Wise Owl Blogs - Home (page 4 of 19)

Changes made in August 2017 to Power BI Desktop

Posted by Andy Brown on 14 August 2017

A quiet month, after the frenetic activity of the July update, sees lots of small changes to matrices, tables and charts, but no single big update.

The July 2017 Power BI Desktop updates, including new table and matrix visuals

Posted by Andy Brown on 13 July 2017

This is a bigger update than usual, with the highlight undoubtedly being the official roll-out of the much-trailed new table and matrix visuals.

Adding row-level security to Power BI reports

Posted by Andy Brown on 08 July 2017

To prevent the wrong people seeing the wrong data in your reports, you can create row-level security (for example, so only the London regional manager can see London data). This blog explains how!

What Power BI gives you for free, and when and how to pay for extra services

Posted by Andy Brown on 08 July 2017

You can create and publish reports using Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service, both of which are free, but to share them you'll need to pay either for Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium. This blog explains when you'll need to start spending money, and what your options are.

How to share dashboards and reports in Power BI Service

Posted by Andy Brown on 04 July 2017

There are a fair few ways to let others see your masterworks: you can create an app, share a dashboard or create and share a report URL. This blog explains all of the ways that you can choose to share your Power BI reports and/or dashboards.

Creating app workspaces to share content with others in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 03 July 2017

You can package reports, datasets and dashboards into app workspaces, and share these with other people in your organisation and beyond (these used to be called content packs). This blog explains how to do this, and why you'll need Power BI Pro to do so.

Creating gateways and refreshing reports in Power BI Service

Posted by Andy Brown on 03 July 2017

Naturally you want the reports that you publish to Power BI Service to be up to date, but the rules are fiendishly complex. This blog explains when and how to create the two types of gateway, and how to ensure your reports refresh.

Find the many ways to interact directly between Excel and Power BI Service

Posted by Andy Brown on 29 June 2017

You can pull Excel workbooks (or individual data ranges) into Power BI Service, or push them from Excel using a special add-in. This blog shows how to use both approaches, as well as the underwhelming Analyze in Excel feature.

Publishing reports, editing them in Power BI Service and using dashboards/tiles

Posted by Andy Brown on 29 June 2017

This blog shows how to publish reports that you've created in Power BI Desktop to Power BI Service. The blog also shows how you can create and edit reports online, how to create dashboards and add tiles, and how to get insights into your data.

Online Power BI Service training - publishing, sharing, refreshing data, etc

Posted by Andy Brown on 29 June 2017

When you've created a report in Power BI Desktop, what happens next? This comprehensive online Power BI training shows how to publish reports, edit them online, get insights into your data, link to Excel, share reports, apply security, control what happens when you refresh your reports and much more!

A summary of the tests taken on our skills assessment site in the last 6 years

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 June 2017

Over a third of a million people have completed one of our skills assessment tests since 1st May 2011 - we thought we'd have a look at how these tests break down into categories.

The most important changes included in the June 2017 Power BI Desktop update

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 June 2017

This update includes lots of nice features, such as line markers and the ability to change font typefaces, as well as many more changes!

Some ideas for how to map data in Power BI Desktop

Posted by Andy Brown on 08 June 2017

Anyone who has tried to get a meaningful non-US map out of Power BI Desktop will know that it's often not straightforward! This blog shows you how to overcome some of the issues, including geocoding data, getting latitude and longitude settings and changing cross filter settings in relationships.

A simple way to move a measure from one table to another

Posted by Andy Brown on 08 June 2017

You can't drag and drop measures between tables, but there is an easy way to move them in Power BI Desktop, as this blog shows

Three different ways to find the differences between two Excel worksheets

Posted by Andy Brown on 01 June 2017

There are a few ways to find the differences between two Excel worksheets. This blog considers 3 methods (using Excel formulae, using Query Editor and using the Inquire add-in).

The most important changes made for the May 2017 Power BI Desktop update

Posted by Andy Brown on 17 May 2017

The May 2017 Power BI Update brings in a couple of nice new query transforms and some new chart features, but the big changes are still in preview mode.

A list of the updates made in the April 2017 update to Power BI Desktop

Posted by Andy Brown on 28 April 2017

This update includes some nice new features - for example, creating columns by example and changing chart axis titles. Read this blog for a full list!

This blog shows a clever way to annotate expression constraints in SSIS

Posted by Andy Brown on 27 April 2017

If you've added an expression constraint to control flow in a package in Integration Services, this blog will show you how to display what the constraint does automatically.

How to loop over the worksheets in an Excel workbook using Integration Services

Posted by Andy Brown on 21 April 2017

Follow this blog to learn how to use an SSIS package to loop over the worksheets in an Excel XLSX workbook, importing the contents of each.

The main new features in the March 2017 update of Power BI Desktop

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 March 2017

This is a small update, although the new matrix tool which is currently in preview mode will be a big change.