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Wise Owl blogs written by Andy Brown (page 1 of 14)
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A summary of the new features introduced in the September 2018 Power BI update
Posted by Andy Brown on 21 September 2018
The September update of Power BI finally breathes life into report page tooltips, which have been in limbo for a while. You can also copy data from Power BI reports by right-clicking, use some keyboard short-cuts for visual design, apply built-in themes, set fixed-width padding by column example and show categories on the X axis of scatter charts.
A way to get 32-bit and 64-bit drivers to co-exist on the same computer
Posted by Andy Brown on 21 September 2018
A (very) short blog containing a link to an article showing how you can import data from Access using SSAS or SSIS on a 64-bit computer
A run-through the new features in the August update of Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 14 August 2018
This is a bigger update than most, largely because it includes two major new features emerging from preview (report themes and desktop Q&A), but it's the export to PDF feature which really catches the eye.
A summary of the new features in the July 2018 update to Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 July 2018
This month sees features allowing you to change the appearance of the icons at the top right of each visual, and also to change the appearance of the wallpaper surrounding a report, but otherwise all of the enhancements are fairly minor.
Five methods for creating partitions of SSAS Tabular tables programmatically
Posted by Andy Brown on 23 July 2018
Need to generate a partition for a fact table for each year, product or region? This blog gives five approaches, so that you can choose which method is for you.
Using partitions/processing to load a large fact table into a tabular data model
Posted by Andy Brown on 23 July 2018
This blog shows how you can load the empty structure of a large fact table into an Analysis Services tabular data model, then use partitions to bring in the data bit by bit.
Some ideas for company days out!
Posted by Andy Brown on 18 June 2018
Go-karting, axe-throwing, escape rooms and ninja training - some of the ideas from this blog suggesting company days out in Manchester.
A summary of recent blogs that we've written on bookmarks in Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 18 June 2018
We've created a few blogs giving some ideas for how to use the new Power BI bookmarks features (including dynamic charts and enabling pagination). This blog brings the links together onto a single page.
Changes in the June 2018 Update of Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 09 June 2018
There are hardly any changes in this update - the only significant one is that you now sort and filter data within Power BI Desktop itself, rather than having to go into Query Editor.
A summary of new features added to Power BI Desktop in the May 2018 update
Posted by Andy Brown on 14 May 2018
New features introduced into Power BI Desktop in this update include conditional formatting by different fields, the inclusion of filters in drill-through and minor improvements to line and funnel charts.
Use the Excel camera tool, or create a linked picture in Word or PowerPoint
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 April 2018
This blog shows options for creating a webcam focused on one particular area of an Excel workbook! You can do this either by pasting the Excel range into PowerPoint or Word as a linked picture, or by using the Excel camera tool.
What is new in the April 2018 Power BI Desktop update
Posted by Andy Brown on 07 April 2018
This month's update allows users to add customisable buttons to a report, incorporates a numeric slicer and includes a few other smaller changes.
New features in the March 2018 update of Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 20 March 2018
By far the biggest new feature in the March 2018 update of Power BI Desktop is bookmarks (so big, in fact, that it gets a summary treatment in this blog and a separate, longer blog all to itself).
How to get rid of lots of blank rows in a Report Builder table
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 February 2018
There seems to be an occasional bug in Report Builder which fills a table with blank rows. Here's one owl's way to get round it.
Which should you learn: Report Builder or Reporting Services?
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 February 2018
Report Builder and SQL Server Reporting Services are almost identical - which makes the small but important differences even harder to explain.
Did you know there was an IIF function in SQL to test conditions? We didn't!
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 February 2018
You can use the IIF function in SQL as an alternative to the CASE WHEN statement. We thought we would share this new (for us) discovery with the world!
New features in the February 2018 update of Power BI Desktop
Posted by Andy Brown on 15 February 2018
You can now search for formatting properties, have slicers which work across pages and create quick measures, among other new features.
How to use the Windows Magnifier to zoom in on parts of your screen
Posted by Andy Brown on 29 January 2018
If you're trying to project your screen at the front of a class, the Windows Magnifier lets people see what you're doing more easily.
What's new in SQL Server 2017? For SSAS Tabular, lots, it transpires.
Posted by Andy Brown on 23 January 2018
This blog summarises the main new features of SQL Server for non-administrators (that is, most of us). Most parts of SQL Server get minor changes at best, but SSAS Tabular 2017 gets a host of major improvements.
A summary of the changes introduced in Visual Studio 2017
Posted by Andy Brown on 19 January 2018
Visual Studio 2017 includes some clever new quick coding features, better debugging and a much better installation routine, as this blog explains.