FREE #PowerBI Webinar @PragmaticWorks Training on the T's Tomorrow!

I'll be doing a new session, "Introduction to Power BI Designer" tomorrow at 11am ET as part of the Pragmatic Works Training on the T's series of FREE webinars! Please register at the link above and see how the new Power BI Designer that is currently in preview works and what I expect it means for the future of BI at Microsoft (I even do a little bit of a look back for those that aren't up on the latest with Power BI).

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the session tomorrow morning. Look for another post later this week with the link to the slides and answering any questions from the session that I don't get to in the session.

Update 5/4 - Thanks to everyone that attended this session on 4/23, below are some of the questions that I didn't get a chance to answer during the webinar.

Can data refresh be scheduled?
With the new Power BI it will depend on which level you subscribe to. For the free version you can schedule refreshes only once a day, but the Pro level will allow you to schedule updates for every hour.

You demo'd the Power BI Designer desktop application, is there an online web-based version?
Yes, they are planning on making a web version available on PowerBI.com at the time of release. This is my guess is to why the roll out of features in Power BI Designer has been a bit slower, because they are making sure that all of this code can be run on both the desktop and web applications.

Power BI Designer Preview is only available as a 64bit application, will there be a 32bit version?
No, Microsoft has made it clear that a lot of the issues with the current Power BI Excel add-ons being allowed to run in 32bit. 64bit gives the stability to run the millions/billions of rows of data in the application in memory.

What is the difference between Power Query and Power BI Designer?
Power Query is the add-on that currently runs in Excel only. For Power BI Designer Microsoft is taking much of the functionality from Power Query and integrating it into that tool. In the end Microsoft will probably stop updating Power Query for Excel and make the newest versions only work in Power BI Designer, this is already apparent in some of the SaaS sources that they are adding which are all not available in Power Query.

What data types are supported in Power BI Designer?
The types available are changing with new versions of the Power BI Designer, but as of the April 2015 release, this link provides the full list and some great detail on how to convert between them in DAX (thanks to the attendee that posted this link in the chat).

How is security managed?
Microsoft is saying right now that the full version will support integration with Active Directory, what we have not heard is if that is on-premise and/or Azure. As of right now the only source that fully works with built in security is when you use a SSAS Tabular model and the Power BI Analysis Services Connector Preview. I would assume that in future updates before release that this connector will be upgraded to work with SSAS Multi-Dimensional models as well, but there is no timetable on when that will be. With some of the announcements at Microsoft Ignite today, I can see how the new Azure services for integration with Active Directory will be used to fill in this gap in some way.

Can you clarify what can be done locally at no cost and what?
When you use Power BI Designer you can use all of the sources that it currently connects to as long as you are able to access those sources (for SQL Server you will need to be on the same domain or be able to access them). All of the manipulations of the data that you do to those sources (remove columns, rename columns, merge datasets together) is all stored and is repeatable as it is stored in the M language. This will allow you to update locally in Power BI Designer as much as you want inside the application (that might change when the full version is released). You can build reports on those models that you create, there is no limit to the number of reports you can build (at least currently). Once you have all of that setup the way that you want it can be saved to your local file system as a PBIX file and that file can be shared with others and viewed/updated in the Power BI Designer as long as they also have the required access to the data sources you setup. As far as we know that is all going to be free. It is only when you need to push the solution up to the PowerBI.com site that you start getting into being charged and if you need to have the refresh of data scheduled once they are deployed to the web. As far as I know you can pass around PBIX files to anyone and as long as they have Power BI Designer and access to those data sources you can use it for free!

Can the Power BI reports be imported into SharePoint?
Unknown at this time, I don't think that Microsoft is going to forget about allowing this kind of BI/Analytics in SharePoint. I would not be surprised if by the full release they have a way to deploy these PBIX solutions into SharePoint in some way. Or a 3rd party vendor will find a way to parse the XML in the PBIX file and make that happen.

How is it different from SSIS?
Power BI Designer does not have all of the functionality that SSIS has, by design. Power BI Designer is meant for more of Business Analyst/Power User role. I expect over time that more a more functionality will be added to Power BI Designer to the point that it can do 90+% of what SSIS does, so then only the really complex ETL will need to be passed on to IT to do it in SSIS.

Can we connect to SAP DATA and other data providers?
Microsoft is constantly adding new built-in connectors for different databases so it is very possible. If that data source can be connected to via ODBC, that is a built-in provider that could be used as well.

Can you use multiple data sources in the same project?
Definitely! That is one of the major benefits of using this tool is that you can pull data in from as many different sources as you want and then join them together as required. As time goes on they should be able to do better auto-detection of the joins between data sources like Power Query can do today.

Can you import web data and then after making the changes upload to your own SQL Server?
There is no out of the box way to do that type of export in Power BI Designer today, but if you used the current Power Query Excel add-on then you could make the necessary updates to the data from multiple sources and then either import the resulting data via Excel/CSV exports or just upload the model created as an SSAS Tabular model. At this point we don't know if there will be the ability to create the model in Power BI Designer and upload the model into SSAS Tabular or not, but I would not be surprised to see that in the full release.

We are looking at using this for some very confidential data. How can I use this internally and not push anything out to the world?
If you want to share the PBIX files from Power BI Designer, that will work for moving the data/reports around internally. There is no requirement to use the PowerBI.com website and that is where the costs come into play as well. Not sure about future plans to integrate with SharePoint, but I would assume that is coming as well.

