Power BI blogs from Wise Owl (page 1 of 7)

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.

The Power BI app for HoloLens 2 allows you to juggle futuristic 3D reports

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 October 2020

What do you get when you combine the futuristic 3-dimensional mixed-reality environment created by the HoloLens 2 headset with Power BI reports? Read this blog to find out!

Three top YouTube channels for learning about DAX

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 October 2020

Following a question from a recent DAX course, here are 3 recommended YouTube tutorial channels to help you learn to master DAX.

Thie month's Power BI update includes a new logo, on-screen help and much more!

Posted by Andy Brown on 22 October 2020

There are a few good changes to Power BI Desktop this month, including a better icon and splash screen, on-canvas help (albeit pitched at too low a level) and the ability to let users tweak visuals you've published.

The 5 best things about working with Power Apps

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 September 2020

Power Apps is fun, as this blog tries to show. It consists of one owl's very personal take on the 5 best things about using the software.

A list of the 5 things one Wise Owl finds most annoying about Power Apps

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 September 2020

Any software has things you love, and things you ... don't love so much. This blog covers the latter set of things!

There are only two small changes in the September 2020 Power BI Desktop update

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 September 2020

You can now add total labels to a stacked or combination chart, and there are improvements to mobile layout, but in truth there's not much to get excited about for the September 2020 Power BI update.

How to save a Power Apps app to a local drive, and then open it

Posted by Andy Brown on 19 September 2020

This blog shows a simple way to export a Power Apps app without creating a solution. If you've got a fairly simple app without too many resources or data sources, it describes a much easier way to back up and restore apps than the standard export/import approach.