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

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

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

Power BI 2.0 – Day 2: Power BI Desktop and our first dashboards

This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series Power BI: Zero to hero

Power BI Logo

Power BI: Zero to Hero series
Day 2: Power BI Desktop and our first dashboards

Today we’ll take a look at the new Power BI Desktop application and we’ll create our first (or 3 first) simple dashboard(s).
We’ll be using different data sources like Excel, an OData feed and even a web page!


In this blog series, together we’ll go from beginner to expert in Power BI as fast as humanly possible.
On our path, we’ll use Microsoft and non-Microsoft resources and we’ll try to explore what Power BI can add to an enterprise BI stack.

We’ll be using datasets like the old AdventureWorks database and any useful databases we can get from opendata initiatives.
But we’ll also explore the new data source possibilities included with Power BI.
These include web pages, OData feeds, On-Premise Tabular models and much more.

Read on to get started!

Read morePower BI 2.0 – Day 2: Power BI Desktop and our first dashboards

Power BI 2.0 – Day 1: Introduction

This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series Power BI: Zero to hero

Power BI Logo

Power BI: Zero to Hero series
Day 1: introduction

Today we’ll look at what Power BI was, is and can be thanks to users everywhere.


In this blog series, together we’ll go from beginner to expert in Power BI as fast as humanly possible.
On our path, we’ll use Microsoft and non-Microsoft resources and we’ll try to explore what Power BI can add to an enterprise BI stack.

We’ll be using datasets like the old AdventureWorks database and any useful databases we can get from opendata initiatives.
But we’ll also explore the new data source possibilities included with Power BI.
These include web pages, OData feeds, On-Premise Tabular models and much more.

This series will be split into “days”. With each day representing a bitesize and mostly self-contained “module”.
You can either go through all the content at once or pace it 1 day at a time.
As busy as everyone is these days, it is my suggestion to go through each “day” during a lunch, a quiet evening or even in a short group session at work.

This way, together we’ll go step by step through the desktop application and the web service.
Along the way we’ll learn to work with Power BI and discover in which way, different parts can be fitted into an existing Enterprise Business Intelligence solution.

Read on to get started!


Read morePower BI 2.0 – Day 1: Introduction

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