I've actually started writing several posts, but I either hit a wall, found other (short-term) inspiration to start another post, or just never finished it.
Now to the post of today. I've worked as a Power BI Service (and Power Platform) Administrator quite a while. I started doing admin tasks when I was working for Van Lanschot Kempen, and now at Powerdobs I'm often asked similar questions at clients. So I often run into things related to governance and administration of Power BI and Power Platform environments.
Earlier, I already wrote quite a few posts around these topics:
In our world of data, I don't think we ever stop learning. In January 2021 I got both the DA-100 (now PL-300) and PL-900 certifications. But lately I've been busy learning again for a specific purpose. That purpose is the DP-500 exam, which I have scheduled to take for next week. In case you are wondering: DP-500, is that a new exam? Yes it is! However, it's still in beta. That doesn't have to be an issue, there are just a few things you need to be aware of.
First, you will not immediately get your score after you take the exam, these will only be calculated when it goes out of beta. The exam is still in beta because they want to gather feedback on the quality of the exam and the questions. They might need to fix questions, or improve the quality or accuracy based on the data and comments from the participants. Usually, the scores to the exam will be released 10 business days after the exam goes live.
Second, the exam details page will list the skills measured, as well as a more detailed PDF, but there are no preparation materials, like learning paths, modules or instructor-led training. However, our amazing Power BI community already got you covered for a large part, more on that later.
Next, a good thing: you mostly get a nice discount to beta exams, if you act in time that is ๐. On April 19th, a post went out on the Tech Community site announcing the new exam and a discount code for the first 300 people scheduling it.
Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate
Now onto the exam, its full name is: Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI.
Let that sink in for a while. Designing, implementing, an enterprise-scale solution, with Azure and Power BI. That means it will cover the following products/services:
Are you interested to know where this certification/exam fits into the bigger picture, or are you interested in other certifications? Have a look at the Microsoft Certification poster.
Skills measured
This is the overview of the skills measured, you can download a detailed PDF here.
Implement and manage a data analytics environment (25–30%)
Andy and Nikola are also doing a session at Dataweekender covering the skills needed for this exam: The Essential Guide to the new Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate Certification
It's a busy time, but there is also lots of fun stuff happening! Besides my move to Powerdobs earlier this year, there are also several interesting conferences that caught my attention! Let me tell you about them.
SQLBits
For starters, at the beginning of this month there was SQLBits, were I (virtually) presented a session called Power Platform Better Together: Create a Scoring App with a Live Dashboard. In this session I showed how to use Power BI, Power Automate and Power Apps to create an interactive application. While I loved to be there in-person, I made the decision earlier this year to present virtual due to all the uncertainty back then. Although I do regret it after seeing all the excitement on social media, I still have some travel plans to other conferences this year.
If you don't know SQLBits, it's probably the greatest Data conference in Europe, spanning a whopping 5 days, including the free community event Saturday.
Here's a few stats from the conference this year:
Over 450 hours of training delivered
232 speakers, over 25% of whom identify as diverse in our industry
67 helpers
Over 1600 attendees Tue-Fri, with almost 2/3 in-person
Plus another 900 registrations for the free Saturday
Attendees from 38 countries
Over £8K raised for Ukraine, in support of two Ukrainian speakers and a Ukrainian helper
Session recordings are still being worked on and will become available for registered attendees. But, in case you missed out, slides are already available at their website.
Power BI Global Summit
I bet the Power BI Summit is known you all, it is the biggest Power BI conference in the world. A multi-day event with speakers from the Microsoft Power BI team’s product group, community experts and MVPs from all around the world. This time I had the honor of hosting a Table Talk around the topic of Power BI Service Administration and beyond at the Global Power BI Summit, with my friends Tom Martens ( B | @tommartens68), ล tฤpรกn Reลกl ( B | @tpnRel1) and Benni De Jagere ( B | @BenniDeJagere). We actually did it twice that day, in the morning and the evening, to accommodate all time zones across the world.
There was a lot of interaction, people asking questions in chat but also coming on camera for a live chat. We even got some people answering questions from time to time, which is great for the engagement. And that way I also learned some new things!
MVP Summit
Although every conference has its perks, I am pretty sure this is the one I'm most excited about!
As a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, you are eligible to attend the MVP Global Summit once a year, The event features a large catalog of in-depth technical discussions and feedback sessions, directly with the Microsoft product teams and engineers.
