DEV Community: David Abu

Enterprise Power BI Series

David Abu — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 11:43:59 +0000

This PowerBI Everywhere series discusses how to use Power BI to analyze data. The first video discusses how to use Azure SQL data sources with Power BI. The last video discusses how to use data governance to ensure that data is properly analyzed.

Before we delve into each series, there is a Microsoft Learn content that helps you understand the data platform, I suggest you read and practice it as it will give you a lot of contexts to what different Microsoft technologies offers, click here.

The Azure SQL and Power BI: This video series discusses how Power BI and SQL Server work better together, starting with how to connect a Power BI Desktop to a SQL Server database. Christopher discusses different scaling techniques for Power BI reports, including how to scale with Azure Synapse. The presenter shows how to connect to a SQL Server database from Power BI Desktop. He also shows how to connect to a different data source, such as an e-commerce website.
Dataverse and Power BI Synergy : This video discusses the Power BI and Dataverse synergy. Two ways to integrate data from Dataverse into Power BI are discussed: direct query and import mode. Direct query is faster, but data from Dataverse cannot be cached. Import mode is more versatile but requires knowledge of Power BI's Vertapack engine. In this video, Scott Sewell introduces himself and discusses the role of a product manager on the Power BI team. He goes on to discuss how dataverse (an application built on top of Power Apps) evolved to become its own platform. He concludes the video by sharing some examples of Power BI applications that use dataverse.

Empower Enterprise Analytics with Composite Model in Power BI: This video series discusses how to use Power BI to analyze data. The first video discusses how to use the composite model to combine different data sources. The last video discusses how to use data governance to ensure that data is properly analyzed. In this video, Marco demonstrates how to create a power bi report from a PBX file, and how to use a semantic model to navigate and analyze the data. The user also shows how to connect to another user's power bi data set and create a report.

Purview, Azure Synapse and Power BI: This video provides an overview of how to use Power BI to load and visualize data from Azure Synapse. It covers data ingestion, transformation, and visualizations. Josh discusses h ow to use Power BI to visualize data from different sources in Azure Synapse. They will be working on a demo of synapse and power bi integration. The Azure Synapse Analytics workspace provides a centralized interface for data storage and data processing, with an extensible architecture that enables integration of commonly used data stores and visualizing tools. Azure Synapse Studio is the tool used for data management and data transformation in Azure Synapse Analytics.

Power BI Everywhere Series

David Abu — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 09:24:03 +0000

Building enterprise solutions can be difficult when you need to understand the different processes, layers and technicalities involved.

Microsoft last year introduced the Intelligence Data Platform to help organizations/analysts accelerate innovations, achieve agility, and build on a trusted platform and we want to dive into it.

How do we build enterprise solutions from the world of Microsoft Technologies? We will explore that through the lens and technical knowledge of the best data professionals within the ecosystem.

Marco Russo, Christopher Maneu, Scott Sewell and Josh Ndemenge will help us navigated the world of Purview, Power BI, Azure SQL and Dataverse to build scalable solutions.

To register: https://aka.ms/PowerBIEverywhere

Watch the sessions on Demand

Episode 1. 30th Jan 2023 (Click on the picture to watch)

Episode 2. 1st Feb 2023 (Click on the picture to watch)

To Register for other sessions: aka.ms/POWERBIEVERYWHERE

To join the challenge and win vouchers

Register for the challenge: https://aka.ms/AzureED
Start your challenge: https://aka.ms/AzureEDReg

Power BI Everywhere

David Abu — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 09:21:59 +0000

Building enterprise solutions can be difficult when you need to understand the different processes, layers and technicalities involved.

Microsoft last year introduced the Intelligence Data Platform to help organizations/analysts accelerate innovations, achieve agility, and build on a trusted platform and we want to dive into it.

How do we build enterprise solutions from the world of Microsoft Technologies? We will explore that through the lens and technical knowledge of the best data professionals within the ecosystem.

Marco Russo, Christopher Maneu, Scott Sewell and Josh Ndemenge will help us navigated the world of Purview, Power BI, Azure SQL and Dataverse to build scalable solutions.

To register: https://aka.ms/PowerBIEverywhere

Watch the sessions on Demand

Episode 1. 30th Jan 2023 (Click on the picture to watch)

Episode 2. 1st Feb 2023 (Click on the picture to watch)

To Register for other sessions: aka.ms/POWERBIEVERYWHERE

To join the challenge and win vouchers

Register for the challenge: https://aka.ms/AzureED
Start your challenge: https://aka.ms/AzureEDReg

How to Learn Power BI

David Abu — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:16:03 +0000

A lot of questions on how to get started with Power BI, and I keep on sending the same links repeatedly😢. I will be sharing all the links from videos to written contents.

