Licenses, Models & User Groups – Ep. 320

This episode mixes a few practical topics—Semantic Link details, a licensing mailbag question about sharing reports publicly, and a set of modeling best practices the team sees repeatedly at user groups.

News & Announcements

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Main Discussion

This episode is more of a “grab bag” with real-world questions and lessons.

Key points from the conversation:

• Semantic Link + Lakehouse gotcha: writing tables via Semantic Link can introduce compatibility issues with the SQL endpoint depending on the Delta writing/versioning path.
• Licensing for a public portfolio: the team answers when a Pro license is needed vs. when Desktop/free options are enough for simple demos and publishing.
• Modeling routines: practical advice like trimming what you import, being deliberate with measures, and avoiding accidental modeling “defaults” that create clutter.
• User groups as learning engines: why regular community routines (sharing, teaching, repeating fundamentals) compound skill growth over time.

Looking Forward

If you’re building a portfolio, keep the setup simple (free where possible), focus on clean modeling habits, and use a repeatable publish routine so you can keep shipping content.

Episode Transcript

0:28 good morning and welcome back to the explicit measure podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike good morning you’re going to realize this is going to be a bit of a an interesting intro Tommy was and I were Seth Ral just talking just before we started here and I dropped a really good joke and literally just cut everyone’s camera off and just left and you should have seen Tommy’s camera he was rolling all over his floor when because when we go into the intros tell can’t see other people in the cameras so it was quite funny when can’t do that I almost didn’t make it I almost just shut off the computer

1:08 funny all right well jumping into today this is a record episode for those who are checking in a little bit early our main topic today is we’re going to take some questions from our mailbag we’ve got three really good questions here that Tommy’s groomed up for us so we will jump into those questions just in a moment but before we do that let’s do a couple little maybe this is a new segment I don’t know it’s been what 300 20 episodes so far and maybe we’re coming up with a new segment finally we’re finally getting something new I don’t know well we’ll see I think we

1:39 don’t know well we’ll see I think we did joke hour last EP or episode last week so may maybe joke hour will or will not stay but this one I think might be real deal we want to talk about what you’re working on what are some things that you’re learning are you are are you working on something right now are you building something what have you recently learned so I’ve got one I think Tommy you may have another one as well or maybe Seth’s got something but I was recently asked by you but I was recently asked by Stephanie Bruno Stephanie Bruno is know Stephanie Bruno Stephanie Bruno is from the blog data witches and she was giving me a a heads up say hey I

2:09 was giving me a a heads up say hey I don’t quite understand what semantic link is doing and when I write a table from semantic link into the lake house I can’t read it with the SQL server and the SQL endpoint I’m like well that’s interesting semantic link I thought was going to be able to write to lake house so yep we went through confirmed lakeh house is beat and written into by semantic Lake okay not bad there we kept going down a rabbit Trail and like okay something doesn’t seem right here so we literally pulled apart the modeled the model the the

2:40 apart the modeled the model the the Delta Json file and realized that the semantic link is using a different version of writing Delta tables than the SQL Server can read that that layer really yeah semantic link is able to write things using a feature called column mapping column mapping inside a Delta table allows you to put spaces in the names of tables imagine that so what what they do now is they actually have this new feature in the Delta like and the data bricks has had this for a while now Microsoft is using the spec

3:11 now Microsoft is using the spec and catching up here a bit but the semantic link can write this new feature called column mapping and what we found was when we created a table with column mapping applied to it when we went over to the SQL server and try to look at the tables it said I can’t read this I don’t understand this the format so there’s a disconnect between one writer of Delta and one reader of Delta so I dug this up I went on the documentation there’s actually like seven or eight different engines that can read and write data and

3:42 engines that can read and write data and they all have different versions you they all have different versions reader one writer five like so know reader one writer five like so there’s different versions of software that they’re using to keep things in synchronized so we just found apparently a combination of something that writes data in a more advanced way than what another tool can read it as anyways interesting I don’t know how long this will last I’m guessing Microsoft will eventually fix this and they’re going to just have all the readers updated to read this new column mapping feature but just FYI if you’re trying to write data

4:12 just FYI if you’re trying to write data this is probably a very narrow group of people trying to do this one if you’re trying to use semantic link to write data into the Lakehouse and then you’re trying to read it with the SQL Server you’re not going to be able to do so so semantic Link in notebooks right so in the yes this is has to be in a notebook so semantic Link in a notebook we created a little data frame loaded some data and then literally a very small table and then wrote that data into the lake housee and it just would not read and and then the error was you had to go into the semantic

4:43 into the semantic link component and go CLI try to you link component and go CLI try to try and get to the tables there’s know try and get to the tables there’s no tables appearing so that all the tables disappeared and there’s a little red icon at the top that’s something about like something something something something column mapping I’m like column mapping that sounds Vaguely Familiar that’s that data bricks is doing and so I had then and then you actually went into the Json file to actually look at it and like oh look we have a table written using like a pure copy and a copy activity and then we have one written by semantic like and yes the definition of those two things were

5:13 definition of those two things were distinctly different now in my mind here it would be nice if semantic link had an option to say hey I’m going to write to the lake house and do I want to use column mapping or not would probably be ideal but there’s no option from what I’m aware of and so the work around for this one so if you ever encounter this the workaround is change your semantic link your fabric data frame into a spark data frame and you just like use a 2df or something change the

5:43 like use a 2df or something change the data frame type and then once you translate it then you can write it just using Straight spark you don’t mapping that’s interesting because I’ve had the same problem with either the pandas data frame and needing to change it to spark to for a lot of times I was getting a lot of Errors trying to push that so and that I think what you’re seeing is is the whole engine and everything that Microsoft’s done and just tied up in a nice bow you basically try to just uncover all the engines and all the packages all the components of what really synapse and data Factory were are

6:13 really synapse and data Factory were are yeah and how nicely tied up it is in fabric yeah stay tuned I believe a Blog is going to be coming out from Stephanie about this whole detail thing and I’m G even try and push her to help do a little quick YouTube video that we can describe this a little bit more in detail as well so FYI that might be coming anybody else got any what are you working on projects well Pro if this is going to be a series I I guess I can follow up later on on an actual solution lot lot of frustration right now with with large lakes it’s very

6:44 now with with large lakes it’s very diffic we found it’s very difficult to understand where in your Lake all your data is stored relat like I want to know where in my Lake i h i Am storing the most data I. E where have the largest costs right yes correct those ones you want to cut down yeah there are there are Python scripts there’s Powershell scripts there’s a bunch of things but they all fall apart when you get to certain sizes in your Lake because it just takes forever to forever

