PowerBI.tips

Category: PowerBI.Tips Tools

  • Exploring the Power of Semantic Link

    Exploring the Power of Semantic Link

    Semantic link is one of the most promising technologies coming from the Microsoft Power BI and Fabric team. Semantic link has the potential to automate so many redundant tasks and tedious work. Automating and using code enables BI developers to free up time for more value-added work. Join Stephanie Bruno and Mike Carlo as they do a thorough demo of using Semantic Link.

    Semantic link is a powerful tool that allows direct access and manipulation of data within semantic models using code and notebooks. It offers automation, streamlined data extraction, and centralized data management within models. Throughout this workshop, we’ll delve into the diverse functionalities of semantic link and its potential benefits for data scientists, analysts, engineers, and fabric admins.

    This demo covers a range of topics, including:

    • Accessing and visualizing a Power BI report within a notebook
    • Exploring the list of reports in a workspace
    • Retrieving insights about tables and columns in a semantic model
    • Listing and comprehending measures within a semantic model
    • Visualizing and understanding table relationships
    • Utilizing semantic link for data access and manipulation

    Live Demos and Practical Demonstrations

    Our expert presenter, Stephanie Bruno, will lead live demonstrations and hands-on exercises to illustrate the practical applications of semantic link. The demos will encompass:

    • Creating a new notebook and connecting it to a workspace
    • Retrieving and visualizing reports within the notebook
    • Exploring tables, columns, and measures within a semantic model
    • Understanding and visualizing table relationships
    • Accessing and manipulating data using semantic link
    • Employing DAX magic to write and evaluate DAX expressions

    Throughout the workshop, we’ll showcase how semantic link empowers data scientists to access and utilize measures without the need to reconstruct complex logic. Additionally, we’ll highlight the seamless integration of semantic link with Python, facilitating efficient data manipulation and analysis.

    More where that came from

    If you like this type of training and content, join us over at Training.tips for 60+ hours of additional training.

  • Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Automatic Visual Objects with AI

    Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Automatic Visual Objects with AI

    Welcome to today’s tutorial where we’ll explore an exciting feature implemented to streamline your background creation process in Power BI. If you’ve ever found yourself spending too much time tweaking and aligning visual elements, this AI-powered solution will be a game-changer for you. This new feature continues to simplify the report visualization experience and open doors for other teams to decide on the visualizations, develop the look & feel, and pass off a pbip object to Data Engineers or BI Developers to easily add data into.

    If you prefer to follow along via video, you can check out the full walkthrough on the PowerBI.tips YouTube video here:

    Background

    Designing the look & feel of a report typically begins with tools like PowerPoint, Adobe XD, Illustrator, or Figma, where we craft our initial background designs. Whether simple boxes or intricate layouts, these designs serve as the canvas for our data stories. We decide what visuals we want, how many objects we want on a page, and how much real estate to assign. A lot of time is spent doing this. However, once you have this background image, you still have to create all the visual objects and nudge them into place.

    Introducing Visual Auto-Layout AI Feature

    Now, with the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator you now have a tool that can recognize these design elements and automatically generate visual objects, saving you precious time and effort!

    Step 1: Access the Power BI Theme Generator

    Navigate to the Power BI Theme Generator, where you can upload your background images. Its extremely easy to generate new pages, and quickly upload your image to each page.

    Step 2: Let AI Do the Heavy Lifting

    With a click of a button our AI auto-layout feature identifies the background elements and aligns visual objects accordingly. This means no more manual adjustments or tedious alignment tasks. You can do this on a page by page level OR have the Visuals AI generate all images on all pages with just a click of a button!

    Step 3: Customize Your Visualizations

    Once the visual objects are generated, all that’s left to do is select the visualizations you want to insert into each space. Enjoy the flexibility to choose the perfect visual representation for your data insights.

    Step 4: Download and Implement

    Getting this into a Power BI report is as easily as downloading the PBIX file. This file will contain all your customized background and visualizations. And as always, you can enhance your Theme file with any preconfigured setting just by adding that to your Theme Generator file. After that, just extract the files and open your Power BI report by opening the .pbip file. Voila! Your professionally designed background with perfectly aligned visuals is ready to add data to!

    Conclusion

    By leveraging the power of AI, you’ve not only saved valuable time but also unlocked new possibilities for creativity and efficiency in your data visualization journey. With this streamlined process, you can focus more on crafting compelling data stories and less on manual design tasks.

