PowerBIforSchools

I've recently changed my approach to filtering table and matrix visuals and it's led to big performance improvements in the load times of these visuals so I want to share it with you guys. Basically what I've done is stopped in nearly all cases using measures to filter visuals and instead started writing my measures so that they return BLANK() instead of a result I want to filter out. I'm going to explain a bit about BLANK() first, then I'll give an example of how this works. Blank as a concept If you have a background with other database programs you'll probably be familiar with the idea that null - the absence of a result - is different from 0 or "" (an empty string). If you're background is mostly Excel then you should be aware that BI treats null (no value in a column) differently from "" which would denote a string with length 0. We don't need to go deep into the weeds about why this is and how null is treated in every case, ...

Hi guys, sorry for the slow pace of posts, I know that now is a great time to learn for lots of you – unfortunately I’ve been more busy not less. I’ll try and get back into the good stuff soon but in the meantime here’s a round up of some new (and newish) features of BI.  New Features Say What?  Microsoft have been really good up to now (July 2020) in rapidly improving Power BI with a new release most months. If you downloaded PBI desktop via the Microsoft store it should update automatically, if not check for updates. When you get a new release it’s always worth having a look in Options| Preview Features as most functionality additions start off being ‘opt in’ for a couple of months before they’re available generally. OK on to the good stuff:  Decomposition Tree   The decomposition tree is one of BI’s “AI” visuals along with Key Influencers and Q&A and while I’m not sure I buy that it’s a step change from a regular visual, it is pretty cool. ...