7:15 because it just takes forever to forever yeah correct so had a lot of in quotes fun over the last week and and ended up having to rip the team and just do it manually like run statistics on statistics on Azure storage found what we were looking for which was good but we’ll be looking for a better option in the future and I don’t know if that’s like enabling some logging to track it as we go yeah because if you think about it it’s l it’s all non-binary right like just because we see a file path doesn’t mean it’s an

7:46 see a file path doesn’t mean it’s an actually exactly right so yeah a lot of learnings in there this this last week I never done that that particular situation but I know the pain of that like discovery when you begin embark on that journey of there’s one element here out of all these possible situations that may cause the issue and just going down that path I I feel for you man it’s I sometimes you get to a point

8:17 I sometimes you get to a point unless you’re around people who already understand how the infrastructure thing works like I didn’t know I’m looking at this question that that Stephanie proposed and I was like I we’re trying to figure this thing I’m like what is going on here if I didn’t know I if I wasn’t using data bricks I would not have known where to look for column mappings I don’t think I I would have observed that cuz that was something that came out and I was like I feel like someone was talking about that data bricks and then I had to go Google data brecks and column mapping and oh this is interesting okay so I think I think I know what the feature’s for and this and so it it’s almost like an this is one of the reasons why I think I like data is

8:49 the reasons why I think I like data is because it’s like the Engineering Process like you have a problem you have to like figure how to solve it and you have to devise like what is my course of action to be able to resolve that problem okay I’m going to do this I’m going to do this okay if I if I change this one thing then I can rule out this feature if I change this one thing I can I can rule out this feature there’s a lot of like very sequential like thinking and like how can I test different things so that something isn’t breaking or not breaking and that’s maybe that’s just very common in software but I I used to use that a lot in engineering which I I really liked followed by a lot of grunting a

9:19 liked followed by a lot of grunting a lot of words like the heck why and just yelling randomly as you begin to figure out the problem so maybe we should call this either terabyte therapy or project pain I’m trying to think of the the segment call we’ll see yeah I I I agree like normally I I love data problems right because there’s always something I can think of as far as attacking it this one one where situations where you have to deliver an

9:49 deliver an answer right so there’s there’s some timelin there’s a tight time frame yeah and you where the problem is but there’s no Sol solution outside of just like manually trying to go find it and that would like that to me is the only thing that actually like really raises my blood pressure because there’s no approach to it right if you think about a data problem many times it’s like oh oh okay I can try these three things and then and then there’s

10:20 three things and then and then there’s work involved in trying the thing and then you have an explanation what like what worked what didn’t work or it leads you to another another answer or another thing to try and then in this scenario it was just like H like I know where I

10:34 it was just like H like I know where I want to be I know what I need to do it’s like but I can’t run anything that’s actually going to return something in a timely manner yeahuh like so it it was one of those that I did not enjoy and I think both your guys’ situation bodess well to our previous podcast I think it was last week like always have Consultants yeah right yeah no sales no no no sales it

11:04 sales it helps options no honestly we had the conversation about role shifts and about oh you can get all the knowledge now and test things out but you guys are boting well into the experience side it’s not just about building something that we do a lot of times what we do is also was painful don’t do I’ve heard this before and rabbit hole Seth all the experience you had around the giant Lous of the Enterprise data at least gave you some of a starting point

11:35 least gave you some of a starting point right compared to someone who’s going in a little more naive a read read the book but has never G through it ultimately we we talked about that a little bit and we we probably spend an entire podcast but it there I think there eventually will be a a significant problem where technology or AI in involvement in it will simplify workloads to the point that folks won’t know how to do that troubleshooting right and we’ve talked about like the the skills you learn

12:07 about like the the skills you learn along the way of building and constructing things I think will be lost and that that could have detrimental effects but we’ll see it’s fun I got a quick one it’s not so much of a pro problem this time but really a more interesting one I’m working with someone on their really building up powerbi in larger org and they were asking for what does Milestones look like for we want to build powerbi champions in house that’s the the ideal route with some other resources but like what would the

12:38 resources but like what would the Milestones be to get someone who’s somewhat of a newbie or someone who’s relatively new to powerbi and get them to a powerbi champion and they’re willing to invest resources in the house so like they’re doing a great job in terms of understanding it’s a longer term process there’s going to be resources invested but what would those Milestones be right and to get someone to be the powerbi person right and I think that’s where they really want to start and it’s been a fun project already and just to begin to think about it so I feel like that’s right up our

13:08 it so I feel like that’s right up our guys’s alley I’d agree with that one I think I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what levels of skills you care about for what people right well it’s skills and then there’s the experience too right because again I think they want this person to be able to they’re in the ideal world this person is doing the office hours they’re answering all the questions and one of the discussions that we had is we can deliver things and do training but you have to have person and

13:38 but you have to have person and something that I I’ll tell anyone you have to have person who wants to do this out of hours I’m not saying it’s required but it helps it really helps helps yeah so and it’s been that’s been a fun project it’s like how do you if you were to build inh housee not bring anyone in to build your reports for you yep where do you start like what is that what does that progress look like yeah no I I agree I think I the those people I think are already

14:09 those people I think are already identifiable within within the business units right they’re they’re probably the most articulate around data albeit what you’re just going to do as a power like make them a powerbi champion is enable them with more tools yeah for them to do their jobs and that’s that’s the the value to the organization and that person yeah yeah first Milestone go to finance find no them find them there well find Finance or yeah some

14:39 Revenue generation data people like the numbers they know numbers and they know Excel really really well and there’s a lot of Concepts that they they already they’re natively trying to figure out and learn joining data V lookups index matches writing macros and VBA like while those aren’t if you like that stuff you you can enjoy that but I find there’s a very low barrier of Entry to fabric once you get P when you find someone who already if you’re already if you’re already writing like

15:10 already if you’re already writing like heavy squl scripts if you’re already writing BBA to help you in Excel okay fine you’re going to you’re going to love python notebooks it’s not going to be that big of a jump for you or you’re going to love writing SQL inside an actual server that doesn’t have to have all the SQL bells and whistles you can just write SQL and get answers out like yeah those people I think really have a an ease of moving into this because there’s not a lot of friction but there’s a lot of extra tooling you can do a lot more things which I think it’s really cool yeah it’s this is the part that I really love

15:40 this is the part that I really love about honestly our conversations I was initially going to disagree with you like it could come from other areas but I realize as you’re speaking oh it could no but this is coming from I think all of our different experiences and I think where we started right like for me I didn’t have anything to do with Finance but I came from marketing which was Google analytics still heavy data totally yep and I was I was thinking like okay what were those elements that led me into this space correct honestly part of it was also the love of I don’t

