Blog

Power BI, Governance

25 de junio de 2023

Helping users find Power BI Apps

In Power BI there are plenty of features to allow people discover content, but I don't think it's really useful. For once, with the exception of promoted & certified datasets, you only find what you have access to, and in many places access is given on a one-by-one basis. You ask for it, you get...

Power BI

24 de junio de 2023

Sorting a matrix by a calculation item column

Hi! actually I was writing another blog post, but today I was shown something that can be done with calc groups that I wasn't aware of. And not only that, even though the blog post I was shown had some very clever thinking behind, I found there's still some room for improvement to bring the[...]

Power BI, Governance

29 de mayo de 2023

Some SQL Server governance that can give huge results

This blog post is 90% SQL server and 10% Power BI, so if you are not into SQL Server (or relational databases in general) this might not apply to you. That being said, this blog post explains how to record the size of all tables in the server, and how to measure which tables are[...]

Power BI

13 de mayo de 2023

C# Scripting nirvana: effortlessly use Visual Studio as your coding environment for Tabular Editor C# Scripts

Hello hello, today is C# again. As you know I do like C# scripts for Tabular Editor, as they allow us to automate stuff around Editor, which in turn allow us to do things faster than in Power BI Desktop, so it's like a super power on top of a super power. In my previous[...]

Power BI, Governance

29 de abril de 2023

A nice background always, with the minimum effort

Yep, today it's reporting. Lately I'm trying to give some shape to the governance of an organization, and well, reports having a unified look it's a good thing. At the very least for those supposed to be "Tier 1" or "The reports that really matter to top brass people". As with business logic, I'm al...

Power BI

17 de abril de 2023

Comparing snapshots by state

Hello hello, I'm not writing that much lately due to spring break and a DAX training I'm teaching, but I think I have just enough time to explain a fun use case I found the other day at work. In Real Estate each asset can be in a bunch of different states, especially if there[...]

Governance

11 de marzo de 2023

Rethinking Security Groups for Power BI

Hello! Yes, this is the Esbrina blog, and yes, it's an article about Power BI Governance! About time! After learning many things with Melissa Coates and Mike Carlo, and having now some experience as a Power BI Admin, it's time to start writing about the strategy I'm trying to put in place, in case t...

Power BI

11 de febrero de 2023

The Ultimate Snapshot Report (part 3)

Hello there, yes, a third part of the snapshot report and I'm not even sure it's the last one. The thing is that since the last post there has been some major improvements on the set up that I thought are worth sharing. In my previous post I ended up with a small defeat. There[...]

Power BI

26 de enero de 2023

Dynamic headers in Power BI, sort of.

Well, I was happy with the result, but I was even more happy with the reaction on twitter. The dynamic header effect felt like magical to many people, and well, I have many more followers now, thank you all. In case you haven't seen it, here's the video So how did I do it? Short[...]

Power BI

10 de diciembre de 2022

The ultimate snapshot report (part 2)

Hello again. You didn't think there would be a second part, right? well, me neither. But as things turn out, I had to work on another report dealing with snapshots, and this time they wanted something fancier. It took me a while to figure it out, but I like the result so I thought it[...]

Power BI

18 de noviembre de 2022

The ultimate snapshot report

Lately I've been building a report, which had not happened for a while, and I enjoyed the process. The final result too is simple yet effective, so I thought I would share the approach here because, yes, there is a calc group in place that does some of the magic. This approach is valid when[...]

Power BI

13 de noviembre de 2022

How to write a C# script for Tabular Editor (part 2): In-Script Classes

Well, hello again. If you just got started with Tabular Editor scrips and programming in general, maybe today's topic might be a bit too much, but if you either familiar with other programming or already know your way in c# scripts, then this will certainly become a valuable thing: in-script classes...

Power BI

31 de octubre de 2022

How to write a C# script for Tabular Editor (part 1)

Well, well, this is another article about C# Scripts. A topic that deserves much more attention than it's getting. If you haven't read my previous post, go do it right now because otherwise writing a c# script is a very frustrating experience. Not as much as building a Data Factory pipeline as a new...

Power BI

8 de octubre de 2022

Writing Tabular Editor C# Scripts like a Boss

A few months back I wrote an article of what I thought would change the way I (and many more I thought) would write c# scripts from now on. In that article I explored the possiblity of creating a custom dll with all the classes and methods that would make my scripts shorter, more robust[...]

Power BI

17 de septiembre de 2022

A dynamic legend for a dynamic measure + time intel chart

Well it's no secret that I like calc groups. But it's also true that calc groups have an achiles heel. Calc Item names are constant, so for charts, legends stay the same no matter what. Depending on your use case you might get away with it, but sometimes you might get an end user that[...]

Power BI

14 de septiembre de 2022

Activating inactive relationships the smart way

Hi, today I want to talk about inactive relationships. Those relationships with the dashed line that unless you invoque them with USERELATIONSHIP they do nothing. The thing is a common pattern if you read this blog -- let's say you have a retail model, and for some charts you need to use the order d...

Power BI

10 de septiembre de 2022

Defining different formats for values and totals

So today I recevied a question on the SML group which looked like the perfect use case for a calculation group. Somebody was trying to build a matrix and wanted to have the values without decimals but the totals with decimals. In other words the goal was defining different formats for values and tot...

Power BI

28 de agosto de 2022

Building a fading bar chart

As soon as I learned how to define transparency in HEX encoding for Power BI, I started thinking on how to control it with a calculation group. After all, you can only define transparency through a color measure, so it made sense. If you have seen any of my most recent presentations on Calculation G...

Power BI

13 de julio de 2022

Controlling Calculation Items with RLS

I thought I would let the blog rest for a few days, but I figured out I would write a short one on a topic that Rick brouhgt up on LinkedIn: Controlling Calculation Items with RLS. I lived under the impression that being a table you could just apply RLS like in any other table,[...]

Power BI

12 de julio de 2022

Data Validation with Power BI

I know, I'm back again at validations, but this time is a bit different. Recently I've found myselft in a project where the data that was coming in was not fulfilling the sepcified requirements. We tend to thing that data that comes out of a system will always be pristine, but well, at least in[...]

Power BI

28 de junio de 2022

Normalizing conditional formatting bars

Ok, this is one of those things that I might not do in production unless I have the CEO shouting on my ear "I want the bars of the matrix to be smaller so I can read the numbers, and no, you may not use a custom visual for that!". I know that might be[...]

Otros

26 de junio de 2022

Validating migrations or how to properly compare tables

No calculation groups today. I decided I would document something that I've found myself doing quite a lot recently and I guess that other people might experience the same. Migrations. That's what happens when somebody decides that SAP Business Objects needs to die and be replaced by Power BI. Or t...

Power BI

13 de junio de 2022

Creating well-formatted measures based on a calculation group

Calculation Groups biggest contribution is to help us reduce the number of measures that we have to create and manage. However, sometimes, me might want measures again... Of course we can forgo the calc group altogether, but we might want to keep the centralized logic while having actual measures, a...