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I just reread & noticed that in my excitement that someone wanted, or needed, to talk about Power BI I neglected to read carefully enough that you said non development work.😳 Sorry. Offer stands, message if you need help, I use it every day. It’s only as good as your source data & model, make sure your gang is cleaning the data during ETL so you’ve got good stuff to work with. Make sure you’ve got test scripts or artifacts to use for validation though as you’re making new reports, & I’d ask them to to provided daily scorecards comparing source data record counts to your warehouse so you know everything is getting loaded.
Thanks again. I understood about 25% which is all I can probably ever hope for.

While I’m an end user, I’d rather at least have an understanding ding of how the simple shit works so I can at least speak somewhat knowledgeably (I.e. translate really) to the IT folks I’ve worked with over the years.

Plus I just like saying “look Ma I made a graph. Come look!”
 
@JamieDimonsBalls @twenty02 and anyone else if you're a user.

I am not a user, but several of my clients are. I've found BI to be great for synthesizing large amounts of data, often across multiple software platforms, and presenting real-time reporting that improves decision-making.

That being said, to really be a really good user, you likely have to invest the time. There are some Youtube channels that have 8-10 hour-long tutorials, but I've also heard good things about Coursera

 
Good Afternoon. I am old and need to learn how to better use Power BI (non development work). Company i work for is standing up a data warehouse and the only connection will be through Power BI (so far).

I am a pretty ****ing good excel jockey. Yes, i know Power BI is a completely different animal but I have a better than average understanidng of how relational tables work, etc. Additionally, at this point in my life this probably gets me more chuffed than Penthouse.

Please point me to all your favorite YouTube University channels, articles, gurus, whatevers that you've found useful.

@JamieDimonsBalls @twenty02 and anyone else if you're a user.

Thanks in advance.

We have a systems team that does that stuff, not really my expertise. They've been using BI a bit.

I am at best mid at Excel. Can throw some stuff together... Such as some basic dashboards that are linked to SharePoint data, etc...

Usually just dig around YouTube when necessary to figure something out. I at least know most of JDBs keyboard shortcuts. Though didn't see 'Ctrl + T' on there for converting data into tables which I use a lot. Good luck.
 
I am not a user, but several of my clients are. I've found BI to be great for synthesizing large amounts of data, often across multiple software platforms, and presenting real-time reporting that improves decision-making.

Semi-serious question: When it's all said and done, doesn't someone have to sack up and make a decision? How much of all this data synthesizing bullshit is really necessary, and how much is just CYA?
 
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I am not a user, but several of my clients are. I've found BI to be great for synthesizing large amounts of data, often across multiple software platforms, and presenting real-time reporting that improves decision-making.

That being said, to really be a really good user, you likely have to invest the time. There are some Youtube channels that have 8-10 hour-long tutorials, but I've also heard good things about Coursera

Thanks. This is actually precisely what I was looking for.
 
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Why is there smoke coming out of my machine and my IT people callign me on the phne ???? ! ! ! !MARRRRRRRRRRRRRK
 
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We have a systems team that does that stuff, not really my expertise. They've been using BI a bit.

I am at best mid at Excel. Can throw some stuff together... Such as some basic dashboards that are linked to SharePoint data, etc...

Usually just dig around YouTube when necessary to figure something out. I at least know most of JDBs keyboard shortcuts. Though didn't see 'Ctrl + T' on there for converting data into tables which I use a lot. Good luck.

I used to be good when life was just full of If(AND) or Sumif statements. IndexMatch and some of the newer functions have gone over me since I am no longer as active a user.
 
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Semi-serious question: When it's all said and done, doesn't someone have to sack up and make a decision? How much of all this data synthesizing bullshit is really necessary, and how much is just CYA?

It's more of a new school way of doing things, but intuitively, having real time feedback is generally better for making better, quicker decisions. Good operators can still tell how things are doing based on feel in plenty of cases, but it knowing if you are performing at an A level vs. A- is still quite valuable if you are an exec.

Some of the best use cases are monitoring operational KPIs around quality, production/output, etc. You could certainly do it before, but BI makes it easier to see trends and spot issues and also is able to link to multiple software systems (ERP to financial reporting, for example).
 
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If you use a mouse in Excel...

christmas%2Bgif.gif


I'll respond with a longer answer tonight.
Are you one of those ****s that taps the keyboard as loud as humanly possible? I hate those guys.
 
MY company is trying to upgrade to some space age shit rev of Salesforce. As the old man around I am pushing back about change (just because) although we are having some serious trouble with some interfaces that are in place.
After my weighted push back, we call Sales force to work on the issues.. Their response .... "WOW that is a really old version, and I don't think anyone in the salesforce company even knows that code anymore".
My response, "sounds like a good time for you to hire some back as contractors, now fix my shit" !