16:10 part of it was also the love of I don’t want to say the love of software but yeah I think there’s there’s the tinkering mind of trying you’re saying you need to look for a nerd yeah well ultimately like I I think I think what’s easy is finance Finance is the UN probably the Universal Business unit that’s a good place to start it depending on the organization or type of Industry that they’re in yeah they could be definitely be in other places 100% people who are engaged in like warehousing like planning like

16:40 like warehousing like planning like tiero marketing to some degree if they’re really into the the metrics of things sure but that’s going to be kind things sure but that’s going to be industry specific yeah I would I of industry specific yeah I would I would argue though like mean I love your point there Seth and the industry side of things yes there’s going to be experts all over the company in different parts but every company needs a finance person everyone does like there’s always someone if you’re any of any size someone’s doing the finances and so typically that’s like a common role and I just find that that role consistently has lots of excel stuff

17:10 consistently has lots of excel stuff laying around yeah see my I I would argue and then we move on is I don’t even think you need a data person off the bat I think if you have that P like for me if you give me a new software tool or something comes across I’m gonna devour it and I’m gonna know the keyboard shortcuts I’m GNA know the no the no okay can’t take you can’t take you and put them in the business because that’s not not 99. 99% of people the if I have a wizard and power I’m not sure I’m G to go give

17:41 and power I’m not sure I’m G to go give them Power by we we just talked about this with quick wins right what what does a quick win have to be it has to be like it has to provide value to both of us it’s there’s value to the organization that these are champions because the organization is like hey these these people can help other people and they’re like yeah but that’s not my primary focus or goal or job right my primary focus is you’re helping me do my job faster which may free up my time to be more of a powerbi champion But ultimately there it’s a selfish need and

18:14 ultimately there it’s a selfish need and rightfully so that that you’re helping them solve their problems faster and I do agree the more straightforward path is the finance and marketing I think and easier to identify you guys are talking about skills I think more and I’m trying to figure out the behavior of this person which is much harder and something I think that would be a much longer of a journey I don’t I don’t agree with that at all because just we’re not saying every person in finance we’re still saying that person is probably in finance

18:44 that person is probably in finance because they’re still going to be showing behaviors that set themselves apart from others because they can articulate data they’re talking to you about these things they’re already trying to help others out right those are the behaviors that you would want to lock in in and key in and say that’s that’s a potential Champion I. E somebody that would definitely be interested in Skilling up in this area because they’re already showing the behaviors that they want to learn or Advance their career or

19:16 want to learn or Advance their career or they understand data to a level that other people don’t it’s not one the other I got some jokes you want to hear him yes I’m just kidding I don’t have jokes actually I was just trying to transition topic I do like that though I think a good topic though yeah excellent let’s let’s transition into our main topic our main topic is just some mailbag questions I believe we have a a person on our team who can read the mailbag so we’ll kick it over to mailbag Seth mail Seth let’s read mailbag

19:48 Seth mail Seth let’s read mailbag Seth maybe that’s maybe that’s another segment that’s another segment making segments today like crazy all right new segment mailbag Seth all right go ahead and kick our first question over mailbag question number one really enjoy your show my question is about licensing I know your latest well this we don’t know know whenn one of your podcasts one of our podcasts was about licensing but mine concerns the best type of license to buy if you are a blogger and just want to share links in your blog or on your blog

20:18 share links in your blog or on your blog website that allows people to interact with public facing reports you want to use to Showcase your portfolio I’m assuming for that use case it’s going to be powerbi Pro licensed that would allow to publish to my workspace in powerbi service and then I would be able to use published web to get the link to use on my website just trying to confirm that this is the best approach thanks for any feedback you can provide and a comment telling us when that came in which was a while ago but we don’t know who from no okay great

20:50 we don’t know who from no okay great question yeah so I’m going to I’m going to ask if you guys can confirm my my sus my suspicion here I don’t think you even need Pro to do this I think this is a powerbi free user so you just need to have a Microsoft account you need to be able to get into

21:08 account you need to be able to get into powerbi so first off desktop’s free desktop’s free you can go ahead and download that now which is awesome and then from there build your report connect to some data and you can publish to my workspace for free if you have 35 my workspace normal personal account so you have identify this is a 365 E to5 license yeah I don’t think you can go in you can’t go get you can’t go no not E5 this is this is just an account right

21:39 this is this is just an account right any well not personal or any work account thing it can’t be like something that outlook. com or Hotmail I don’t think Hotmail or outlook. com work. com does not work so you need some so is there a free way to get a tenant I think you can get I think you can still make a tenant subscription as well I’d have to double check on that but I think you can just go create an Azure portal subscription too like so you just need a tenant for something you own so if you have a Blog Mike

22:09 if you have a Blog Mike SuperDuper blog. com you already have a domain you already have a domain hopefully so yeah you can attach that right to go get an an Azure subscription or tenant which would also give you the Microsoft tenant use your domain you can attach that there if you if you need to you don’t need to do that yep but then once you have that then you should have an email address that you can log into and then it should just be go to par. com build your report publish to my workspace and I believe once that report’s there you can kick that out and say publish to web and it goes right from there yep there the only the only

22:40 from there yep there the only the only reason you would need a pro license is if you wanted multiple workspaces and it sounds like it’s just the individual efforts and individual things to put on the blog so yeah I agree well and if you’re testing too like I think you find yourself slowly getting and thinking about a PPU premium per user because if you well no I would agree I go there too yeah eventually you’re gonna go well that that’s cool data flow oh okay and then you’re gonna find yourself wanting to do those things if it’s simply reports yeah I think to your point but if this is something that a person’s

23:11 if this is something that a person’s really testing more than just reports and visuals out just get the PPU just start yeah and especially if it’s if it’s it’s in reference to a Blog right so the PPU opens the doors for you to do all that’s all sorts of testing and additional blog material if it’s independent of that and you’re just using some powerbi reports yeah freebie now try the fabric trial well yes so I was going to go there too so a there’s a couple price points right so I think if you’re going to if you’re by

23:42 think if you’re going to if you’re by yourself and you’re just playing around the blog I think I’m either doing the free version and just using the bare minimum everything that’s there but I me personally I feel like I’m thinking okay well I want to see some of the premium features that I would get like I’m if I’m blogging I’m going to blog about like deployment pipelines so I want to blog about the more advanced features and that’s where it would come with premium per user so that would be the area I would spend some time there from a Blog standpoint that’s just me personally the trick of this goes okay what happens if I want to start consuming fabric things and fabric

