Explicit Measures Podcast

Mike, Seth, & Tommy run through the major updates to Paginated Reports (Desktop version)... Power Query! What impact will this have and how much does this change real world use cases?

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy roundtable the volume of updates, features, and products now available for the SINGLE BI Professional. Thanks again to Kurt Buhler for another amazing article:

https://data-goblins.com/power-bi/whats-new

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy talk about a mailbag focusing on the future of BI Consulting. No matter if you are in the consulting space or in house, what services are we going to focus on in the future?

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy follow up from the Fabric Conference on more questions about the future.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy recap the 4 promises Microsoft is taking with Microsoft Fabric, including major updates to Microsoft Fabric in Preview and coming up. What does this mean for BI?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-fabric/blog/2024/03/26/announcements-from-the-microsoft-fabric-community-conference/

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss the evolution of Power BI Templates outside of just PBIT.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss a great article by Sam Debruyn on what really a Fabric Lakehouse is, and where should we spend out time.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy talk about Data Quality and Missed Opportunities.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy review a question from a listener on how can we create an seamless experience to share content to external users? The guys go into the simple to the complex and the pros and cons of each.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into another excellent article by Matthew Roche equating Self Service to being a two edged sword. With training both sides can be effective, but how not to get cut?

300 hours and 300 episodes! Mike, Seth, & Tommy talk about where they were 3 years ago, where Business Intelligence was, and where we are heading in the next 3 years.

Get in touch:

Based on another incredible article by Brent Dykes, we have seen an incredible uptick in organizations stating their confidence in Data Culture. Yet what is the true cause, and are we perceiving data culture or actually experiencing it?

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss the developments and updates to TMDL in Power BI project development and what it means to Power BI Pro's.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy finally wrap up their Implementation Tuesdays with closing thoughts and what it means of Migration end to end means.

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss a mailbag comment on our previous episode of 294 and if we can really provide to an organization insights with Data.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy begin the final section of the Power BI Implementation series and their solution is now being rolled out door. What are the steps to take as we roll out the vision, and what do we need to be prepared for?

Get in touch:

When we think of Data Visualization, we think of Data Analysis in Power BI. Is a Bar Chart Data Analytics though? What makes the jump from communicating with data to providing insights with data?

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into the "final" part of Implementation Planning docs in Solution planning. We need to now gather requirements, what to do, and how best to keep the teams on board?

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss a great article by Christopher Laubenthal, which argues the lack of data roles at organizations is the root cause for data illiteracy. Why the need to raise the understanding of how roles are classified is critical towards success and what the pitfalls.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy continue their journey on Implementation Planning around Power BI & Microsoft Fabric. Today, it is all about priority, getting the business on board, and aligning expectations on what is going to be done.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/powerbi-implementation-planning-bi-strategy-bi-tactical-planning?WT.mc_id=DP-MVP-5002621#step-3-define-solutions-and-initiatives

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss an article by Tabular Editor on how do we properly gather requirements around models.

Forgot to get these out! This is part 5 of our Implementation Power BI series, as Mike, Seth, & tommy dive into objectives when it comes to tactical planning for Power BI.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy go through more mailbags from the community on process & technology, data literacy, and moving forward in data platforms.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy continue their Implementation Tuesdays as they dive into what it means to have key results and measurable success.

WE UNDERSTAND EPISODES 287 & 288 HAVE NOT BEEN RELEASED YET - WE ARE WORKING ON THIS!

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dissect a video from the amazing John Cleese (yes, the John Cleese from Monty Python) about creativity in management... How can we be more creative in Power BI, adoption, and culture?

Mike, Seth, & Tommy continue their deep dive into Microsoft's Implementation Guide and focus on what Goals mean, how to get them right, and getting the business onboard.

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into a great article by Ralph Torres on what happens when adoption goes wrong. How do we deal with control, ownership, and the struggle for how we deal with data.

https://www.level5analytics.com/post/down-and-dirty-with-the-politics-of-data

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy continue to dive into Microsoft's white paper on implementing Power BI.

Today, the importance of the right stakeholder - who are they and how to identify - and what it means to run a workshop around business needs.

Mike, Seth & Tommy break down the highlights around Power BI in 2023 (Remember when January started with Data Mart updates?) and what is going to change the way we work moving forward.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy kick off the new year in a flash as we continue the Power BI Implementation series and dive in. This is part 2, which is JUST finishing the first article on Strategic planning.

Have you ever done assessments and workshops with your org, and how important did you ever think that would be towards adoption?

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into an awesome article by Data Marc about the change of how Business Intelligence & Customer Viewpoints (Dynamics, Salesforce) will integrate with Microsoft Fabric.

Article: https://data-marc.com/2023/12/01/the-future-of-customer-understanding-through-microsoft-fabric/

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy raise the stakes on giving new Power BI gifts - what perfect (not real) gifts would be Power BI & Microsoft Fabric incredible? And now they are ranking the gifts.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into a new article from Microsoft Fabric, Semantic Link & Semantic Models, and how it dives into data quality and data scientists(?).

https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/semantic-link-data-validation-using-great-expectations?ft=All

Get in touch:

Starting today, we are focusing on Implementation Tuesdays, focusing on the Microsoft Documentation focused on Strategic, Tactical, and Solution Planning.

