December 2020 Monthly Digest

This is the last Power BI update for 2020 and it has quite a lot of nice features. If you like to read about the updates to the Power BI program, then below I give a summary of the features I enjoyed the most from this month. If you are someone who wants to consume the updates in a nice video format then I've got you covered here December 2020 Digest Video

This month has quite a few updates and here are the two I enjoy the most from the desktop program.

Small Multiples (Preview)

Now for the area, line, and bar/column chart you can split them into small multiples. This means that your one visual will be split into multiple visuals based on a field of your choosing. If your field has 8 unique values, then you will see your original visual split into 8 different visuals that highlight that one unique value. I like to think of this as using a slicer, but you actually slice on all the selections to see all the visuals at once.

Composite Models For Analysis Services (Preview)

We now have the ability to have a composite model for analysis services. For example, in the past, if you pulled in a Power BI dataset it was only allowed to be a live connection. Thus, if you wanted to connect to any imported data or direct query data it was off-limits. Now this month you can make a direct query connection to analysis services or your Power BI datasets and from there you can make more direct query connections as well as import data. This is a game-changer for the different data models you can now utilize.

There were other improvements made to the service, Power BI embed, as well as an automatic page refresh. The above two were my most favorite and if you want to see all the updates check out the December 2020 Digest Video

Comments

The Power of CALCULATE in Power BI

Last week in my blog and video I discussed how Power BI could have made my life as a teacher much easier. It is not that Power BI can do things that I could not on my own. It is the fact that Power BI could have saved me so much time. This led me to some thoughts and questions. How could I have impacted the students more in the classroom with this extra time? Would teachers who were not analyzing student data due to time constraints now start? How can I make the data tell my students a story that gives them an accurate picture of their progress? That last question is what leads to this week’s blog. Many times the metrics (which is just a fancy word for "numbers") of what we want to show are easy to do by hand with a basic math background. Although easy, it can be very time consuming when dealing with different groups of data: like 6 periods of students instead of 1 period. When we want to do these calculations quickl...

The Teacher Becomes the Student

My wife asked how my first day was going so I sent her this selfie. Only a picture could capture it. First, let me tell you that this won’t be your typical Power BI or tech blog that you usually see. Let me set the scene. It was a year and a half ago when I got lucky enough to be introduced to Brian Knight, the CEO of Pragmatic Works over lunch. He had heard from a mutual friend that I was looking to make a career move after teaching Algebra for the past 15 years. Brian started telling me about the company and all the different facets it encompasses. From training, sales, consulting, and app development. Mind you at this time I had never heard of Microsoft Power BI, SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, or have any experience with coding. He told me an opportunity at his company may present itself in the future where I could transfer over my teaching skills into the training side of the above-mentioned programs. I immediately got to work with their On-Demand Learning system to ...

Power Automate: Send Instant Emails From Canvas Apps

In this blog, I want to dive into Power Automate. When I first started with the Power Platform I dove deep into Power BI which then made way for Power Apps. Soon thereafter I was introduced to Power Automate. I sure wish someone had told me about Power Automate when I was a teacher of middle schoolers. There were so many mundane daily and weekly tasks that I could have easily automated if I just would have been exposed to the program. Power Automate is great for taking those routine or repetitive tasks and making them no longer a part of your daily routine. Sure setting up the Power Automate flow takes more time to get created, but once created you then can devote all that extra time you normally would have devoted to the task and now spend them on more mission-critical issues for your job. In this video, I want to show you how you can send an automated email with just a click of a button. Since I learned Power Automate after lea...

The Algebra Teacher Powers to B.I.

Search This Blog