24:13 consuming fabric things and fabric things are a little bit more tricky because yes you get a 60-day free trial on fabric but once that’s done you got to pay for it there is no more there is you can’t play that game there so if you’re trying to blog about fabric it’s I think it’s going to be much more challenging you’re going to be much more metered now you can turn it on you can then do your demo or play around and then make sure you turn it off when you’re done which would keep your cost down but I don’t think you’re going to be spending $10 a month

24:44 you’re going to be spending $10 a month it’s going to be hard to keep fabric under that threshold especially if you’re doing just some very basic demos and testing of things so yeah you’re probably going to want to stick with the free license if that gets your need done depends on what features you want to blog about well that was a simple question that turned into a very long answer you got more I was just thinking about the the we can move on we can move on because I’m thinking about like what else they’re doing because like from yeah we can move on what do you mean I

25:15 yeah we can move on what do you mean I want to keep going yeah so I’m thinking about the other things this person’s doing and like for example I’ve been considering we actually working on a mix between Ai and bi trying to think of like some like what could be some content around there yep there’s the other cost too that I think you want to think about and I think Mike you’ve done you’re probably the best person to talk about this where you started a domain and a website on on WordPress Squarespace whatever the one cont small website you’ve never heard of it power tips yeah exactly yeah we got a logo I

25:47 tips yeah exactly yeah we got a logo I think but I think it’s this is a great example though too of taking even a relatively simple blog but I love the customization on on power bi. tips and I love the way it be also search for Content it’s one thing just to write the content but I think the way it’s the way you’ve categorized and organized content on power that’s all Seth Seth has been very good about organizing things well I very good about organizing things well rely on the German for that so but mean rely on the German for that so but yeah so no butman I yeah don’t worry

26:19 yeah so no butman I yeah don’t worry about so but there’s a there’s a big part here too on it’s one thing just to have the access to the data but the way you distribute it is I think the best the best example to me no pandering is really what you guys have done with power bi. tips all right fine Tommy we’ll keep you around for another month all right well again I think this this blogging question it’s a good I think a good topic actually and I I would if you if I had to look back on what I did on blogs I probably would slightly change

26:50 blogs I probably would slightly change what I did there’s a couple things I would have done differently so I used WordPress as the main blogging site I also wanted to learn Azure so I took it as has an opportunity to spin up my own WordPress inside Azure which at the time there was no mySQL database inside Azure so I had to go buy that from someplace else the challenge has been is now that I’ve got a critical mass of things that have been built in WordPress in Azure and now this database that lives somewhere else I now have this challenge of like well there are now more efficient ways and faster ways to render

27:21 efficient ways and faster ways to render websites and Pages WordPress is okay but it’s not like the best and again we don’t get a ton of traffic but I’m looking at other like it would be nice to have done things a little bit differently so I think I would have liked a little bit more control around it I’m also thinking like there’s a couple things that I’m learning around like static web apps or going to like GitHub pages and Building Things there where it doesn’t cost you anything and you can write all your pages or code AS markdown and you can make your blog just write a markdown blog so

27:52 your blog just write a markdown blog so if I think about what when I’m writing content or when I’m actually what a lot of things I do in my company I write everything as marked down so markdown for me has become very clean and easy to look at and I really I I love it it’s it’s titles it’s bullet bolded headers it’s paragraphs it’s images like literally that’s everything you need in a blog I need to be able to put images headers and things down and if you can articulate your ideas into markdown you can put that anywhere like conflu takes it GitHub takes it be

28:23 conflu takes it GitHub takes it be disciple of that it’s it’s like all over the place you can use it wherever it’s in Azure devops like once you start learning how to use markdown it’s very Universal to use that lightweight formatting you can put links in you can put images in that’s the main stuff you think you care about in a blog so my thought would be is try and keep your infrastructure as simple as possible and and use that because that way you have more flexibility on the other things you want to do so that would that would be my one bit of guidance I don’t like WordPress and their commenting section their comments are horrible I would like to rip it out

28:55 are horrible I would like to rip it out and instead just drop in like just discuss I think discuss is another like third party application where you can put at the bottom of your blogs and like it handles the authentication it handles like weeding out bad comments and like it it lets like this page was linked to this discussion topic and you can see like all your comments in one single web app so I really like that feature especially if you’re going to more of like a static web app page which potentially has better performance so all this to say is there’s lots of different options when you do blogging I will also say just start don’t make

29:27 will also say just start don’t make excuses excuses don’t feel like my first couple blogs were just utter trash and Seth very kindly let me know that I was doing such a bad job he’s like you got to clean this stuff up dude you can’t just start circling random things with your Cur say that I didn’t say that what I I was much more I was much more tactful you were much more TCT you watch hey hey mik hey Mike hey Mike do you do you have anybody doing like reading your blog like blog you should probably more than willing to help you out with that have grammar lately well I think you talking

29:59 grammar lately well I think you talking spell much what’s going on here on the content too so one thing we do for our episodes we we have a border a web app that we look like basically all of our episodes that come up they’re contrary to popular belief they’re not spur of the moment we think of it and I think that’s a big part too is to your point Mike it’s not just oh I don’t have ideas for ideas for Content whether it’s a troll board if it’s one note just start having a quick place you can write down ideas that because that’s the hardest yeah and the

30:29 because that’s the hardest yeah and the last part I’ll put on this one and again feel free to add more comments but we can move on if you want the last thing I will say is don’t feel like you have to have the entire plan figured out to the end like get yourself like put a direction of where you’re going to go I I think of a lot like sprinting or agile or scrum how youever want to call it like just get enough done you can always pivot later on you can always change what’s going on so try and think at least initially like one thing I was very passionate about I was like I was all in on powerbi that’s going to be what I’m going to learn on so that’s why the website existed by name and so I try

31:00 the website existed by name and so I try and focus all the content towards powerbi but that being said you just had to start I’m learning something someone else may want to learn my thing I’ll start with that and you just keep doing like little you just keep doing like little keep doing it keep doing it and so know keep doing it keep doing it and so you can you can stand back and look back a year and a half two years later and like wow I put out 50 blogs well maybe I should go back through and organize them because now I can start having topics and grouping and like that’s that’s better when you actually have a a lot of stuff to actually group as opposed to to like well what are all my groups going to be what should I talk

31:30 my groups going to be what should I talk about and then you put a lot of this pressure on yourself to say well I need to talk about admin and governance but I don’t know much about that but that’s one of my topics so I got to talk about it but I’m not really passionate about it so don’t do that just start with what