    I hope you found today’s tutorial insightful. Stay tuned for our next tutorial, where we’ll explore another exciting feature that enhances your Power BI experience. Until then, happy visualizing!

  • Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Gallery Project Copy & Edit

    Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Gallery Project Copy & Edit

    Introduction

    Welcome to today’s tutorial where we dive into the powerful capabilities of the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator. In this post, we won’t just download a project from the Gallery; instead, we’ll guide you through the process of copying and editing a project file using the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator. Today, we’ll focus on the Framed Orange theme to showcase the flexibility and customization options available.

    If you prefer to follow along via video, you can check out the full walkthrough on the PowerBI.tips YouTube video here:

    Step 1: Copy and Edit Project File

    Start by selecting the Framed Orange theme in the Power BI Tips+ Gallery. Click on “Copy and Edit” to open the project file. The Gallery project will open this project in your workspace and show you all the pages and visualizations in the Wireframe area.

    Step 2: Customizing Project

    Upon opening the file, you’ll notice wireframes representing the background and areas where visualizations will go. These project files contain all of the backgrounds, visuals and theme properties. In this case we have a palette and visualization properties set, so they are also imported. In our example, a gray border is applied to all visuals and a suite of colors is found in the palette.

    Step 3: Applying Changes

    Make changes to the project file as needed. In this tutorial, we’ll curve the edges of visualizations in the properties area, and bring in our own custom color palette. Easily add hex codes of your preferred colors to personalize the project.

    Step 4: Preselecting Visualizations

    As you navigate back to the Wireframes section you can see how easy it is to add the visuals to the predefined visual objects. You aren’t locked into these though and you can easily change the size and position. We’ve thought of that too! On Page 3 of this project, for instance, the project file has a large table.

    Instead of using that, you can choose from predefined templates of visual objects to easily apply to the background. This feature makes it easy to align and space visualizations appropriately.

    Pick the one that suites you best, and apply it to your background. Now that we have that, we can choose which visuals we want to add for easily dropping our data into.

    Setting up a background, and perfectly aligned visuals to create beautiful reports has never been easier!

    Step 5: Downloading the Modified pbip File

    Download the modified project file (pbip) file to your computer. Extract the files and open the PBI file in Power BI Desktop. You will see that all of our properties, new theme, and background are all applied to the report.

    Step 6: Adding Data

    Load your data or use a sample dataset to see the visualizations populated. Drag and drop or select visualizations to add your data into the pre-configured fields.

    Step 7: Exploring My Files Section

    Did you realize you missed a few properties or colors, or maybe wanted to add one more page? Not a problem, you can go back and tweak the project file any time you want, because its yours! Discover the My Files section in the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator, where you can explore and update all settings and properties for your current and future projects.

    Conclusion:

    With the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator, you can effortlessly customize and enhance your Power BI reports without spending large amounts of time tweaking all the visualization settings for every report you create. Use the Tips+ Theme Generator to create amazing templates to use over and over again!

    Stay tuned for our next tutorial, where we’ll delve into the exciting new AI features within the Power BI Tips+ Gallery. Elevate your reporting game with simplicity and efficiency!

  • Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Gallery Project Download for Easy Theme Solutions

    Tips+ Designer and Theme Generator Tutorial: Gallery Project Download for Easy Theme Solutions

    Welcome to today’s tutorial where we’ll explore the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator and its incredible features designed to streamline your Power BI report building experience. In this walkthrough, we’ll guide you through the process of getting started with the Power BI Tips+ Gallery, focusing on the Sunset theme. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to effortlessly integrate our pre-configured Gallery Projects into your Power BI reports. It doesn’t get easier than this!

    If you prefer to follow along via video, you can check out the full walkthrough on the PowerBI.tips YouTube video here:

    Step 1: To begin, head over to powerbi.tips and navigate to Tools > “Themes New” section. Select the “Gallery” and you will notice the collection of Gallery Projects (A Gallery Project is comprised of a background, theme, and Power BI visuals all in one package). Highlight the Sunset theme for today’s demonstration, and select the “download .pbip Project”

    This file includes everything you need to create or alter your Power BI report visual aesthetics. After the download is complete, extract all files to your directory of choice.

    Extract & Open the Project in Power BI Desktop

    Step 2: Open the .pbip File by double-clicking on it. This will automatically launch Power BI Desktop! Ready to start working on adding data to your report?

