Back again with another Power BI User group for Milwaukee. This month Mike and Seth walk through the beta release of external tools. If you didn’t see the announcement from Microsoft but in July of 2020 was the release of External tools.
What are External Tools? I’m glad you asked. An External Tool is an application that can be used along side with Power BI. Parameters can be passed from Power BI desktop into the External Tool, such as a connection string to the data model.
We are super thrilled about this new ability to enhance the Power BI desktop experience so much that we built a custom installer that will enable users install many of these external tools all in one place. This is why we build Business Ops.
Watch this month’s PUG to see how to install External Tools for your machine.
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Splitting models from reports has great advantages, but can make it harder to edit. When editing a model it is useful to see how you it will effect the reports. Using live connections would mean republishing the model back to the cloud and then refreshing the connection for every change you wish to test. In addition, you would probably want to make test workspaces to not overwrite a live production model while developing.
Now there is an external tool that can help solve these issues. The tool has two functions. The first will allow you to switch from a live connection to directly connecting to an open Power BI report. This will allow “Local Development” so that it can be done on your machine without needing to republish. Changes can be seen instantly and time spent on testing can be dramatically decreased. The second will removed any connections to allow to reconnect to a shared dataset or AAS model.
After installing the tool, click external tools the Hot Swap Connections to launch.
Connect Tab
This tool will remove any live connections from the selected report and connect it directly to the Power BI report it was launched from. This will only remove live connections so you cannot accidentally delete entire models.
You can choose between Overwrite and connect or Copy and connect. Selecting Overwrite will directly edit that file by removing the connections and replacing with a live connection to the current file. Selecting copy will leave your file intact and create a copy in the same directory with the suffix defined in the settings tab. It will then open the report that is connected to the model file.
Steps:
Open your Model file
Select the Connect tab
Run Hot Swap Connections
Choose to Overwrite or Copy
Select Report file to connect
Remove Tab
This tool will remove any live connections from the selected report and open the file. This is useful when you have made local edits and want to connect it back to a dataset or analysis services model. This will only remove live connections so you cannot accidentally delete entire models.
You can choose between Overwrite and remove live connections or Copy and remove live connections. Selecting Overwrite will directly edit that file by removing the connections. Selecting copy will leave your file intact and create a copy in the same directory with the suffix defined in the settings tab. It will then open the report that has no connections.
Steps:
Open any Power BI report
Select the Remove tab
Run Remove Connections
Choose to Overwrite or Copy
Select Report file to remove connections
The script will leave all visualizations and report features intact. But, all connections will be removed. When you open the report again in power bi desktop, all visuals will appear broken:
This is because you have removed all data from the report. Select a new data source to connect the report to. If the new source matches the names of the columns and measures used in the visuals, they will all repopulate.
Settings Tab
When selecting Copy and connect or Copy and remove live connections, the tool will create a copy of your report first so you do not directly edit you report file. It will place the copy in the same directory as the original and add a suffix as defined in the settings tab.
Watch the webinar below
Steve and Mike talk through the external tool and see it in action!
We are excited to announce a new tool from PowerBI.tips The Business Ops tool. To get this tool Download it here.
For the Full Story Read on..
There are many exciting features that we love to see and share when it comes to monthly Power BI releases! The continual improvements still inspire and provide a deeper and richer experience for us all to WOW our report consumers. There are some periodic major changes that come, and we think one of those has arrived with the latest announcement of 3rd party tool integration.
Add PowerBI.tips Front End tools
After the great news above, we had our heads down looking at the documentation and were very interested in how we could add our own tools to the External Tools section. After some digging, and reviewing a fantastic blog by Eric Svensen we locked in on how we could our tools even more accessible for you!
We want to help you get to your favorite PowerBI.tips tools quickly and easily. What follows is what each of these tools offers, and how to easily connect one or all into your Power BI Desktop files for quick connection and use.