31:41 it so don’t do that just start with what you’re passionate about start producing content and then from there other things I think will just naturally flow out from that yeah yeah one last comment I that always comes to mind that’s not directly related but sub related every time we talk about published a web is recently I’ve been perusing Reddit several different kind perusing Reddit several different Reddit categories career interviewing of Reddit categories career interviewing powerbi like those are top ones and and

32:11 powerbi like those are top ones and and I I just want to State like it is and granted these are communities where people are a lot of times expressing frustrations or looking for advice it it’s it’s hard to find jobs right now in many many areas and one of the strongest things you have as a person who understands powerbi is access to a tool that like we just discussed with some setup allows you to create reports and publish them to the web and have a link for

32:42 to the web and have a link for free it’s it is one of the biggest things you can do when you’re interviewing or trying to find a job is differentiate yourself from the get-go and the and the best best people I’ve seen seen in the market or the ones I want to talk to the most are the ones that build their resume in powerbi reports it is a fantastic way to set yourself apart you already are showing your skill sets in

33:13 already are showing your skill sets in in the reports itself love that and if if you’re looking for the thing right and I understand there’s a lot of automation that screens canidates and all this stuff and there’s a lot of hurdles it’s not going to be the Silver Bullet but if there’s a link to a a powerbi report I get excited as a hiring manager right so publish to web it’s it’s your friend not just for blogs but also for a standing resume or trying to find a powerbi job and and busting into there well well worth kind

33:45 busting into there well well worth kind busting into there well well worth exploring that and knowing that that of exploring that and knowing that that path is there to to pursue it’s another really great point just know if if you are interviewing with Seth and you have your powerbi resume please make sure by the pixel your layout is oh it better have a it better have a scrim it better have a the most detrimental thing pixel so your layout and your alignment better be better be on I’m I’m getting more and more convinced that I’m getting more and more convinced that having the ability

34:16 more convinced that having the ability to like inside that interview is like hey one do you have public facing examples of things you built because that’s to me that’s very indicative of like what people have done and I’ve been in the space long enough to know like they copi that I can I’ve seen that one before like I can I can gauge like what’s been copied but then on the other hand in interviews I really like the ability of being say look do the expectation is you’re going to have a technical interview and then you’re going to show up and I’m going to ask you to share screen you’re going to get into desktop I’m gonna ask you to do some basic things and if you don’t I

34:47 some basic things and if you don’t I some basic things and if you don’t those like man I’m having trouble mean those like man I’m having trouble likeing but a lot of the trouble a lot of the trouble out there is just getting the interview and that’s true and that’s what I’m saying it’s like that that is a fast path to get an interview I think I would agree with that all right next question that’s F good question I don’t I don’t I don’t think this requires an episode as the by the way there was no name on the previous one there’s no name on this one either can you do an episode on your respective routines once you

35:17 on your respective routines once you have your data loaded into powerbi I this this person met us at one of the user groups Mike talked through some of his best practices example data modeling managing measures in addition to talking through the data model and thin report topic o this is a really good one yeah do you guys have any respective routines like right after you load your data well probably it’s go in the corner and and cry hope for the

35:49 cry hope for the best I suppose it depends on the data set right I go in because it’s like there’s so much stuff missing there’s errors all over the place the is not what I expected and everyone said yeah yeah it’s done it’s clean it’s clean data and then I go look at it I’m like man we got we got nulls all over the place there’s this format for date time is all messed up there’s got three different formats for date time what the heck are we doing here and then and then I recup myself and then I I actually compose and then then we start actually talking about fixing the problem yeah pray to your respective person and then

36:21 pray to your respective person and then no I think for me it’s it’s it’s a lot of Tablo editor but it’s a lot of just the base organization I’m creating my base measures the sum of count of the things that I know that everything’s going to be dependent on and I’m just getting that organization out of the place I’m also doing the stupid dates making sure that they’re not long for so that’s a really good so let’s go organization I just hate that so much but yeah so I agree with you Tommy on that 100% so first thing I’m checking is did did desktop or did I accidentally not turn off the auto day

36:52 accidentally not turn off the auto day time because I’m I’m getting rid of that for sure right away day one because there’s all kinds of weird things in your data and I don’t want those extra dat tables hanging around at all if I can help it I would agree with you Tommy I’m I’m also with you I’m in tabular editor and I’m using scripts to help me do a lot of common things that I think you should be doing in the model already like for example I’m selecting all the numerical columns yeah and in my script I think I actually have one script that’s actually on the GitHub page for powerbi tips I think we have a whole

37:22 powerbi tips I think we have a whole bunch of tab editor scripts but there’s a script in the in the git repo that does create a folder make a measure take the column turn the column from Auto summarize to not Auto summarize and then hide it so I like to do okay I know these columns are going to be summed so I’ll run this command it will do all these like it’s like six seven eight options that are all happening at the same time making folders for measures hiding columns putting columns in

37:52 hiding columns putting columns in folders where the measure is all these things to really clean it out so now I’ve got like okay everything have left is looking like it’s a Tex string column it’s not Tex string but it’s like it’s a do not summarize column and then there’s a bunch of measures and that’s where I start from yeah this I like what you’re going with I love this because I think a lot of times to the the reports or the data I’m using now I’m not incredibly familiar with already The Columns I don’t need have the refined six columns that I need so a lot I actually have a script in the same

38:22 I actually have a script in the same way I put all my columns into a display folder into their own display folder and I’m going through as I’m going through creating measures and utilizing like oh this is important this is not important I’m elevating the columns out of it just to help clean it up go okay these are clearly important columns let me put this in its own area so I’m not looking at I have to take 70 column you do you do that in the power in power V I’ll load it in because at the time I don’t know what it’s the discovery of going through like what do I need for Dax what

38:52 through like what do I need for Dax what do I need for visuals there’s now I see there’s 75 statuses here or whatever this the case is y so I’m basically like downgrading everything and then slowly beginning to what you actually because it’s hard it’s it’s difficult when you have data that you may be unfamiliar with so there’s there’s no real good lineage type tool to that that guess what it depends on like where you’re at in their Journey on data right if this is your first time loading data in I’m more inclined to see user saying well I’m just going to take everything

39:22 well I’m just going to take everything because I don’t know what I’m going to need yet so I’ll just keep it all yeah then there if you say that at the beginning of your modeling experience you should at the end of it you should say okay what did I use and what could I get rid of because we just yeah we just encountered a data set that was we just encountered a data set that was had a had a 900 megabyte RBI file after loading the data we’re like whoa there’s a lot of data in here but what we found out is because we were loading activities from things if we took out