    Step 3: Load Data in Power BI Desktop. For this tutorial, we’ll use the financials dataset. Simply click on the desired dataset and load it into the report.

    Once we have the data loaded we can navigate to any of the pages. You will see that you already have a pre-configured background, visuals on the page, and a theme of colors that were created using the Tips+ Theme Generator!

    Apply Your Data

    Step 4: The report consists of overview tabs in yellow, red, pink, and purple, along with a dimensions tab. You can easily remove the initial description page to focus on your data. Because you already have visualizations aligned and on the report canvas, all you need to do is select the visual and click on the columns you want to add!

    Step 5: If a specific visualization doesn’t suit your needs, feel free to change its type as these are the standard Power BI visualizations. If something doesn’t align directly to your expectations, you can always adjust the properties, or change the theme itself in the Tips+ Theme Generator! We’ll walk through how to customize these pre-configured packages in our next tutorial. “Gallery – Customized Projects”

    Conclusion

    Congratulations! You’ve successfully integrated pre-configured Tips+ Gallery Project into your Power BI report using the Power BI Tips+ Theme Generator Gallery. This powerful tool simplifies the report-building process, saving you time and effort. Explore all the features available in the Tips+ Theme Generator to enhance the visual appeal of your reports effortlessly. Stay tuned for more tips and features in our upcoming tutorials. Happy reporting!

  • Designer: Use any Scrim from the Gallery when Building Wireframes

    Designer: Use any Scrim from the Gallery when Building Wireframes

    The Power BI Tips Theme Generator: Your Ultimate Theming Tool

    The Power BI Tips Theme Generator is the go-to resource for users aiming to create consistent looking Power BI reports and dashboards with minimal effort. It simplifies Theme building, even for those who lack a strong background in design or coding. It empowers any user to create stunning and consistent looking reports with ease.

    The Gallery Integration into Wireframes for Scrims is a feature designed to streamline the theme building process even further. It is particularly valuable for users who have invested time and effort in crafting their own themes. This feature brings the power of the Gallery background images (Scrims) into the Wireframes section. This allows users to access all the projects available in the Gallery! User can then select any, or all, of the background images to apply to their pages.

    Simplified Background and Page Creation

    The true magic of the Gallery Integration lies in its ability to simplify the creation of backgrounds and pages for your Power BI reports. Here’s how it works:

    1. Explore the Gallery: Start by browsing through the Gallery projects in the fly out. Each Gallery project offers unique backgrounds (Scrims).
    2. Select Your Desired Gallery Project: When you find a project that resonates with your vision, simply click on it.
    3. Add Background Images to My Scrims: From within the selected Gallery project, you can pull background images into My Scrims by selecting “Copy to My Scrims”.

    4. Effortless Application: With your background images in My Scrims, applying them to your reports is a breeze. You can choose to apply one image or add all the scrims by selecting the magic icon.

    It all depends on your design preferences.

    5. Automatic Page Creation: The Power BI Tips Theme Generator does the heavy lifting for you. When you apply the background images, it automatically creates the background pages for your report.

    The Power of Streamlined Theme Building

    The Gallery Integration in Wireframes for Scrims in the Power BI Tips Theme Generator is another unique feature built to empower you. You can effortlessly enhance your Theme projects with fresh backgrounds, ultimately saving you time and streamlining your Theme building process.

    Whether you’re a seasoned Power BI user or a newcomer to the world of data visualization, this feature offers a user-friendly, efficient solution for creating visually appealing Wireframes for your reports. The Gallery Integration combines the creative power of the Gallery into the Wireframe building process.

    So, if you’re ready to take your Power BI reports to the next level, check out this new feature in the Wireframes area. Streamline your design process, and create a visual narrative that speaks to your audience. Happy Theming!

  • Transforming Power BI Customization: Wire Frames in PowerBI.Tips Designer

    Transforming Power BI Customization: Wire Frames in PowerBI.Tips Designer

    Introducing the New PowerBI.Tips WireFrames Feature

    In the dynamic landscape of data visualization, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce the latest game-changing feature in the PowerBI.Tips Theme Generator: WireFrames! This innovation not only revolutionizes the way Power BI is customized but also opens doors for UI/UX teams and designers to interact with Power BI developers like never before.

