Power BI Debate: DirectQuery vs Import

with 2 Comments

Using Power BI is easy. We download the Desktop software, install it in a snap, add a couple data sources, throw a table on a report, select a few columns. Done in 5 mins. No muss no fuss =) Seems pretty straightforward right? But if you ask any Power BI developer, he/she will tell you the devil is in the details. Having used it for a while, one of my biggest complaints remains an important decision you have … Read More

Which chart to use when comparing data? Tell your story effectively.

with No Comments

  Data visualization is powerful for us to explore, discover, analyze, and communicate our findings. However, when it comes to the right chart to use, some of us are at a cross road. After all, there are so many! Line chart, pie chart, bar chart, area chart, donut chart, scattered plot, the list goes on and on, and thanks to the latest data analytics technology, our choices keep growing. It becomes quite a head-scratching exercise to choose the right visualization to … Read More

“What-If” in PowerBI

with No Comments

For one of our BI projects, our client keeps asking for an interactive control to do What-if scenarios. This used to be limitation for PowerBI but guess what? In this latest release, PowerBI supports What-if parameters! Problem solved!  In the latest Designer, there is a Modeling tab called What If, which lets us add a New Interactive Parameter. We’ll need to specify its Name, Data Type, Min & Max values, Default and internally PowerBI will create a table … Read More