39:53 activities from things if we took out only two activities that had no additional reporting value so filtering the data by taking out two activities we’re able to reduce the report by report by 60% size so that’s huge amount of savings but only because we took a little bit more time and said okay what you not only the columns do I care about but like what in those columns do I could I get rid of hey look this column is and this is another one where I would say shoot this is going to be this is not going to be like for new Newber newbies but I’m going to Dak studio and

40:24 newbies but I’m going to Dak studio and I’m looking at verac engine and I’m looking at the columns that I have in that model and that base thing so a lot of times we’ll bring that guid or that key or that text field over into a fact table you’re like you could leave it there but is it causing a lot of extra repeating values is it causing a lot of distinct values so those are other things I’m probably looking for I’m also thinking about dates and date times and trying to split them apart so I’m doing maybe like dates times minus the seconds and maybe

40:55 dates times minus the seconds and maybe moving seconds out somewhere else so I can get some more repeating columns as opposed to a whole bunch of distinct things there’s are things like that that I’m doing to try and like keep the model size smaller because I don’t want to just eat up space just for the heck of it yeah my my I’m I’m going to say like in new data sets right a lot of a lot of the initial stuff resonates with what you guys are talking about like the very exploratory right I I want to pull in my data sets

41:25 right I I want to pull in my data sets and I start to roughly try to conceptualize what I need the model to look like and if you’re not doing that like go read up a lot about models because one of the biggest traps for folks is just importing their Source data and assuming that all these Separate Tables are going to relate to one another and need to be Transformations you’re going to find yourself in daxel pretty quick so like figure out what you need from this Source data to to like shaping perspective and that’ll pretty pretty quickly like throw you into what are the

41:56 quickly like throw you into what are the gaps gaps in the columns or data that I need in those tables or how do I need to shape it right so then I can understand okay do I have the grain appropriate grain in my other tables do I need to combine this stuff do grain are a big problem there’s a lot of just thinking through

42:14 there’s a lot of just thinking through and making sure you’re going to prep yourself for Success once I have that I start to think about okay my my model is structured or I’ve shaped some things now I have visual needs and usually that’s the Dax right so what columns are are am I going to need for Dax calculations for the visuals themselves I’m not talking I’m not thinking about building the Dax calculations yet but I do know the source data that’s going to be preemptively like the stuff I’m going to

42:44 preemptively like the stuff I’m going to pull in and then I’ll look at refining the data sets right make sure my data is clean look at data types di it all in and then move towards development but I I think the the one key thing that I do slightly separately from Tommy but same same thing is I’m documenting this the whole time so I have a separate Excel doc that has the source powerbi table the column and the need and that’s my reference point so that when I’m to the

43:15 reference point so that when I’m to the point where I’m like I’ve got and it’s at different stages depending on the report when I’ve got it dialed in then I can look back and be like okay I’ve got more than I need in this mo more often than not I I’m pulling in like the full table as opposed to just everything I need yet and I’ll I’ll analyze and I’ll look at for sure these are the columns I need because I’m using them yeah and then are there other ancillary columns that I probably am going to need in the future for just different variations of the report or different View and then everything else I strip out so that data

43:47 everything else I strip out so that data mapping document is is pivotal for me because it’s it’s not it’s not like I know or retain everything I just take good notes yeah it’s my reference point every time I I need to go back and it hangs with the document as it goes along I I want to play off that slightly because I really do love there’s there’s the other element too of what do you do from an organization also the analytics side so I always create two pages in the report a Sandbox and a Dev that I call them and I make them very large size

44:19 them and I make them very large size because I need to find usually usually there’s outliers usually there’s probably example this from the data science days so to speak I have visuals that I really only use for for my own like for that exploration I never put them in an actual report or for users histogram box scratch padding Yeah Yeah scratch padding yeah like I have the report page that I’m developing and then scratch pad on the side for data G like yeah yeah yeah why there’s 79 types when there should be five or whatever the example

44:49 should be five or whatever the example is and and I think to your point Seth the documentation side of here even if it’s a Confluence one note where where whever just beginning having your you whever just beginning having your sent your Indiana Jones rope back know sent your Indiana Jones rope back to the source is so pivotal especially with new data one why be IND Indiana Jones rope why could it be like Wonder Woman’s rope or like Indiana Jones because he’s the’s lasso it has nothing to do with the lass Wonder Woman has the the lasso of of Truth Indiana Joe’s in the cave of who

45:22 Truth Indiana Joe’s in the cave of who else has goty things as superheroes rocked everywhere he was so he or something I can throw up on the top of a mountain like there’s like a grappling hook something too that’s true that’s good point it’s not about going it’s not about where you’re going it’s where you came from and the battering wouldn’t really fit that yeah but Indiana Jones does use the whip to go forward a lot of times he’s not going backwards with his whip what about Spiderman oh he’s got built got builtin Stringer things yeah yeah the web that’s actually but again

45:53 yeah the web that’s actually but again it’s a lot about where he’s going it’s not about historical he’s not leaving a trail yeah it should be more like Hansel and grle like there’s there’s food you’re leaving behind yourself to go get it as opposed to like ropes so yeah I was right that was a good talk right there yeah so what high quality content here on on on explicit measures on this one see I think people are missing the see people who jump in in the episode and listen to the first five minutes like ah these guys are Bing they missed they missed the middle section at like minute 43 minute 45 where things get

46:23 minute 43 minute 45 where things get really good and Michael has a huge ADHD moment and we like really big rabbit Trail and it’s like that’s when it’s fun I think that’s I enjoy that I’m bored thanks for humoring me here for a hot second while I talk about ropes and spider care about this yeah no I do care about it I do care about and I do I will say I do agree Tommy with your lineage steps that makes a lot of sense you got to know where things came from I did want to go back to Seth’s comment just briefly you said you have an Excel document on the side that documents your model and well I don’t document the

46:54 model and well I don’t document the whole thing just things you care about yeah just p of it yeah I want to I’ve been doing some exploration and this is maybe like back to our previous segment about things you’re doing right so things I’m doing right now is I’m actually exploring adding additional metadata to the model to support other analysis so a couple things I have observed recently is there’s now some new Dax measures you go to Dax dogu and you go look up info. perspectives info

47:25 you go look up info. perspectives info do do info. annotations info. measures there’s a whole bunch of metadata that lives in the model that you can just go easily add and so one thing that I’m not quite sure how to do it yet but I’m I’m as you mentioned that Seth around like hey I’ve got like three things I’m caring about like I’m I’m noting these columns are important and maybe writing a little description around what’s important there that’s what annotations are for yeah okay so let me let me be clear so why not why doesn’t the Excel thing live inside the