    Unveiling WireFrames: Building the Future of Power BI Customization

    The PowerBI.Tips Theme Generator has always been synonymous with empowering users to create re-usable and tailor-made themes effortlessly. With the new WireFrames feature, we’re taking customization to an entirely new dimension. This feature is a dream come true for UI/UX teams and designers who want to streamline their workflow and create plug-and-play Power BI files. This takes the best of all the ideas behind PowerBI.Tips Scrims and Layouts and brings it all together into the Themes Generator!

    A Seamless Workflow: From Themes to Complete Visualizations

    Imagine a seamless workflow where you can not only create and apply a theme but also design the entire visualization layout – all in one go! With the WireFrames feature, you can choose a background, add visuals to it, customize the aesthetics, and download everything at once. This holistic approach transforms how Power BI files are designed, bridging the gap between design and data seamlessly.

    Exclusive Video Tutorial: Guiding You Through the Process

    To ensure you make the most of this groundbreaking feature, we’ve prepared this video tutorial. It walks you through every step of using WireFrames in the PowerBI.Tips Theme Generator. This tutorial showcases the simplicity and efficiency of the process, giving you a firsthand look at how you can elevate your Power BI customization game.

    Setting New Standards: Unparalleled Capabilities

    One of the most remarkable aspects of the PowerBI.Tips Theme Generator is that it remains unrivaled in the market. There simply are no other tools that offer the comprehensive range of features and capabilities that our platform does. The addition of WireFrames to the Theme Generator shows how dedicated we are to pushing the boundaries of what Power BI customization can be.

    Unlock the Full Potential with a Subscription

    In the ever-evolving world of data-driven insights, the PowerBI.Tips Theme Generator is a foundation for a successful visual outcome. Elevate your data visualizations, streamline your design process, and create truly impactful reports and dashboards that resonate with your audience. Embrace the future of Power BI customization today use the Theme Generator!

    Ready to take your Power BI experience to the next level? With a Tips+ subscription to the Theme Generator, you gain access to the full suite of Theme Generator capabilities.

    #PowerBI #DataVisualization #ThemeGenerator #UIUX #Design #PowerBItips #WireFrames

  • Unlock Your Creativity with the Power BI Tips Designer: Exciting New Features!

    Unlock Your Creativity with the Power BI Tips Designer: Exciting New Features!

    At Power BI Tips, we’re committed to providing you with the best tools and resources to enhance your report building experience. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce a range of exciting new features to the Power BI Tips Theme Generator! With these new additions, we’re taking theme customization to a whole new level and empowering you to create consistent, visually stunning reports and dashboards like never before.

    Introducing the Color Wheel:

    We understand that choosing the perfect colors for your visualizations can be a challenging task. That’s why we’ve integrated a brand-new color wheel into the Theme Generator. Now, you can effortlessly explore an extensive range of colors and find the perfect palette that aligns with your brand or design preferences. The Color Wheel feature makes it easy to experiment with different color combinations, ensuring your visualizations are visually striking and impactful.

    Enhanced Gradient Selections:

    Gradients add depth and visual interest to your reports and dashboards. With our enhanced gradient selections, you can now choose from a wide array of gradient styles to create eye-catching visualizations. Whether you prefer subtle transitions or bold color shifts, the Power BI Tips Theme Generator has you covered. Unleash your creativity and elevate your designs with stunning gradient effects.

    Customizable Icons:

    Icons are an essential element of any table or matrix, providing visual cues and enhancing the overall user experience. Now, with the Power BI Tips Theme Generator, you can not only choose from a vast library of icons but also customize their colors to match your theme perfectly. Seamlessly integrate icons into your visualizations and make them more engaging and intuitive for your audience. Build fully customized experiences with over 8,000 icons to choose from.

    Upload and Apply Theme Files:

    We’ve listened to your feedback, and we’re excited to introduce the ability to upload and apply theme files within the Power BI Tips Theme Generator. If you have existing theme files or want to try out themes created by others, simply upload them and see the magic unfold. This feature allows for seamless collaboration, sharing of themes, and easy updates saving you valuable time and effort. Themes are easily uploaded and validated against the new Microsoft specifications. Issues and code bugs are highlighted by row and easily discoverable in the Code Editor.

    Introducing the Code Editor:

    Advanced users and developers are going to be thrilled with the new Code Editor feature. With this powerful tool, you can now dive deep into the code behind your themes and make intricate customizations. This level of control gives you the flexibility to fine-tune every aspect of your theme and create truly unique and tailored designs.

