Ready to create modern reports using SharePoint as a data source? If so, then once again, you’ve come to the right place. For those familiar with SharePoint, you know that SharePoint offers many different data store types, including SharePoint lists, SharePoint libraries, and documents (such as Excel files stored in SharePoint that contain data within them). And where there is data, there is a need to report on it in order for you to uncover…
If you have ever used SharePoint lists before, you know they provide a very simple way for users to store and share list-based items. Simple text and number fields are straightforward, but complex field types in SharePoint (such as lookups, managed metadata, rich text, locations, etc) can present several reporting challenges that SharePoint by itself can’t solve. This is where Microsoft Power BI comes into the picture. Power BI provides specific tools to aid with…
If you’re ready to build modern dashboards in SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint Server, then you’ve come to the right place. For more than a decade, SharePoint has been the platform of choice for business intelligence dashboards, originally leveraging features like Power Pivot for SharePoint, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), and PerformancePoint. Fast forward to 2019, and SharePoint can seamlessly bring content together from Power BI, Excel, and many other data sources into rich…
Businesses are generating more data than ever before. That data is now connected and available to almost every part of each organization. And all of that data offers great opportunities. Taking advantage of those opportunities, however, requires the ability to access, analyze, and use that data. Traditionally, creating reports and applications to do just that fell into the hands of a few specialists and developers. Each specialist created their own piece of the technical solution,…
Microsoft Power BI, or Business Intelligence, is a business analytics offering from Microsoft that provides a quick, easy, powerful way to analyze and display your data without breaking the bank and without spending hours coming up to speed on a complex new analytics tool. In this article, we are going to explore 6 key benefits of Microsoft Power BI that you absolutely must know, as using Power BI will provide business intelligence like you have…
In our previous blog post entitled Free Ebook: Supercharge Your Apps with Embedded Analytics, we explored the vast benefits of leveraging embedded analytics in your custom apps. By embedding analytics directly in your applications (rather than having your users go to a separate system or dashboard to access them), you not only make your end users’ lives much easier, but you also increase your application adoption and overall end user satisfaction. And what better way…
The way in which we use and interact with data has dramatically changed over the years. Originally, we leveraged static pictures and charts that captured a one-time snapshot of our data. But this is no long sufficient, as static visualizations only provide a historical view at a single point in time. Instead, interactive visualizations and real-time reports are now the demanded norm needed to turn massive volumes of data into immediate, actionable insights. But there…
One of the best parts of my job as a Business Intelligence (BI) consultant is what happens when Imaginet engages with a new BI customer. In many cases, our first engagement with a customer who is challenged by their BI and/or reporting capabilities is our Imaginet PowerBI Quick Start. This is typically a one or two week intensive engagement where an Imaginet Business Intelligence consultant (like me) embeds themselves into a team within an organization…
Power Query Function for Dense Ranking Recently I was having issues writing a measure in DAX to rank items properly (not an issue with the DAX, but in my understanding of the DAX). I did some searching and came across Chris Webb’s article that had a nice implementation of ranking using Power Query. The technique he proposed uses Power Query to: sort a table by the column you want to rank by, add an index column…
Power Query for Azure Tables and Updating Column Names I recently did some PowerBI work using Azure Table Storage. In the query editor, it seemed that each table I pulled in from Azure Tables had a very similar process.: Get the list of tables available for the storage account. Select a table Select the Content of the table (excluding the RowKey, PartitionKey, and timestamp columns) Expand the columns in the Content Rename the columns Azure…