Thanks again to those that attended this webinar, I will continue to update this post when videos are posted. If you want to replay the entire webinar, just go to this link on the Pragmatic Works site. Thanks also to Pragmatic Works for letting me do this webinar!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Seems like only a little while ago that I posted on this blog about moving on to work at Pragmatic Works, but it has now been over 2 years! It has been an amazing 2 years and probably the most challenging time in my entire career. Over the last 2 years I've had the chance that I think many would love to have working with some of the best in the SQL community and doing some really cool stuff for many different clients.

I decided recently that I was having some issues with the amount of travel that I was doing, especially to the East coast. While it is great that I have had the opportunity to see my Dad twice in the last 6 months because of travel to the East coast (he lives in Philadelphia) it is very draining on me and my family. So, I started looking for something local in Denver. I wanted to stay in consulting, if possible as I really love to see different client environments on a regular basis that challenge me to learn with each new client. I also needed to work for a company that understands being involved in the SQL community and backs it up with more than just words.

With that criteria I was able to get a new consulting position with RevGen Partners! I know a bunch of people that currently work and previously worked for them, so it was easy for me to judge how good of a company they are from them. I'm starting with them Monday and looking forward to starting a new adventure. I'm also hoping that I can keep up with all of my friends/co-workers at Pragmatic Works especially the ones that I will see at other SQL events in the future. Thanks to Brian, Adam, Mike and Bradley and many others for an amazing 2 years and I know that I will be seeing each of you again.

SQLSaturday #215 - Jacksonville, FL

Just a quick announcement that I have been selected to present at SQLSaturday #215 in Jacksonville, FL on April 27th!

Looking forward to hanging out with my Pragmatic Works colleagues again and see all of the attendees at the event. For more information on the event, please visit their page and make sure you register, because space is limited and it is FREE! SQLSaturday's are held all around the world and there are usually multiple events going on at the same time in various locations, if Jacksonville is not convenient, make sure you check out the SQLSaturday site for other locations and dates.

Currently I'm scheduled to present "ABCs of CDC with SSIS 2012" in BI Room 1402 @ 1:15pm, but that schedule may change so make sure to check the schedule on the site.

SQL Saturday

Wanted to put out a quick post that I have not had the time to put up until now. If you are going to be in the Denver, CO area around September 22, 2012 I would encourage you to register for a day of SQL Server technical training given by many local and national speakers. Yes, that's right we are doing SQL Saturday #169 at the same location as 2010, Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church (10150 E Belleview Ave., Greenwood Village, CO 80111).


We are asking that anyone that registers pay a $10 fee for lunch, this will help us to provide all attendees with a lunch that is not pizza and provide plenty of beverages throughout the event. Please register to attend and we look forward to seeing you there!


If you are a speaker, please submit your session abstracts on our Call for Speakers page. And if you are sponsor, please go to our Sponsors page to help us out!


I would also like to mention that Brian Knight, Founder of Pragmatic Works will be presenting a 2 day SSAS workshop on September 20-21 at the Denver Microsoft office (7595 Technology Way, Suite 400, Denver, CO 80237). If you are interested in attending that event, you can go to the Pragmatic Works registration page linked here. You will need to bring your own computer to that workshop with the SQL bits already installed along with AdventureWorks installed, more details can be found on the link above.

Also, in other SQL Saturday news I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #159 in Kansas City, MO on August 4, 2012. Looking forward to getting some great BBQ in Kansas City and presenting my "SSIS 2012: More Than Just a Pretty UI" session, so come see me if you are going to be at SQL Saturday #159!

I will post more on my presentation at SQL Saturday #159 and our own SQL Saturday #169 over the next few months!

New Beginnings, Part 2

Has it already been June of last year since I posted to my blog last? Time flies!

As I mentioned in my previous post I started a new job after 14 years at the same company, which was a very big step for me. After 8 months on the new job I realized it just wasn't exactly what I was promised or looking for at this time in my career. On President's Day weekend I saw a posting in LinkedIn for a Microsoft BI Consultant with Pragmatic Works and jumped at the chance to work for a premier Microsoft Business Intelligence consulting firm. To be honest at the time I didn't think that I had a chance at getting this position, not sure if it was low self-esteem or just feeling that I lacked certain skills, but I decided to try anyway. I was contacted immediately on President's Day and went through both the initial and technical interviews on that day. After a couple of weeks I  got an offer from Pragmatic Works!

For those that don't know Pragmatic Works is a very well known Microsoft BI/SQL Server consulting company based in Jacksonville, Florida. The company is built on a core of each employee giving something back to the community, which is how I got to know the company many years before even considering applying to work there. All of the consultants are encouraged to respond to questions in the MSDN and BIDN forums as well as blog and of course present at events throughout the world. This is one of the keys to why I wanted to work for Pragmatic Works, as I have started to contribute more of my time to the SQL Server community and wanted to make that as much a part of my career as everything else I do.

So, you may be asking, does that mean Steve is relocating to Jacksonville? Not necessary! Pragmatic Works is growing so fast and has clients across the country, having me in the Denver area is actually a great asset for them. When I am not traveling on client site, I will be able to work from home. This presented another new challenge for me since I did not have a home office at the house before now. Thankfully we still had a spare bedroom, which I have now converted into a great home office where I can look out and see the mountains.

I am very thankful for all of my past accomplishments because they would not have prepared me for the amazing opportunities that I have now and I look forward to all of the new challenges that will be coming.

This should be the start of new entries in this blog on a very regular basis going forward. so stay tuned!