I don’t see “External Tools”
The first requirement to see the External Tools section is that you must be on July 2020 Desktop. You will NOT see the External Tools section right after you open it. The reason for that is varied, but suffice to say, you need a specific JSON folder created in your Power BI folder structure and an executable to run. We’ve made this easy for you, so just read through our choices of tools and we’ll walk you through how to get these buttons created and working for you in no time!
Tool Choices
PowerBI.tips – Part of staying engaged is staying current. What better way to do that then start everyday with a link to your favorite site – Power BI.Tips
Themes – Need to take the general settings you can do in the Desktop to the next level? Adding our Themes capability into your reports gives you full control over the customization of color, font and properties.
Charts – Utilizing the amazing work from MSFT research in Charticulator, we’ve created a version called Charts. This tool lets you build no code custom visuals that work right alongside the out of the box one’s. Check out our videos if this is new to you!
Themes Gallery – Sometimes you just need to find a little inspiration. Look no further than our extensive gallery of color themes. Easily pick and download any color theme you find.
Themes Gallery
Charts Gallery – Learning how to build the custom visuals in Charts takes a little bit of time, but while you are learning that craft, or are looking for a unique visual check out the gallery of already built custom visuals you can integrate into your reports.
ChartsGallery
Layouts – Need to take your report look and feel to the next level? Our Layouts provide some of the best looking backgrounds tailored specifically to Power BI. We use pop up dialogues for contextual explanation, page navigation and hidden slicer functionality to amaze your end users.
Scrims – Backgrounds for Power BI. We take all the principles we’ve learned in visual design to create amazing visual canvases that don’t distract from the data. Using these single images reduces the need to render all the different shapes and objects on your page making it a faster/better option.
Model – Are you a data focused individual? Have you played with Power BI dataflows? Use our Model tool to create the metadata objects you want to utilize in your Common Data Model.
Connections – Streamline your report files for other report authors by pre-configuring the data source connection. Not familiar with how you create PBIDS files? Check out our tutorial.
We know our favorites, but you probably have yours as well. Throw in a dash of IT security and you might not have the best experience with a chosen browser. As we know that is the case, you can choose one of our 3 options for kicking off these tools from the Desktop and opening the right browser.
Install Your Favorites!
Featured External tool tutorials
Want to know more about the featured tools in the MSFT blog? We had the chance to welcome the creators of those tools to tell us all about them. Be sure to check out the webinars for all the details on how to get started with them and all the capabilities they offer.
ALM Toolkit – Schema compare and deployment tool. Fantastic for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). How to use ALM Toolkit.
Tabular Editor – An amazing modeling tool that makes working with your model a breeze. 4 part series.
If you like the content from PowerBI.Tips please follow us on all the social outlets. Stay up to date on all the latest features and free tutorials. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Or follow us on the social channels, Twitter and LinkedIn where we will post all the announcements for new tutorials and content.
Introducing our PowerBI.tips SWAG store. Check out all the fun PowerBI.tips clothing and products:
The Monkey Tools add-in for excel is really amazing. As a developer for Power BI for many years I’ve learn a ton of tips and tricks while working with Power Query. Watching Ken demo the high level of automation that Monkey Tools really blew my mind. How did I not know about this tool earlier?! My development patterns have now forever changed.
This presentation for Monkey Tools is presented by it’s developer MVP Ken Puls. Ken is a staple and expert in the Excel community. Not to mention, he is an incredible presenter. You will enjoy this session from Ken.
What are Monkey Tools?
Monkey tools in short is a simple way to automate data modeling within Excel. There are some incredibly helpful portions such as making date calendars, changing how data is handled during Power Query loading process and many more.
Ken gives us a great overview and starts digging into the amazing features of this tool in this two part series about this tool.
If you like the content from PowerBI.Tips please follow us on all the social outlets. Stay up to date on all the latest features and free tutorials. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Or follow us on the social channels, Twitter and LinkedIn where we will post all the announcements for new tutorials and content.
Introducing our PowerBI.tips SWAG store. Check out all the fun PowerBI.tips clothing and products:
