecard with Custom Visuals in Power BI with Reid Havens

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 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

Episode 23 – Interview with Dave Feldman

This is episode 23 recorded on November 7th, 2017… where John & Jason talk to about the new single-sign on methods for the Power BI service and an interview with Dave Feldman, Microsoft MVP from Shire Pharmaceuticals.

News:
Blog post by Miguel Llopis: Announcing Single Sign-On Support when connecting to data sources from the Power BI Service
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-single-sign-on-support-when-connecting-to-data-sources-from-the-power-bi-service/

“… it is now possible to use Single Sign-On, leveraging Kerberos, when connecting to certain data sources using DirectQuery mode from Power BI.”

Config link: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-gateway-kerberos-for-sso-pbi-to-on-premises-data/

Support for Single Sign-On is available for the following data sources as of today:

- SQL Server
- Teradata
- SAP HANA

Additional data sources will be added:

EOY 2017

- Impala
- Oracle
- SAP BW

H1 2018

- Spark
- And others…

Interview notes:
“Using BI to make intelligent business decisions”TyGraph, HyperFish & onPrem IIS Logs to do proper analysis around what was being used during the planning phases of the integration between Shire & BaxaltaThe analysis fueled Dave’s migration decisionsLooking into the future to multi-geo decision planning for SharePoint Online

Links:
Shire’s Hub and Link Web Parts: https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-dev-solutions/tree/master/solutions/LinksAndHandlebarsTemplate
Dave’s blog: http://bostonmusicdave.com/
Hyperfish: https://www.hyperfish.com/
tyGraph: https://www.tygraph.com/

Episode 22 – Power BI Report Server release news

This is episode 22 recorded on November 2nd, 2017… where John & Jason talk to about the brand new release of Power BI Report Server, PowerApps custom visuals, & Power BI Licensing.

Show Notes:

Power BI Report Server new version

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-version-of-power-bi-report-server-now-available/

Scheduled Data Refresh
REST API (SSRS stuff)
Direct Query Support
Shared Data connection via Odata
Report filtering with URL parameters
Episode 17 on PBIRS w\ Chris Finlan

PowerApps Custom Visual

PowerApp on a report, not just a tile

PowerApp visual can be filtered

Another post about licensing

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-pro-power-bi-premium-flexibility-to-choose-the-licensing-best-for-you-and-your-organization/

PBI Report Theme Generators

Online – https://powerbi.tips/tools/report-theme-generator-v3/

Excel Based – https://hopeinternational.box.com/s/gd57sn7djq0bs6p2miut62extxdgucwn

Office them to PBI theme converter – https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkRyAgtzGndznMl3VKm1K8YJp0wsHQ

“Everything you wanted to know” Workshops

John speaking at ESPC

https://www.sharepointeurope.com/events/everything-wanted-know-power-bi-afraid-ask/

SPFest Chicago (use code WHITE for a discount)

http://www.sharepointfest.com/Chicago/index.php/sessions/workshops

SPFest DC (use code WHITE for a discount)

http://www.sharepointfest.com/DC/index.php/sessions/46-workshops/monday-workshops/148-ws-107-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-power-bi-but-were-afraid-to-ask

SharePoint Conference North America (use code JASEHIMM for a discount)< /p>

http://www.sharepointna.com

Episode 17 – Live from Ignite with Chris Finlan

This is episode 17 recorded on September 26th, 2017 where John & Jason interview Chris Finlan, Program Manager on the SQL Server Reporting Services/Power BI Reporting Server team live at Ignite 2017, and talked at length about the announcements made at Ignite 2017, and about on-premises BI in general.