Power BI Weekly Newsletter Issue #239

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Data Prep

Covering: Power Query (M), Dataflows, Data connectors, AI Insights

• Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) discusses Power Query Nested Data Types In Excel
• On the Towards Data Science blog, Salvatore Cagliari (@TDataScience) discusses Converting a Flat Table to a Good Data Model in Power Query
• On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Excel Basement (@ExcelBasement) describes How to Calculate Hours Worked for Employees & to Summarize in Power Query
• Reid Havens (@HavensBI) talks about Improving Merging & Appending Power Query (Queries) with Ken Puls
• Pat Mahoney (@mahoneypa) describes Generating lists of random numbers from normal/gaussian distributions with Power Query
• Melissa de Korte describes how to Clean Your Data Like A Pro
• James Andrew (@MatadorSoftware) describes Developing Data Models In The Real World
• On the SQL Server Central blog, Additional Articles blogs about Connecting to SQL Server Data with Power BI vs Tableau

Data Modeling

Covering: DAX (Measures & Calculated Tables/Columns), Relationships, Analysis Services, Composite models

• On the Power BI blog, Zoe Douglas (@MSPowerBI) writes that DAX query view introduces new INFO DAX functions
• On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) shares a few articles: Using join functions in DAX, writes about What happened in the DAX world in 2023 and talks about Replacing relationships with join functions in DAX
• Reid Havens (@HavensBI) walks through Revisiting Common Calculation Group Patterns in Power BI and discusses DAX Query Best Practices and Historical Context with Jeffrey Wang
• On the Power BI community blog, Sam Kumar (@inogic) blogs about Calculation Groups in Power BI
• Ilya Rzhevskiy (@ilya_sb1) describes how to Split Budget into Ratios via DAX
• Also on the Power BI community blog, Dennis Carriere talks about Embracing TMDL Functionalities in Power BI and Preparing for General Availability
• On the Purple Frog Systems blog, James Snow (@PurpleFrogSys) explains How to manage relationships in Power BI Service
• Andrei Khaidarov writes Comparing ALL/ALLNOBLANKROW with DISTINCT/VALUES: A Data Function Analysis
• On the Learning Science YouTube channel, Learning Science explains How to move measures from one table to another table in Power BI and best practices

Report Authoring and Interactivity

Covering: Layout and formatting, Visualizations, Interactivity, Themes, Mobile reports, Dashboards

• Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) explains how to Build a Vertical Timeline in Power BI
• Davide Bacci shares a Force Directed Network Graph (Deneb)
• Chandeep Chhabra (@chandeep2786) describes Targets vs Actuals Chart in Power BI

Deployment, Security and Operations

Covering: Workspaces and Apps, Template Apps, Deployment Pipelines, Gateways, Security, Sharing, Licences, Admin operations, Developer Tooling

• On the Power BI blog, Jadelyn Ray (@MSPowerBI) announces Custom messaging for Power BI App Access Requests
• On the SQL Server Central blog, Dennes Torres (@Dennes) blogs about Source Control with GIT, Power BI and Microsoft Fabric
• Pat Mahoney (@mahoneypa) shares a few videos: Custom or Weekly Partitions With Power BI Incremental Refresh, Custom Paginated Report Subscriptions With Power Automate and Custom Multi-Report Subscriptions with Power Apps and Power Automate
• On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) explains how to Give Power BI access to Synapse Serverless SQL Pool

General

Covering: Cross-topic announcements & feature summaries, Whitepapers, Community events, Learning Resources & Certifications, Podcasts, Sample reports, End-to-end walkthroughs

• On the Power BI blog, Saveen Reddy (@MSPowerBI) shares an update: The Power BI Desktop December Update is now available for download
• On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) present Episode 271 - Power BI December 2023 Feature Summary
• Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) highlights Project Sophia: An AI-Powered Business Research Canvas

Useful Links

• Power BI Maturity Scorecard - 97% of the Fortune 500 are using Power BI. Only 20% of analytics deliver business value. How do you score?
• Azure Weekly - Interested in Azure? Sign up to our sister newsletter Azure Weekly to receive all the week's Azure news
• M language reference - Official Power Query M Reference
• PowerQuery How - Alternative M Language Reference created by Rick de Groot, including improved function explanations, code formatting, practical examples and further reading
• DAX Studio - Useful open source tool for executing and analyzing DAX queries, founded by Darren Gosbell
• DAX Guide - Your go-to reference on the DAX language, created by the SQLBI team
• Power BI Visuals Reference - An exhaustive list (as of Sep. 2018) of all Power BI native & custom visuals, placed into separate categories, again created by the SQLBI team
• Report Theme Generator - A handy report theme generator created by the Power BI Tips and Tricks team
• Power BI Theme templates - Detailed Power BI Theme templates for all the native visuals, created by David Eldersveld
• Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star - Free, detailed eBook to get up and running with Power BI, written by Reza Rad
• Power BI Architecture diagram - An informative Power BI Architecture diagram, created by Dustin Ryan
• Power BI Whitepapers - A list of official Power BI whitepapers, covering Security, Premium deployment, Advanced Analytics and more