Binding Data In my last post, we took a tour around the Charticulator screen and learned about the Attributes pane which lists the attributes of the currently selected Layer. For example, to show the attributes of the rectangle mark of the glyph, select "Shape1" in the Layers pane and the Attributes pane will show the attributes for "Shape1". In Charticulator, you can associate a field with an attribute by "binding data" to it and this will drive the behaviour and/or… Read More
Power BI in Practice Blog Posts
By Alison Box
Charticulator Power BI in Practice 9th June 2021
Charticulator In Power BI #2.
Taking a Tour Around the Screen Since my last blog post, I've been looking more closely at some of the resources "out there" if you want to learn about Charticulator, particularly the YouTube videos. I hope at this point you're not interested in seeing people showcase their amazing talents at using Charticulator; "hey Presto!" and it's done! "Here's an amazing chart I've created in Charticulator and here's the complex DAX I've used to do it! Oh, and I'll just use… Read More
By Alison Box
Charticulator Power BI in Practice 4th June 2021Charticulator in Power BI #1.
Creating a Simple Charticulator Chart Recently a new custom visual has come into the Power BI world. Charticulator (http://charticulator.com) is a visualisation that lets you build other visualisations. It's not easy, but the results are beautiful, and if you need a particular data visualization you can't get anywhere else it's fantastic. When I heard that Charticulator has been called "the DAX of the charting world", it was like a red rag to a bull. Having managed to almost get to… Read More
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By Alison Box
DAX Power BI in Practice 26th April 2021
Why You Should Never Assume Your DAX Code is Correct; Taking a Closer Look at Bi-Directional Filtering
I recently listened to a thought-provoking blog from Alberto Ferrari (https://ssbi-blog.de/podcast/experts-talk/chat-with-alberto-ferrari/). In it he says, "What scares me is the amount of people that are building reports that are wrong, that are producing wrong numbers but don't know that. They just trust the numbers they see because they have no way of controlling them or debugging them. Maybe they don't have the knowledge to correct them." So in other words, we must never just believe the numbers that DAX gives… Read More
By Stuart Box
Cloud Microsoft Power BI in Practice Power BI Premium 20th April 2021
Taking a look at the Power BI Building Blocks
I've just posted a new video over on our YouTube Channel. In our Training we often get questions about the structure of Power BI, how do Dataflows and Datasets fit together, when do I need a Gateway, and how does automatic refresh work with these structures? The answer is that it's complicated. Power BI is growing and now there are many ways to connect, store and report on data. So I thought the best way to explain this was with… Read More
By Stuart Box
DAX Power BI in Practice Power BI Resources 21st March 2021
Where do I make data transformations in Power BI ? Roche’s Maxim
When we're Training on Power BI a frequent question we get is "I need to make changes to my data for reporting, where is the best place to do that, in the Data Model with DAX, or in Power Query?" The answer is, as ever "It depends". To answer the question properly, we need to understand where we can make data changes in Power BI, then I can introduce a maxim that explains the best place to make those changes.… Read More
By Stuart Box
Power BI in Practice Power BI Resources 1st February 2021
Power BI Composite models – what’s the big deal ?
In December 2020, Microsoft launched a preview feature in Power BI they called "DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Analysis Services". Most of the Power BI community had heard of this as "composite models" and were looking forward to getting it. Marco Russo, co-author of "The Definitive Guide to DAX" called it "The holy grail of business intelligence for 20 years. The ultimate feature of semantic models." Over at Power BI tips they were equally effusive saying "Microsoft has done… Read More
By Alison Box
DAX Power BI in Practice 11th January 2021
DAX “Filter Context” Explained
Do your DAX measures return interesting values but not the numbers you want? If the answer is yes, and it happens to all of us, then the problem probably lies with the filter context in which the measures have been calculated and the fact that you haven't correctly identified them. When a DAX measure is calculated in the "Values" bucket of a Power BI visual, whether it's a column chart, pie chart, table , matrix or indeed any other visual,… Read More
By Stuart Box
DAX Power BI in Practice 21st December 2020Join our mailing list to get “The Concise Guide to DAX” pdf
"Why does the world need another DAX book ?" was my first question to Alison when she told me she'd written guide to the DAX language in Power BI. "Well, I've written the guide that I wish had been around when I was first learning DAX, aimed at Excel users of varying levels of ability". Was her reply. "You see many Excel users would struggle to construct an "IF" formula, let alone know what VLOOKUP stands for. These are often… Read More
By Alison Box
Power BI in Practice 26th November 2020
“Strictly Come Dancing” Telling the Story Behind the Numbers with Power BI
Back in March this year, I did think I'd be relieved of my duty of updating the Strictly Come Dancing Power BI Report to reflect another series. To be quite honest, I was hoping this would be the case. I first created the Report for Series 16, updated it for Series 17 but felt that perhaps the Report had now served its time. But who would've thought that "Strictly" would survive the Pandemic! So of course, I had no option… Read More
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