Power BI blogs from Wise Owl (page 1 of 5)

Dynamic comparison calculations in DAX

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 11 November 2019

This blogs shows a clever way in which you can use a slicer to choose which values to compare in a measure.

Explaining the VALUE argument of the RANKX function in DAX

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 29 October 2019

The RANKX function does what the name implies - it ranks values based on a calculation. However, the VALUE argument often causes confusion; this blog explains what it does!

Our take on the new features introduced in the October 2019 update for Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 October 2019

This month's big story is a huge range of improvements to the Q&A feature in Power BI, with more in the preview pipeline. There are also a built-in PowerApps visual, improvements to data profiling in Query Editor and a new template for connecting to datasets.

A comparison of SQL Server Reporting Services and Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 18 October 2019

Power BI improves with each monthly update. Will it reach a point where SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) becomes redundant? This detailed blog compares the two products, and considers the future of SSRS.

A summary of the changes introduced in the September 2019 update to Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 September 2019

This month sees the welcome (if belated) introduction of Excel-style custom number formats, as well as more (and easier-to-create) themes and a host of other minor improvements.

Using the new Power BI template app to view Google Analytics data

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 September 2019

How to create a new app to view your Google Analytics data in Power BI Service.

A summary of new features introduced in the August 2019 Power BI update

Posted by Andy Brown on 19 August 2019

This was a month of few updates. Our favourite by far is that you can now group visuals, but the Key Influencers visual has also emerged from the preview shadows.

We have unearthed two new sources of information on future Power BI features

Posted by Andy Brown on 14 August 2019

In addition to the Power BI preview features dialog box, Andy Gould has discovered two excellent new sources of information on forthcoming changes for Power BI, as this blog explains.

New features introduced in the July 2019 update of Power BI

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 02 August 2019

There are big changes to conditional formatting this month (you can display icons, and use percent-based thresholds), but the biggest change of all is the release - finally - of the new filter pane.

How to view the SQL query for a series of transforms in Query Editor

Posted by Andy Brown on 02 July 2019

Did you know that you can view the SQL for a query in Power BI's Query Editor? Me neither!

Changes introduced in the June 2019 Power BI update

Posted by Andy Brown on 14 June 2019

Although there aren't many changes this month, the ones that there are of unusually high quality. The new look to Power BI is welcome (even if it does mean we have to rewrite all of our courseware), and we're looking forward to using the new conditional formatting options and visual header tooltips.

New features introduced in the May 2019 update of Power BI

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 May 2019

There's not much new in this month's update. The Performance Analyzer is a great idea, for working out which bits of your report are running slowly, but all of the other changes are minor (as you'll see if you read this blog!).

Creating complex custom date periods in calendar tables using calculated columns

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 17 May 2019

This blog shows how to create custom date periods within a date table for 28 day cycles, but the principles shown could be applied to create any custom date periods.

Creating a calendar or date table in Power BI using built-in calendar functions

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 17 May 2019

Learn how to create a basic date table in Power BI, using either the CALENDAR or CALENDARAUTO functions, and also learn how to then add custom columns of your own.

Modelling a fixed or variable custom financial year in Power BI

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 17 May 2019

Whether your financial year ends on a fixed date every year or on the first Monday in June, this blog will show you how to incorporate it into your calendar table.

The April 2019 update to Power BI has many good features, as this blog explains

Posted by Andy Brown on 18 April 2019

The April 2019 update to Power BI introduces a new concept: the ability to make the value of a property dynamic. Other welcome new changes include M Intellisense, data profiling in query editor and cross-report drill-down.

The March 2019 update of Power BI allows you to create multiple table layouts

Posted by Andy Brown on 21 March 2019

In addition to all of the wonderful new features in the March 2019 Power BI update that I blogged about yesterday, you can also create multiple database relationship diagrams (or layouts).

Read about the many new features introduced in the March 2019 update

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 March 2019

This is the biggest single update for some time, introducing the new modelling view, tooltip styling, single-select slicers and much more besides.

Getting Started with Power BI Report Server

Posted by Andrew Gould on 19 March 2019

Power BI encourages you to publish reports to an online service so that you can share your beautiful reports with the world. If you'd rather keep them a secret you can use Power BI Report Server to deploy your reports to an on-premises server, as this blog series shows you.

The mysteries of context transition explained

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 25 February 2019

Context transition happens when a DAX function creates filter context within row context, or vice versa. This blog explains what context transition is, and shows which DAX functions make use of it.