Power BI blogs from Wise Owl (page 1 of 8)

Creating picture charts in Power BI using the Infographic Custom Visual

Posted by Andy Brown on 19 May 2021

Want to use your pet's picture for a column chart? This blog shows how to create stacked picture charts in Power BI using the powerful Infographic custom visual.

Power BI Desktop update for May 2021

Posted by Andy Brown on 19 May 2021

May's update to Power BI Desktop is a big one, encompassing new ways of viewing models, tables and fields, a new text box, smart narratives (to explain data) and a new anomaly detection feature (to explain exceptions).

Details of the Power BI Desktop Update for April 2021

Posted by Andy Brown on 28 April 2021

The April 2021 update to Power BI Desktop makes it easier to load text, CSV, JSON and Excel files and includes a wider range of shapes, with more drawing effects

Solving FAILED TO DECRYPT CREDENTIALS message when running Power BI

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 20 April 2021

Following the April 2021 update to Power BI (perhaps coincidentally) we started getting this message appearing on our computers, blocking us from running Power BI. Here is how to solve this!

Power Query Online now supports flow diagrams!

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 March 2021

A life-changing (or at least job-changing) new software update from Microsoft - you can now see a visual view of data flows in Power BI (at least in the online version, anyway).

Power BI Desktop - March 2021 Update

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 March 2021

There are two tiny changes in the March 2021 update - X-axis constant lines and a couple of tweaks to DAX - but still the big logjam of changes remains in preview.

Colouring the table row for a selected item in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 March 2021

How can you highlight the row in a table corresponding to the slicer value you've chosen? With a disconnected slicer and a clever measure!

Changes to Power BI in the February 2021 update

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 February 2021

After no update in January, February sees just a couple of small changes to Power BI, but there's a big logjam building up in preview.

Showing DAX Studio and Tabular Editor as external tools in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 23 February 2021

Power BI automatically creates an External Tools ribbon when you install the Power BI, Tabular Editor and ALM Toolkit add-ins.

DAX.DO - a replacement for DAX Studio?

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 February 2021

The legendary Marco Russo has launched a new web-based DAX editor, but can it compete with or even replace DAX Studio?

Errors when you delete a primary key in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 February 2021

Be careful of referencing measures in calculations when you have duplicate rows in a table! This blog explains why you might want to hang on to that unused primary key column.

How to use DAX to show for each row of a table its share of the maximum value

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 January 2021

How can you show each aggregate value in a group as a percentage of the highest aggregate value? This blog shows two ways to use DAX measures to solve this deceptively difficult problem.

Using a DAX query to show a table in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 14 January 2021

Did you know that you can write an EVALUATE DAX query in software like DAX Studio and then run it from within Power BI to create a new table? You do now!

A new type of Power BI licence: Premium per user

Posted by Andy Brown on 05 January 2021

Microsoft have announced a new type of licence for Power BI called Premium Per User, which sits halfway between the current Pro and Premium licences.

What Power BI report server is, and how to create reports through it

Posted by Andy Brown on 23 December 2020

Puzzled as to why there are two near-identical versions of Power BI Desktop? Wondering if web portal is anything like Power BI report server? Confused as to what a paginated report is? This blog answers all these questions, and more!

With no big updates for December 2020, this blog looks at a preview feature

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 December 2020

There aren't any interesting or noteworthy new additions to Power BI this month, so this blog instead looks at an exciting new feature which has just appeared in preview: small multiples.

How to add cumulative totals to a visual using DAX measures in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 02 December 2020

Inspired by a question from a course, in this blog Andy Brown builds up a measure to show cumulative totals for a calendar matrix, dotting his DAX i's and crossing his t's!

Playing the Harry Potter escape room game in Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 27 November 2020

This awesome game shows what's possible using bookmarks in Power BI (think of it as the sequel to Sam's 2019 Pin the Tail on Rudolf game).

The November 2020 update includes zoom sliders and a better apply filter button

Posted by Andy Brown on 27 November 2020

This month's update allows you to zoom in on a particular part of a chart using sliders, and also lets you save up filters to apply them all in one go.

Two easy ways to create themes in Power BI without needing to write JSON

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 30 October 2020

This blog show two ways in which you can create custom themes in Power BI without needing to learn how to write JSON: either use the built-in theme editor in Power BI, or use the theme generator from Power BI Tiips.