Business Intelligence achieved An advance review of data modeling, processing and story telling with PowerBI Presentation by Anton Rozenson ARozenson@TailWindBI.com

Tail Wind tailwindtech.com 952-544-2100 Information Strategy Business Intelligence Data Management Tail Wind tailwindtech.com 952-544-2100

Focus on the Goal of BI solution We are all faced with a task of making decisions every minute of our conscience existence. Making the right decision is less important than focusing on how the decision is made – the process. Examining how decisions are made, rather than the decisions themselves, will lead to better decisions. The argumentation and definition or key factors is in fact information that is derived from data. Hunting and gathering firsthand information is time consuming and is subject to Completeness Accuracy Latency Comprehension

Becoming Data Driven Start with strategy. Identify business area that requires improvement. Identify unanswered questions. This will define the scope and reduce stress. Explore existing data and collect missing elements. Analyze data, search for insights and be ready to explain the findings. Incorporate gathered knowledge into business by sharing the excitement. Apply the insights from the data to your decision making, making the decisions that will transform your business for the better … and acting on those decisions. Repeat the process … with PowerBI as a tool

Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Sourcing - Extract Load Data from virtually any source anywhere. All the source data must be available. Incremental load is only possible by persisting historical data in the Model (aka Data Set) and using DAX UNION to merge with new data. Power Query cache is only persisted at run time. During Development clearing Preview Cache can be helpful Source structure in NOT persisted by default only M based transformations are. Quarriable sources support Direct Query, but it can not be used if at least one of the other sources Imports data in the same .PBIX . Source might be touched multiple times during refresh if multiple Tables in the Model (Enabled Load) depend on the source. Plan for consistency and preservation of sources (Structure and Data). Decision to use Direct Query mode needs to be made early and usually if: Near real time data must be available. Source can be queried from UI location. Personal or Enterprise gateway may be used as bridges to PowerBI Service. During Development clearing Preview Cache can be helpful if Source has being modified. (File  Options and Settings  Options  Data Load  Clear Cache. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Sourcing - Transform Transformations are implemented as Steps in the Query. Any Step has it’s own preview for Debugging. Steps can be Added, Inserted and Removed, UI maintains Query integrity . M language query is generated behind the seen and can be edited via Advanced Editor. Depending on the size of the data Merge data from same or multiple sources. Merge is similar to Lookup in SSIS with definitions similar to TSQ Join except only a single row will be returned from a secondary Table. Cross Join is not supported, but a work around exists via custom Function that returns a table. Dependencies can be tracked via View  Query Dependencies. Cleansing of Data usually includes Filtering, Informing Formats, Capturing Exceptions. It is highly recommended to build in a number of Validation Use cases to prove accuracy of data loaded and presented. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Sourcing - Load Data can be loaded via Close and Load button from Query Editor which will pick up any recent changes. The Model can also be refreshed by the means of Refresh button. Note that data will persist in the Model Tables that have Include in the Report Refresh disabled and Enable Load enabled. This data becomes static. After load is complete data is persisted within .PBIX file compressed with VertiPaq. Scheduled refresh can be enabled in PowerBI service as often as every 15 minutes but will be automatically disabled if no one accessed the data for 2 month. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Modeling – Tabular Model Data from source queries lands in a PowerBI model which closely resembles SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular model. Only 1:1 or 1:m relationships are supported and bi-directional filtering can be introduced. Aside from Interactive filtering security context may be propagated across tables. DAX expressions are used in further data manipulations, measures and calculated Table creation. Note that data in calculated Columns and Tables is persisted even if they are hidden in report view and only refreshed when data is loaded. Only Measures are calculated at run time capturing User context. Certain use cases are performing better if implemented via DAX vs M: Searching a large table – join between two large tables or self join on the large table Joining on a predicate that presents inequality (e.g. Lookup into Type 2 dimension) Formatting and assigning proper Data Category and Default aggregation. Note: Default Member functionality does not exist in Tabular Modeling as of October 2017. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Reporting (Tech) In PowerBI Report can only be based on a single Data Set (Model). Report contains following components: Visualizations (out of the box / from Office store or custom); Pages are groupings of visuals that complement each other for Information Delivery purposes and Customisable Interactions. Report itself as a deployment entity. Every .PBIX contains exactly 1 report, but multiple reports against same Data Set can be created either within PowerBI Service. Since August 2017 Report can refer to PowerBI Service based Data Set This is a very big improvement because Data Model can now be separated from reports for proper management and source control. Reports can contribute individual Visuals to Dashboards as well as Life Pages that are fully functional Report Pages can be linked and pass filters via Drillthrough Filters. NEW! Selection Pane allows quick navigation and hiding / unhiding visuals. NEW! Report state can be Bookmarked (Preview) toggled via Link in Shape or Image. Bookmarks can be presented as a Story Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Reporting (Design) The basic purpose of a report is to deliver Information Efficiently. The main consideration in report design are: Attention span has gone down from 12 seconds in 2005 to 8 in 2015. User receiving information must be able to conclude if report contains interesting data with a single eye scan. In western hemisphere page is read left-right, top-bottom therefore most important information should be placed accordingly. Using best visualizations for information delivery. (http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Graph_Selection_Matrix.pdf) Know the audience’s habits and tailor reports to consumer. Most people have set preferences about What and How they like to see. Once you create a set of reports that make user say “I like what I see” and “this tells me a lot” – you have succeeded in providing Business Intelligence and achieved the goal. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

PowerBI Dashboards Dashboard presents portions or complete Reports and allows a high level overlook of findings. A good dashboard will combine Past, Present and Future or describe multiple related or unrelated processes on a single page. Functionally User is able to either use a functional life Report Page or drill down to a detailed report enabling further research. Also the ability to ask data model questions in native tong via Natural Language Processing can be enabled. Human brain is a fantastic tool that is adaptive to tactical factors and remembers the information of importance. One of the most important factors in ensuring tomorrow's success in business progress is ability of historical analysis by the means of studying data that remained. One of the best we can do for the future is hunting, gathering, preserving and pre-studying information. The good decision making depends more and more on becoming data driven.

References PowerBI Guided Learning https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/guided-learning/ PowerBI Desktop Upgrades https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/tag/update/ WorldWideImporters sample dbs https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/09/wideworldimporters- the-new-sql-server-sample-database/ Visual Design and Recommendations http://www.perceptualedge.com/library.php#Other http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Graph_Selection_Matrix.pdf