The MVP Award is a global program of recognized technology experts and community leaders who actively support technical communities through unique, innovative, and consistent knowledge sharing. These community leaders actively contribute to support the developer and IT Pro communities worldwide, helping them learn, build, and use our products.
My expectations are high! There will be a lot of demonstrations of functions and features that are not yet publicly available. Of course there are strict Non-disclosure agreements on all sessions on the MVP Summit, but that won't spoil the fun.
Due to the fact that the world is still not 100% back to normal, this year the Summit is still virtual, so the organizers are trying to accommodate all time zones. Most sessions are roughly from 4 PM until 5 AM here in Europe, so that's going to be a tough three days ahead... ๐ด
Power BI Gebruikersdag
Last but not least, this week also marks the start of the famous annual Dutch Power BI User Day: Power BI Gebruikersdag. It’s a great community event with lot's of local attendees and speakers.
You can have a look at a recap of one of the earlier conferences:
The association behind this user day has had a major overhaul, with 4 new board members, so I'm excited to see what they have been up to!
I'm also delighted to be presenting 2 sessions there:
A (big) look into Query Folding on Deep Dive Friday! I've done Query Folding before, but this is a 2-hour long session going into (all) the depths! ๐
Write-back with Power Apps in Power BI on Saturday, which is a new session, showing off how to use Power Apps inside Power BI to edit data in the backend.
My very last point then, because in June I'll also be attending and speaking at DataGrillen, the only conference (I know of) that has Data, Bratwurst and Beer. ๐ But more about that later.
For everyone attending one of the conferences above, please come and say hi, ask a question, tell a story or just grab a drink and hang out! ๐
Last week it was that time of the month again! No not that time. I mean time for the Power BI February 2022 Feature Summary blog post by Jeroen ter Heerdt of course.
Dynamic M Query Parameters
The new thing is that dynamic M Query Parameters now supports SQL Server (and more data sources). There are several use cases that come to mind and a few people have already blogged about this:
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) has a similar approach, but uses a T-SQL Table-Valued Function with 2 parameters
The high level steps to dynamic M query parameters are:
The source (SP/TVF) has to be in DirectQuery mode
Create a parameter(s) in PQ
In the model view, bind that parameter(s) to the column in your datamodel
And then use the parameter(s) in your source in PQ
If you want to read up on all the features, supported datasources, limitations and risks, go read the documentation on how to use dynamic M query parameters.
New mobile formatting options
If you're into mobile formatting for Power BI, you're going to love this update. There's a lot more you can configure, now also independently from the web version.
To enable the new mobile formatting pane, the blog post says you'll have to enable the preview feature under Options, but after my installation of the February update it was already enabled:
And more...
Of course there's a lot more in the February update, to mention a few:
If you haven't started using Goals, there are more updates to it, including:
Teams notifications integration,
Multiple owners for a single goal and
The ability to create scorecards in My Workspace
Deployment Pipelines enhancements: there's a (fairly) new Azure DevOps extension and multiple pipelines working together, for example for disconnected reports and datasets
Download .pbix improvements: starting with this release you can download a .pbix file in more scenario's. Specifically, if a report is connected to a dataset that is configured for large models, incremental refresh or has been modified using the XMLA endpoint, you are now able to download that (connected) report, so not the dataset itself ๐
Read up on all the gotcha's and limitations of this export to PBIX.
Now go download that new update and check it out ourself! ๐
Somewhere last year I started reading this book on Power BI. It actually took me quite a while to finish it, because of [reasons]. ๐ But now that I finally finished it, I thought it would be good to write a short review on my thougths about the book, so you know if it is worth your time and money.
I think the combination of good, practical examples and in-depth coverage of (Power BI) features is the best about this book. You can also follow along with the step-by-step examples, as I think going hands-on is the best way of learning things. With reading you can only pick up so much knowledge, while putting it in practice right away enriches the learning experience much more.
Next to that, the book is also filled with best practices for data preparation as well as data modeling.
Soheil is not afraid of touching upon and explaining more advanced and complex topics, like:
Incremental refresh
Calculation groups
Aggregations
The new composite models
Slowly changing dimensions
One point of critique if you will: sometimes I felt that adding color to an image in the book, could get the message across better. But I also get that this makes the pages more crowded, and probably also more expensive, and is not the way Packt publishes their books ๐
All in all I very much enjoyed reading this book! And I definitely learned a lot. I think I knew, or at least have heard of, all the features that were explained in the book. But if you've never used/implemented RLS you don't really know what you're up against. The same goes for aggregations or calculation groups for example. So reading up on those features with good examples has definitely enriched my knowledge.