Today the focus is on the objectives, the people, and the use cases and why the start is so crucial.

Article is here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/powerbi-implementation-planning-bi-strategy-bi-strategic-planning

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy figure out the what new impact on business users the Power BI Explore feature can have on adoption, feature enablement, and trusting data in Power BI.

Link to Article: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-explore-public-preview/

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, Tommy see what it means to effectively communicate with the business, aligning strategy, goals, and relationships, and structuring BI around BUSINESS VALUE.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/fabric-adoption-roadmap-business-alignment

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into how important Real Time Analytics and what is going in Microsoft Fabric.

Link: https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/fabric-changing-the-game-real-time-analytics?ft=All

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive back into the Adoption Roadmap and focus on change management. How does this work from a small, medium, and enterprise scale? What are the universal truths and best practices?

Article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/fabric-adoption-roadmap-change-management

Get in touch:

Hot off the press, Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into an incredible new function for Power Query (M). The ability to read and process Delta Lake Tables.

What implications does this have? What are the use cases?

https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/read-data-from-delta-lake-tables-with-the-deltalake-table-m-function?ft=All

Get in touch:

Taking a different take based on another great article by Kurt Buhler, the guys dive into the integration of not just the ability to use OneLake with Tableau and other products. How does Semantic Link and the ability to spin up a SQL end point WITHIN POWER BI change the game?

Link to article: https://data-goblins.com/power-bi/connect-tableau-to-power-bi

Get in touch:

This Thanksgiving, we are thankful for YOU! Thank you to all of our listeners and followers who give us awesome encouragement.

In honor of all of you, we are going through more mailbags with our hot takes from your submissions. If you want us to have a conversation on an idea or question you have, you can find the mailbag link below.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy discuss an article by Umesh Bhatt that challenges the norm around building our reports as projects and when does the project end? Should we moving to agile, or should we focusing on our reports as products within the organization?

https://medium.com/@8thcross/data-product-operating-model-a885a754c476

Get in touch:

So - slightly HUGE announcements by the Microsoft team around Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, and generally what we do on a daily basis. Mike, Seth, & Tommy react to the major features you do not want to miss.

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/empower-power-bi-users-with-microsoft-fabric-and-copilot/

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-november-2023-feature-summary/

https://blog.fabric.microsoft.com/en-US/blog/microsoft-fabric-november-2023-update/

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into System Oversight in the Adoption Roadmap. What it means, how much enablement, and how much protection in your tenant.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/powerbi-adoption-roadmap-business-alignment

Get in touch:

Managed Self Service in Power BI in Enterprise - Mike, Seth, & Tommy tackle the pressing questions around the balance of control and agility in BI, the real-world implications of dataset certification, and the strategies for fostering a robust data culture.

Get in touch:

We had a ton of mailbags we needed to get off our chests! Quick Shots on the following:

Can Data Warehouses and Reports Only Pull New Data Instead of Full Refreshes? Thanks for your show. I have been enjoying it for a few months now. I'd like to say I'm new to Data work, but I have been working as an analyst for a few years now.

I have observed that my data warehouse goes out and grabs a massive chunk of data from source databases, and brings it in to the DW and overwrites 99% of the exact same data that is already in the warehouse. Then my on-prem power bi reports do the same thing. Bring in a mass of data from the DW, 99% of it was brought in yesterday. This feels wrong. Is there anyway to just grab the *new* data? Is this the way it has to be, or is it a bad *data smell*? Being relatively new, I don't know how, but think there must be a better way.

Request for Tips and Tricks on Power BI Reports Server for Cloud-Averse Companies

Thanks for your great efforts, I have been listening to your podcast for more than 9 months now.

I wish if you could cover support for PBI Reports Server (Tweeks, tricks, hints, ... etc).

My company is hesitant to load its data to the cloud, we installed PBI RS and currently use it for our internal use.

This is a data culture thing

Developing an Organizational Policy for Power BI Workspace Creation to Support Self-Service BI

Topic: Power BI (Now Fabric) Workspace creation policy for self service Power BI

What should be the organisational policy for creating Power BI workspaces in order to support Self Service Power BI within the organisation?

The factors that affect this are

1) To prevent the explosion of number of workspaces

1.1) Is it a problem if number of workspaces increase exponentially? Why is it a problem? We don’t worry about the explosion of number of child folders in a organisational shared drive, so why is this a problem in Power BI workspaces?

2) Only 1 App can be published in a workspace, therefore, even a single team will need multiple workspaces contributing to the explosion of number of workspaces

3) Who should be allowed to create workspaces?

3.1) Does IT create workspaces when requested by end user teams?

4) Should there be a naming standard/pattern for workspaces?

4.1) Why?

4.2) If so, can you please suggest some naming strategies?

Thank you for your podcast. I enjoy listening to it.

Get in touch:

Mike, Seth, & Tommy dive into a post by Brent Dykes (Author of Effective Data Storytelling) focused on why BI works on the "set-and-forget" method and how this can be a terrible workflow for data culture. How do we move from moving on to the next project and focusing on user enablement?

Link to Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brentdykes_analytics-businessintelligence-data-activity-7112468080148062208-znuN

Get in touch: