How did Microsoft’s Power BI come to lead the Gartner Magic Quadrant?
Once per year Gartner, a research and advisory firm specialising in the IT sector, release their ‘Magic Quadrant’ for Business Intelligence. For the second year running, Microsoft has been considered the vendor with the most complete vision, though also notable is that both Microsoft and Tableau have begun to open the gap between themselves and
You can now Download your PowerBI Reports as a PBIX file
You’ve created that fantastic Data Model in PowerBI desktop, uploaded it to PowerBI Web for your team to admire. You’ve built some snazzy visualisations which everyone is now happy with. Fantastic. Job Done. Home early tonight. If only, right? Chances are, you spotted a problem / limitation with your original model – or thought of
A Brief introduction to Microsoft’s PowerApps Platform
After several months of being in Preview, Microsoft has moved its PowerApps service into General Release – though if PowerBI is anything to go by, we’ll see regular updates and enhancements in the coming months . If you’re not familiar with PowerApps, it’s a tool to create Data-Driven mobile phone applications in a Graphical Interface, and
Transferring Data & Parameters Between Screens in PowerApps
If you’re new to PowerApps, be sure to read my brief introduction to PowerApps HERE In this session, I want to show you how to transfer data between screens. This assumes you have created a data connection (See also: Creating a connection to an Enterprise Gateway), and have brought some data into your app (in
Populate a Dropdown Based on the Value of Another Dropdown in PowerApps
If you’re new to PowerApps, be sure to read my brief introduction to PowerApps HERE In this session, I’ll show you how to setup a series of drop-down menus were the list of available values is based on the value selected in the first dropdown Start by creating a new screen, and creating a Connection
Connecting PowerApps to an Existing Enterprise Gateway
If you’re new to PowerApps, be sure to read my brief introduction to PowerApps HERE In this session, I want to show you how to connect to an existing Enterprise Gateway. If you already use Microsoft’s PowerBI, there’s a good chance you already use an Enterprise Gateway to connect PowerBI to your on-premises SQL Server
Creating Virtual Tables in Power BI Using DAX
In this session, I want to show you how to use DAX / M expressions to create virtual tables. You may want to do this to create an aggregated view of your data to then work with, or perhaps filter down a dataset. I’ll show you examples of both, including doing both together. Once you’ve
Using Formula Tracing in Excel
Formula tracing is a fantastic visual tool in Excel you can use to understand 1) which cells a given formula is referencing and 2) whether a given cell (or range of cells) is used by a formula elsewhere. Both have their uses, but it’s certainly the latter I get the most use from. Read on
Microstrategy Desktop Now Available as a Free Application
In an interesting development, Microstrategy has decided to make its once-flagship Desktop application free of charge, without limitation. For those unfamiliar, Microstrategy is a Business Intelligence tool, along the same lines as Tableau, Qlik et al. They’ve struggled to maintain market share as the BI space has grown, so providing their standalone desktop software for
15 Functions Every Aspiring Excel Pro Should Know
When you first start using Excel, you’ll quickly become familiar with using basic functions such as SUM, COUNT, MIN, AVERAGE Before long, you’ll be using VLOOKUP’s, IF’s and creating Pivot Tables in order to start bringing you data to life. However, it’s around this phase that I often see people plateauing in their Excel learning