I’m speaking at Data Culture Day London!

One of the sessions I submitted for Data Culture Day London – PowerBI edition has been selected! Which one?

Power BI – From Personal BI to Personal Data Science

  • A look at using Power BI to provide users with self-service capabilities in Data Science projects

You’ll be able to see my colleague Kimberly Hermans and me speak in the first slot (9h45), after the keynote, on 28/11 at Microsoft UK in London.

Take a look at the rest of the schedule for the event.

Places are limited, so if you’re not registered yet, do so now. 🙂

I’ll see you in London!

Cortana Analytics Suite – 2015/9 Workshop Videos

With all this news about Power BI it’s easy to forget about the important role it plays in the Cortana Analytics Suite.

Most of us couldn’t attend the Cortana Analytics Suite workshop in Seattle but that doesn’t mean you have to be sad!
Now you can watch all the videos from the comfort of your own chair!

Wait, you don’t know about the Cortana Analytics Suite or the workshop yet?

Quick, read on!

Read moreCortana Analytics Suite – 2015/9 Workshop Videos

Power BI news: Starting now, play with 44+ new features

Wow, have I got something for you. Some real insider information that I got after talking with a Microsoft employee. Now it’s my duty to share this rumor with all of you!
Here it goes: According to a secret Microsoft source, the Power BI team gets paid in food per feature  😉
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This also seems to be the only plausible explanation for the incredibly HUGE release they had this month. Which and how many features? Read on!

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Read morePower BI news: Starting now, play with 44+ new features

Motivation and the road to success

Yesterday, I read a conversation between Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) and Jen Stirrup (blog|twitter) on twitter. It gave me a fun but quite insane idea.
To get the ball rolling, I bugged my manager at 10PM. Lucky for him, it was via mail.
Well, today we had a long call about this mail. He thought it would be a good idea but it still needs some work.
This last quarter of 2015 is already fully booked for me. This means that this idea will make 2016 an even crazier year than 2015.

You’re probably curious, so read on for some tips!

Read moreMotivation and the road to success

Data Culture Day London – Power BI Edition

I submitted my sessions for the Data Culture Day London – Power BI Edition.
It’s a free event at Microsoft in London on 28th of November.

The main audience are business professionals who want to learn how to use Power BI and Excel better.

I selected several sessions from my “archive”

  • Power BI – Pushing beyond the built-in limitations
    • Tips, tricks and some hacks to make full use all Power BI capabilities
  • Power BI – Personal BI for the SME
    • A dive into the value PowerBI adds to the average business
  • Power BI – From Personal BI to Personal Data Science
    • A look at using Power BI to provide users with self-service capabilities in Data Science projects
  • Putting data in your culture with Power BI
    • A look at why and how Power BI fits into your BI strategy

Read on for more!

Read moreData Culture Day London – Power BI Edition

Holding off the cloud?

I’m interested to know some of the reasons you’re currently not moving your data, or at least a part of it, to the cloud.

Tell me the reason you’re not likely to use a cloud service like PowerBI.com.
Or do you know someone who’s not going to put their data in the cloud? Let me know as well!

Did you know about Power BI’s ability to connect to your on site data? And it’s ability to not put your data in the cloud? Does this want to make you adopt Power BI?

 

Seriously, tell me your reasons and I’ll do my best to address these issues in an upcoming blog post.

I want YOU to comment, tweet, hit me up on LinkedIn, or use whatever method suits you the best. Just let me know the reason (or reasons) you’re currently holding off the boat on adopting “the cloud” for your data analytics.

Let’s get this discussion going!15145-illustration-of-a-stormy-cloud-with-a-warning-symbol-pv[1]

Plotting time series in Power BI

Today we’ll match up the data visualization power in Power BI to the ARR in R.
Every time I see one of these post about data visualization in R, I get this itch to test the limits of Power BI.

Tonight I read a post about Plotting time series in R using Yahoo Finance data by Joseph Rickert on the Revolution Analytics blog.
In his blog he describes, in its most simple form, how he gets stock data from the Yahoo Finance API and plots it on a chart.
Sounds like something Power BI can do!

Plotting time series in Power BI - 1

He then goes on to describe making the chart interactive using fancy R magic.

Read morePlotting time series in Power BI

SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 is here!

What a busy day, first great Power BI news in the form of a contest with huge prizes and of course the new version of the Personal Gateway but we can’t forget that SQL Server still serves most of that data you’re looking at.
And now there’s a new Community Technical Preview available!
Get the SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 download here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48726
The most fun enhancements are found in Reporting Services.
SSRS, finally, has a new HTML5 rendering engineSQLServerCTP2.3_HTML5 Rendering
It also has treemap charts
SQLServerCTP2.3_Treemap chart And who could forget the sunburst charts!SQLServerCTP2.3_Sunburst chart
Highlight of other enhancements include
SSAS
    – User interface for SSAS Extended Events
    – New DAX functions
    – New behaviors for DAX variables
    – Improved query generation for DirectQuery
Database Engine
    – Row-level Security
– AES Encryption for Endpoints
Master Data Services
    – Excel Add-in to manage business rules
    – M2M relationships in derived hierarchies
    – Merge conflicts

Power BI Custom Visual Contest!

You already know Power BI allows custom data visualizations to be build.
And now Microsoft has created a contest with a $5000 grand prize for those who want to contribute to a better Power BI experience.

Afraid you won’t be the best?
2nd place awards $2500 and 3rd awards $1500 !

You’re not the 3rd best?
there will be THREE (!!!) “People Choice Awards” up for grab as well. Each worth $1000.
These will be judged by the number of twitter mentions for each entry.

Sadly winning one of the first 3 prizes won’t be possible by mentions.
But they will use the following criteria

  • 35.00% – Originality and creativity of the Visual
  • 35.00% – Usefulness and applicability
  • 30.00% – Design and code quality

Interested?
Check out the full post on the official Power BI blog

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