47:56 doesn’t the Excel thing live inside the model and then use the model to CH has the fact I love the fact that they’re there to me that’s documentation right so what I don’t need to do right now anymore with those things is carry forward this Excel mapping document as the documentation got it it’s not it’s not its purpose though scratch for you got it yeah it’s the same thing as you like writing something down to firm it up in your head sure so that’s that’s on

48:26 up in your head sure so that’s that’s on my so that as I’m looking at things I’m like wait a minute that’s I don’t have to go back to Source systems and start ripping through things just that’s my little yeah my scratchpad that I use for documentation but if we as we have new and better ways of course I want to just regen right like what show me my lineage of all these things blah blah blah blah that’s my documentation after I made my changes as opposed to having to go manually add things back because that’s the the bane of documentation or why documentation sucks because nobody ever goes back and does the manual stuff yeah

48:58 goes back and does the manual stuff yeah but unless you have like I’m just going to click these buttons and then export the output that’s much easier Mike kosi Mike kosi has a way to export the current model into Excel you write descriptions and then import that back in I can never forget his name it’s so close to Micha Mike walski I know so good but I like your point there Seth and I’ll say one more other note around that one something that changed my idea about what I want to document and where I want to put it is part of of that is I’m looking at now Dax query view the

49:29 I’m looking at now Dax query view the Dax query view changed a little bit of my mentality on the why I think that’s so important and let me give you some context here to why I think that is the Dax query viiew you can just write evaluate evaluate info annotations eval and literally it produces the table of all the annotations in the entire model and you can even filter that list by taking that and saying I’m only interested in things that are annotated on a measure or a column or whatever so as I’m watching other people say hey these other and all those info my understanding is the info

50:01 those info my understanding is the info Dax functions are all they’re doing is they’re hitting the DMVs it’s the dynamic management views inside the model and it’s just giving you a list of what stuff that comes out so this is to me it’s very extremely important here because now I can build Dax query views and I think also John kky is very big on this as well you can even write tests inside Dax query views because that Dax is then saved with the model and you can potentially execute that in a later date somewhere else by reading that information so I’m I’m trying to in my

50:31 information so I’m I’m trying to in my mind formulate how can I better utilize Dax quer R viiew to do other things and I think one of them is I don’t know if I can Dax quer R viiew my way into annotating all the columns because I again to your your point Tommy about tabular Editor to me as a as a more of a pro developer in in powerbi models I need Dex a Tabor because I’m doing so much more in the model and I’m trying to repeat the same thing over and over again so annotating putting things down that becomes much easier when I can just hit a script and it just does six things

51:01 hit a script and it just does six things for me for a column and I can literally you could even make like little UI like hey I’m going to click these columns and for each column I’m going to add a description you can write out you can build stuff that makes this easier for you to do anyways all this to say is very interesting things and I’m beginning to formulate some ideas around how can we better utilize the model to keep information that we care about for other applications to use and and love it I think that’s part of the development process though agree as you’re getting yeah that’s the one the

51:32 you’re getting yeah that’s the one the last thing I would say on this question is don’t just start building and then like towards some towards a direction without doing any of this because that’s when you find yourself stuck and then you’re like oh man I got to refactor a whole bunch of things I’ve gota like I don’t have this data like that’s that’s a bad place to be the I like that idea also Seth and I I think a lot of times now when you get good at doing modeling or you’ve done it for number of years and you can start visualizing what needs to happen I think there are patterns you can observe just by looking at the tables and how they

52:03 by looking at the tables and how they link to each other so even before I get to desktop now I’m even saying let’s just draw out in diagram form what are the dimension tables I know I’m going to have a date Dimension I know I’m going to have a fact table so I’m going to make sure these two things talk to each other and then I’ll talk to the business and say what other dimensions do we care about oh we need to have customer oh we need to have product or oh we need to have sales region okay respective routines once you have your data loaded was the question I know I get it I agree conceptual models are

52:35 I get it I agree conceptual models are it’s huge for me yeah yes I’ve got some maybe the data is loaded and I’m just looking at the data right maybe I’m looking at it but I think I need to bump that even if the data is loaded I’m probably bumping that data against some conceptual model to make sure like look I’ve got three fact tables can

52:49 like look I’ve got three fact tables can I even get all the dimensions or will four of them fit into three and only one of them won’t like what does that look like and does that change how you design the model so I think I think if you’re not doing a conceptual model of how the the data should be stuck together I think you just need need to touch on that briefly because that to me I have found value in that and I have saved myself hours of time by going down rabbit holes and reworking my data because I’m like ah shoot I should have I should have known this Dimension wasn’t going to attach we got to go back to engineering and say hey you need to figure out a way to join this column

53:20 figure out a way to join this column into this table in the fact because we don’t have a join and they’re like well we don’t know how to do it like we’ll figure it out and they take a week or two to go chew through stuff and like okay we figured out a pattern that would work but complex I’m like yeah great do it in your end not mine I don’t want the complex stuff just make the column resolve like I that’s what I want it’s that stuff yeah any final points on this one Tommy no I think the biggest thing is the the the real quick part the last point that he talked about was the gold models thin reports I I think a lot

53:50 gold models thin reports I I think a lot of big points here too is as you’re building or as you’re hiding or showing is can this be reused and that’s something I have to think more consciously about now since I’m always I’m dealing with clients and I’m dealing with different projects and something I’m going to hand off it’s like I want this to be an engine or a model that’s like hey you could build three reports off of here or like this can be Reus so the reusability side of this is something that to both your points in terms of technical debt just don’t start building is this something that can run

54:21 building is this something that can run for other purposes or can run not just for this one particular purpose yep final question is a fast one I know we’re coming on the the End of Time the end of time this one actually is from somebody who added their their name so thank you Chris Young for asking this question and there’s a very straightforward answer to this one so he says I just finished listening to episode 310 hey what do you mean find a

54:51 episode 310 hey what do you mean find a local user group I’ve tried more than once without success and I don’t live in the middle of Alaska I’m in southeast Michigan and everything I’ve found is seemingly defunct what do you recommend I’d never consider I’d even consider trying to get something started but I don’t really know how to do that well thank you pandemic for screwing up our community Dynamic communities. com I think it’s PBI User Group oh my gosh what oh no shush no Tommy stop trying to

55:22 what oh no shush no Tommy stop trying to confuse people so the simp simple simplest answer is community. fabric. microsoft. com powerbi user groups go there scroll all the way to the bottom start a new group even if there is one in your area it’s not going to matter Somebody from Microsoft in the community area maybe even re is going to reach out and say Hey you if you’re willing to start something up we’re here to support