Power BI is a big data and visualization tool that is connected to different products within the Microsoft technologies. Power BI is part of the Power Platform team of applications, others are Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents. To learn about them, read my article:https://dev.to/davidabu/what-is-power-platform-19ng.

Do you want to understand the fundamentals of Power Platform? https://bit.ly/PPBootcamp21

Now let’s go to the learning proper

The first place to check when you decide to learn Power BI is the Microsoft Learn. Microsoft Learn is like the university library of Microsoft and it houses all products tutorials you will need to get started in your Power BI journey. The first link is https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/powerplatform/power-bi.

There are 3 collections which you might want to study

Getting Started with Power BI : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/users/microsoftpowerplatform-5978/collections/k8xidwwnzk1em
Become a Data Analyst: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/users/microsoftpowerplatform-5978/collections/djwu3eywpk4nm. There are 6 learning pathways and this learning paths helps you sit for your DA100 exams.
a. Get Started with Microsoft data analytics
b. Prepare data for analysis
c. Model data in Power BI
d. Visualize data in Power BI
e. Data analysis In Power BI
f. Manage workspaces and datasets in Power BI
Develop with Power Platform: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/users/microsoftpowerplatform-5978/collections/z7mudqge07y12

The Power BI tutorial on Microsoft Learn currently has 5 learning paths

Consume data with Power BI : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/consume-data-with-power-bi/
Create and use analytics reports with Power BI: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/create-use-analytics-reports-power-bi/
Get Started with Microsoft data analytics : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/data-analytics-microsoft/
Introduction to developing with Microsoft Power Platform: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/intro-developing-power-platform/
Use DAX in Power BI desktop : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/dax-power-bi/ This module is important to do, don’t miss it https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/build-your-first-power-bi-report/

There are two ways to download Power BI desktop on your system:

Through Microsoft Store
Click on the link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494

Now let’s go to video contents

Microsoft has a dedicated YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy--PYvwBwAeuYaR8JLmrfg , you need to follow and turn on notification. Click on the playlist and you will see all the contents you need to get started, some of the playlists are

Power BI Desktop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMAsitQ2cAc&list=PL1N57mwBHtN2q1WbU5O29rrn_A0lkVv9p
Getting Started with Power BI service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rh_qSK-UKQ&list=PL1N57mwBHtN0tyk_tTM3t4XR5SPh4cJO1
Power BI Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHkMfPtmfyE&list=PL1N57mwBHtN0e-wvgVmrnn3Yd_WU7EHM-
Analyze and Visualize Data with Power BI : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c01r_pAZdk&list=PL1N57mwBHtN0JFoKSR0n-tBkUJHeMP2cP
General Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ppMYaNkm4&list=PL1N57mwBHtN0PwWZ8i6VqJzV9S20QYhZ2

You can follow YouTube channels, some are

David Abu: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZjkOIDOiTtBNvZWPuWklJQ
Guy in a cube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFp1vaKzpfvoGai0vE5VJ0w

Power BI documentation :https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/

Power bi support: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/

Understanding Power Platform?

David Abu — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 08:34:29 +0000

A lot of people checked my Twitter and LinkedIn profile and ask what is Power Platform? So after numerous feedbacks, I thought it will be nice to write about what Power Platform is and what we use it for.

What is Power Platform?
Power Platform is a system that enables users to do four key actions on data that help them drive business: gain insights from data (Analyze), drive intelligent business processes via apps they build (Act), automate business processes (Automate), improve customer engagement via chatbots(Engagement).

Power Platform is comprised of four key products/tools : Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI and Power Virtual Agents.

Power BI (Business Intelligence) is a business analytics service that delivers insights for analyzing data. It can share those insights through data visualizations which make up reports and dashboards to enable fast, informed decisions. You can consider Power BI as the analysis and insights leg of the Power Platform. It takes business data and allows you to display it in ways that makes the most sense to users.
Power Apps is the creation of low code applications that you build for business purposes. It has services, connectors, and a scalable data service and app platform (Common Data Service) to allow simple integration and interaction with existing data. There are little or low code which you need in creating an application. Simple applications like attendance app, employee app, to complex apps like emergency hospital application.
Power Automate lets users create automated workflows between applications and services. It helps automate repetitive business processes such as communication, data collections, and decision approvals. This help reduce the human involvement in a business process. Approval mails can be automated. Power Automate’s simple interface allows every level of user to automate work tasks from beginners to seasoned developers.
Power Virtual Agents enables anyone to create powerful chatbots using a guided, no-code graphical interface, without the need for data scientists or developers. It eliminates the gap between subject matter experts and the development teams building the chatbots. Power Virtual Agents. Users can enable bots to perform an action by simply calling a Power Automate flow

Power Automate help users automate activities or call back end systems. Users can utilize existing flows that have been created in their Power Apps environment or they can create a flow within Power Virtual Agents authoring canvas.

To learn about Power Platform https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/powerplatform/