Power BI, it's probably a fade. It's pass by soon. :)
I've got a buddy in Chicago who has spent the last 20+ years maintaining legacy COBOL systems. Makes a damn good living at it. I should have done that, but NOOOOO...... I had to go with SAP and ruin my health.
 
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Just a few off the top of my head…
Make a template for both report visuals & development processes. This way your reports will look the same across the organization & you won’t miss steps in creating them either. We use Azure DevOps for tracking projects, tasks, etc. I don’t want to be insulting but have no idea what your company has set up, but we develop & publish all reports & semantic models to Test & QA environments for validation before publishing to Production environments.

At some point you’ll need to start using DAX, which you may already be in Excel. Go to Bing, use Copilot to write it for you. (Unless you are getting a Premium license, then CoPilot is built in. Just be careful, if not everyone has Premium some of the report features you build in will not be available to them)

I like having my DBA’s use Star Schemas, with effective use of Fact & Dimension tables you’ll be able to build more versatile Semantic Models with more slicers & filtering.

Make a Data Dictionary table to store definitions of your measures, seems silly but you’ll be glad as you compile dozens of measures that you have them defined. Speaking of measures, save them in your Semantic Model, then you can use them in multiple reports.

There are Power BI summits every year, lots of great sessions & you can buy the recordings for @$100. I recommend these. I think RadaCad offers past years sessions.

I’ve had to oversee our development of our Data Warehouse in Azure & report development in PowerBI, message me if you have questions…

Edit: for templates, when I say look the same, I don’t mean same visuals on every page or report, just company logos, color scheme, fonts, etc…
Mic drop!
 
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Thanks again. I understood about 25% which is all I can probably ever hope for.

While I’m an end user, I’d rather at least have an understanding ding of how the simple shit works so I can at least speak somewhat knowledgeably (I.e. translate really) to the IT folks I’ve worked with over the years.
Just tell them "I've got a guy......"
 
Good Afternoon. I am old and need to learn how to better use Power BI (non development work). Company i work for is standing up a data warehouse and the only connection will be through Power BI (so far).

I am a pretty ****ing good excel jockey. Yes, i know Power BI is a completely different animal but I have a better than average understanidng of how relational tables work, etc. Additionally, at this point in my life this probably gets me more chuffed than Penthouse.

Please point me to all your favorite YouTube University channels, articles, gurus, whatevers that you've found useful.

@JamieDimonsBalls @twenty02 and anyone else if you're a user.

Thanks in advance.
You damn kids....... way back in the 80s/early 90s, we had to actually write programs to extract data to present it a certain way.

I used to sit in endless meetings while the Director and his minions would figure out what data they needed. Then I'd have to go back and write a program to do it and, of course, they wanted it the next morning. I spent many evenings doing that.

One night, I'm sitting at my desk, whipping out code, and I feel someone standing behind me - it was the damn Director of Logistics standing behind me, watching me. He looked at the code, shook his head, and walked away.
 
You damn kids....... way back in the 80s/early 90s, we had to actually write programs to extract data to present it a certain way.

I used to sit in endless meetings while the Director and his minions would figure out what data they needed. Then I'd have to go back and write a program to do it and, of course, they wanted it the next morning. I spent many evenings doing that.

One night, I'm sitting at my desk, whipping out code, and I feel someone standing behind me - it was the damn Director of Logistics standing behind me, watching me. He looked at the code, shook his head, and walked away.
I’ve learned a lot over the years but like electrical and plumbing, I leave IT to the experts. However it seems clear I will be able to connect some pretty disconnected data sources to eliminate a bunch of routine manual reporting/dashboarding I do today.

So, yay.
 
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It's more of a new school way of doing things, but intuitively, having real time feedback is generally better for making better, quicker decisions. Good operators can still tell how things are doing based on feel in plenty of cases, but it knowing if you are performing at an A level vs. A- is still quite valuable if you are an exec.

Some of the best use cases are monitoring operational KPIs around quality, production/output, etc. You could certainly do it before, but BI makes it easier to see trends and spot issues and also is able to link to multiple software systems (ERP to financial reporting, for example).
Seriously, what the **** are you guys even talking about???

There will be none of this shit on the Mountain, Lars. Understood?
 
What the **** is a XLookup

New capability in office 365 / Excel 21. We got it about a year ago and use it now instead of index match.

 
New capability in office 365 / Excel 21. We got it about a year ago and use it now instead of index match.

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