    Unlock the Full Potential with Tips+ Themes Subscription:

    Some of these exciting new features are only available by signing up for the Tips+ Themes subscription. With this subscription, you gain access to the entire suite of advanced features. This includes access to all Customizable Icons, Upload and Verify Theme Files, and the Code Editor. The Themes Generator is designed to supercharge your creativity and streamline your theme creation process. Elevate your reports, captivate your audience, and have confidence that all your reports will look amazing.

    Buy some fun Swag

  • Business Ops: New and Updated External Tools

    Business Ops: New and Updated External Tools

    Howdy, folks!

    This past weekend, I was a man on a mission. There were two pressing reasons for a new release of Business Ops:

    1. The authors of many popular External Tools released updates recently, so we needed to ship a new version of Business Ops with those updates included
    2. Last week, Michael Kovalsky (ElegantBI.com) released a brand new External Tool called Report Analyzer (which we can already tell will be an instant classic), so we wanted to get it out there and into the hands of report developers ASAP

    So, I toiled away most of the day on Sunday, cramming as much value as I could into the next version. And along the way, I learned some important new software development skills, including how to:

    • Extract the contents of an MSI installer file
    • Encode an image in base64
    • Roll back your latest commits when you accidentally push to Main instead of a Dev branch (sorry, Mike! ?)

    TL;DR: Here’s the skinny on Business Ops 2.0.3

    New External Tool:

    Updated External Tools:

    Click here to download Business Ops 2.0.3

    Have a great week, everyone!

    James

    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 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:

    Hasta La Vista Data
    Go Ahead Make My Data
    PBIX Hat


  • Business Ops Update: Bugfix

    Business Ops Update: Bugfix

    UPDATE: All downloads for business ops has moved to github releases page dedicated to this project here: https://github.com/MikeCarlo/BusinessOps/releases

    Howdy folks!

    We have just published a bugfix release for Business Ops; Version 2.0.2 is now available for download. Please see the instructions below for details.

    Instructions

    If you have installed Business Ops 2.0 or 2.0.1, you should use the “Edit External Tools” menu to remove the External Tools you have installed, then close and uninstall Business Ops.

    Then, just download and install the latest version of Business Ops, and reinstall your favorite External Tools. That’s it!

    What Happened?

    In previous versions of Business Ops, its installation path was C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Programs\pbi-tips-business-ops\, which could be accessed by any process running on the machine. This struck us as somewhat insecure, so we decided to beef up the security. When we released Business Ops 2.0, we changed the installation path to C:\Program Files\PowerBI.tips Business Ops\, which requires elevated permissions to modify any files inside. This change increased the security of Business Ops, but those of you who are familiar with how file paths work can probably guess how it also had some other, unintended consequences. For those who aren’t, here’s what happened:

    The installation path in previous versions did not have any spaces in it, and everything was working fine. But when we changed the installation path to one that includes spaces, several of the included External Tools in Business Ops stopped working. This wasn’t immediately obvious because it only affected the handful of External Tools which launch a PowerShell script by calling its absolute path. Once we identified the cause of the issue, the fix was pretty straightforward, and we got everything working again.

    Thanks for reading!

    James

    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:

    Check out the new Merch!

    Hasta La Vista Data
    Go Ahead Make My Data
    PBIX Hat
  • Copy Power BI Desktop Server:Port Connection String to Clipboard

    Copy Power BI Desktop Server:Port Connection String to Clipboard

    Howdy, folks!

    A few months ago, I was writing and running various PowerShell scripts to manipulate the connected data models in my Power BI Desktop files. During model development, I was constantly having to open DAX Studio to copy the Server:Port connection string, and thinking, “there’s got to be a faster way to do this.”

    So, I developed and released a simple External Tool for Power BI Desktop, which copies the Server:Port connection string for the currently-connected data model directly to the clipboard.

    I’m a strong believer in modular design, so when I build something, I try to make it do one thing, and do it well. I believe this External Tool for Power BI Desktop is a great example of that philosophy in action.

    This external tool is now in the Business Ops tool from PowerBI.tips.

    Enjoy!

    James

    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:

    Check out the new Merch!

    Hasta La Vista Data
    Go Ahead Make My Data
    PBIX Hat