55:52 start something up we’re here to support you and they will help you build something up or plug you with any existing group in the area who probably will be more than happy to say yeah we’d still like to be part of it but if you want to like join and if you want to help us get user groups back up and running in the local area the things you got to like find are locations right so hopefully there’s a Microsoft Office otherwise there’s some phone calling right look around for like local consulting firms that have spaces or

56:23 consulting firms that have spaces or Open Spaces that people would be willing to open up for a user group but there’s a lot of I think new emphasis on the community from the things we were from the folks we were talking to at the MVP Summit and and areas there so I highly recommend you go that that route and start up a new group and there there’ll be plenty of folks to help you out if not you come talk to us you send in another thing and we’ll we’ll back Channel this and make it work

56:54 we’ll back Channel this and make it work yeah I me 100% on that one you can always start we’re we haven’t done a Chicago User Group in a while but we’re going to be starting back up in June and hopefully going local so you can travel to Michigan but Seth I me it’s perfect in terms of there Microsoft now owns user groups I I was I was having a little fun but Microsoft owned our any user group that you want to join and yeah they have amazing support and to be clear there’s other so Dynamic communities is a community that has for Dynamics but has

57:25 community that has for Dynamics but has also extended in I think the community is still there it’s still there is still a power pack community there albeit it’s not very active but I would also argue the Microsoft one has not been very active since the pandemic it’s lost a lot of wind there’s not a lot of local meetups yet happening so one thing I would recommend is go to Meetup and go look so there’s the communities for powerbi but I think a lot of user groups are still very active on Meetup and Meetup has been a very good medium for like I’m just going to search the word powerbi and a lot of events

57:55 word powerbi and a lot of events just populate in your area or near you and so a lot I know a lot of teams and groups do that as well I’d also we have not been as good about it but we want to get more back out of the pandemic and get back into doing things again but we’ve been trying to keep our user group very online and so trying to have monthly meetings around that as well I’m also toying with the di the idea I’m getting a little bit further down the path of doing like the Midwest fabric mini fabric conference tour here a little

58:26 fabric conference tour here a little bit maybe head in a couple cities and try and get some people involved to kind try and get some people involved to Kickstart some Community things of Kickstart some Community things Microsoft is doing things in the Comm like so they Las Vegas fabric conference was a lot around Community a lot around technical things so I think they’re really trying to put an initiative around when I was there they were talking about the community is awesome it’s really good we want to encourage you to get together we want to encourage you to talk about the tool so I think Microsoft is taking a concerted effort to continue to invest back into community and not like Hey we’re going to do community and Microsoft’s going to

58:56 to do community and Microsoft’s going to do a sales pitch it’s more like fabric conference in Las Vegas where it was here’s a whole bunch of technical sessions here’s a handful of MVPs that are speaking and talking about our tool and giving you best practices so stay tuned I believe there’s more things coming down that route as well it may not be in your little region but I’m hoping that this is going to ignite another wind of like user groups and getting things going my opinion communities or user groups that were very large like that Members Plus seemed

59:27 very large like that Members Plus seemed to keep going they figured out how to keep themselves alive because they like that Community smaller groups I think had a harder time finding sponsorships finding locations and just it got a lot of work and it just started slowly dying out so I think we’ll see maybe another wave of community stuff ramp up it kind community stuff ramp up it comes in ways I think it ramps up and of comes in ways I think it ramps up and then it ramps down it ramps up and ramps down so we may be in a little bit of a trough getting back into it but don’t be discouraged either I think the first user group I mean I think the first user group I started we had seven members in the beginning coming in and it’s

59:58 beginning coming in and it’s like cool three three of them were your family Tommy your mom was there and brother was there and still she brought the food ma where’s the lasagna lasagna out of that’s how it grew so fast the food Tommy was giving out lasagnas no but I there’s a big Point like and we started meet monthly by the end when I moved to Chicago there like every User Group in person which almost sounds and heard we had about 35 40 people coming

60:28 heard we had about 35 40 people coming obviously move in Chicago you already start with a larger number but if you want to really have a local user group and that’s something that you find that you’re lacking or missing or you think that there’s a need for it yep even if you start small even if it’s you and another person you’re speaking to one person sometimes there’s a lot of creativity there too you find people who are want to help out even if it’s a smaller group those are obviously people who are also passionate who can help out with the promotion and

60:58 who can help out with the promotion and you can build from there there there’s nothing cooler than building something from scratch so and you never know where it’ll go because Mike and I met at the local US group and Seth ruined my entire career path so now I’m a business owner all my stone and like all yeah do do you want to rewind to where you no thanks it was no I’m being very factious with that comment it was it was a great move for me I I found a great friend Seth and I have been f for a long time now and we talk a lot about essentially a lot around data things but also family

61:28 around data things but also family things and other things as well so you find other very like-minded people that are fun as well so I would I definitely would encourage it if you’re even remotely passionate about it just start something and then where you where where to put what you’re doing go get it started on the Microsoft community site and go start it on a Meetup potentially go figure out how to do those things and and try and get those going that way that way people are consuming and regularly using those things to find about powerbi events so that would be what I would recommend also if you want to partner with us we help out with a lot of user groups anyways so we try

61:59 lot of user groups anyways so we try and broadcast if you have any ability of doing a live broadcast from your user group we’ll do it right here on the tips Channel and help hopefully increase your expertise and your size of your user group we’ll be more than happy to help broadcast it if that helps get your team out there your group out there anyways with that we want to say thank you so much for your time listening to the episode today I know this is a long time an hour out of your day hopefully you’re getting some other productive stuff thing done such as running or exercising contrary to what we do we just sit in chairs all day so we hope we’ve encourage you to

62:29 so we hope we’ve encourage you to exercise a little bit and get a little fun around some data things also we just want to say if you like this episode if you found some value from it maybe even got a laugh or two we would really appreciate it if you would share it with somebody else we think this really helps grow our community and we want to continue to grow it to other people as well who may have never heard of the the podcast so please share it with somebody else we appreciate that Tommy where else can you find the podcast well you can find us on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast make sure to subscribe and leave a rating it helps us out a ton

62:59 and leave a rating it helps us out a ton do you have a question an idea or a topic like we did today that you want us to talk about in a future episode head over to power. tisp podcast leave your name and a great question finally join us live every Tuesday and Thursday a. m. Central and join the conversation on all of power. tips social media channels awesome thank you so much and we’ll see you next time

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