I've already started reading my next book, so stay tuned for another review!
...started a running club with my department, which lasted roughly for a year ๐
...started speaking (with Jeroen) at PBIG 2019 with an extended version of our intro talk
...went to Prague (with Jeroen), Mechelen, Dublin, Mechelen again ๐, and then everything went virtual...
...got a promotion to Lead Expert within VLK
...started going physical again to Copenhagen! Hopefully this will be the new norm again in 2022
And even received my MVP award!
How I enjoyed that trip! Thank you everyone who contributed to this time! ๐
Powerdobs
Tomorrow will be the start of a new trip, together with my colleagues at Powerdobs. It's a small consultancy firm located in Den Bosch (Netherlands), focused on delivering solutions through quality, craftsmanship, long-term relationships and being sober and caring.
As the Unit Lead Power BI I'll be responsible for taking Power BI to the next level, both internally and externally. So expect to find me writing more blogs and doing more presentations!
Will the road ahead be straight and paved? I doubt that. There'll be enough bends, sidetracks and obstacles and bumps. That's where others pick me up. That's where I learn and come back stronger.
Well, this has certainly been an interesting year, to say the least..
I thought I'd write up my findings of 2021, and have a little look into the future as well.
And of course also for you all to keep me accountable for the goals I set in this post.
Blogging
Let's start with the best topic.. ๐ I managed to write a whopping 6 (six!) blog posts this year, of which 4 are from this month.. That is actually the lowest for one year since I've started blogging in 2011.
My goal for next year is definitely to blog more, and more consistent! I think I already made a great start this month.
Speaking
While I had some great speaking engagements online in 2021, with 7 presentations in total the number is not that high. But the winner is definitely Power BI Next Step in Copenhagen, the first (and for me only) in-person event in 2021! It was great to be back and physically meet and see friends again. Also, the road trip with Marc (@MarcLelijveld | b) & his girlfriend was quite fun.
I also have some plans for new presentations, and even have an in-person (new) presentation planned at DataGrillen!
MVP
This was certainly the highlight of 2020 and 2021, because on July 1st 2021, I received the great e-mail that I was (re-)awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in the Data Platform category for the 2nd consecutive year.
I've already learned so much from all the conversations and e-mails with other MVP's. And of course the direct links to the (Power BI) product teams are amazing!
Thanks again to Jan Mulkens, Marc Lelijveld and Rishi Sapra for supporting me on this track.
Learning/Reading
While I do read a lot of blog posts to keep up with all the news in the Power BI and Power Platform world, I think I didn't actually finish any books this year. I do have 3 books still in progress at the moment which I started recently. I want to read a bit more and also more regularly next year.
I also managed to do 2 exams in the first week of 2021: I passed both DA-100 and PL-900 in one day! ๐ฅณ
BAM: 2 out of 2 ๐! I also nailed the PL-900! ๐ฅณ I found this one to be a bit harder then the PBI one, but still managed to do it quite well ๐#happy#pbifamilyhttps://t.co/W6GRAqI8LB
Just over 2 years ago I started as a member of the local athletics club, with training on a running track once a week. That helped me a lot in getting more regular in running. In 2020 I ran 1250 km, which was way more than I ever did. However, my goal for 2021 is set to 1800 km! And I managed to beat that 1800th km on this final day of the year! ๐
I also wanted to get a half marathon under 90 minutes, but that didn't go as planned. I got stuck at just over 92 minutes. That's a nice goal to finish next year!
The motivation of my fellow runners on Twitter (#runhappy) helped me a lot, so THANK you!
2022 will also bring about another big change. As you already may have noticed, next month will be my last month at Van Lanschot Kempen.
On February 1st I will join Powerdobs as their Unit Lead Power BI! It's a small consultancy company, located in Den Bosch, focused on the (Azure) Data Platform and Power BI.
So out of my comfort zone, back into consultancy. More focus on Power BI, but also the connecting parts on the Azure data platform, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are going to be some posts and/or certifications around that.
Just before I start the weekend, a good time to finally get the news out: On February 1st, I'm starting a new adventure as Unit Lead #PowerBI at https://t.co/LPLKTZaJCR! ๐ฅณ Huge excitement ahead, but also sadness to leave all my wonderful colleagues at @VLKcorporate ๐ https://t.co/4ZzLrBBTmY
