Newly brought to my attention:
Deploying and Managing Power BI Premium Capacities
By Owen Duncan Michael Blythe
Summary: Power BI Premium provides more consistent performance, support for large data volumes, and the flexibility of a unified self-service and enterprise BI platform for everyone in your organization. This level 300 technical whitepaper has been written specifically for Power BI administrators, and content authors and publishers. It aims to help them understand the potential of Power BI Premium, and to explain how to design, deploy, monitor and troubleshoot scalable solutions.
Author: Peter Myers (Data Platform MVP, and independent BI expert with Bitwise Solutions)
Technical Reviewers: Adam Saxton, Akshai Mirchandani, Bhavik Merchant, David Magar, Josh Caplan, Michael Blythe, Nimrod Shalit, Olivier Matrat, Swati Gupta
Applies to: Power BI service, Power BI Premium and Azure Power BI Embedded capacities ... "
Showing posts with label Power BI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power BI. Show all posts
Saturday, March 09, 2019
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Power BI adds R
Interesting that many dashboard level visualization methods are adding links to deeper data science like R. Should allow us to start with general visualization, then scaling up to data science. In CWorld By Sharon Machlis:
Microsoft adds R data visualizations without R to Power BI
Microsoft has added R data visualizations to its Power BI data analysis cloud service -- options which no longer require either knowledge of R or having R on a local system.
These new custom visualizations work in Power BI desktop as well as the cloud service (but the desktop software does require a local R installation, although not knowledge of R). ... "
Microsoft adds R data visualizations without R to Power BI
Microsoft has added R data visualizations to its Power BI data analysis cloud service -- options which no longer require either knowledge of R or having R on a local system.
These new custom visualizations work in Power BI desktop as well as the cloud service (but the desktop software does require a local R installation, although not knowledge of R). ... "
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Microsoft Releases five Data Viz and Storytelling Courses
Following up now ...
Microsoft Power BI team releases courses on data visualization and storytelling by Pradeep
With Microsoft Power BI, data journalism goes beyond data exploration and allows reporters, bloggers, broadcasters, and analysts to spend their time telling stories. Data visualization tools like Power BI helps emphasize messages and engage audiences through immersive and data rich stories. Microsoft Power BI team recently collaborated with renowned visualization expert Alberto Cairo to share the methodology behind graphics and how they can support data storytelling by developing five Data Visualization and Storytelling courses.
The Data Visualization and Storytelling courses include an introduction to visualization, an overview on data exploration, detail on truthful visualization, tips for choosing the right graphics, and insights on design and narrative. Additionally, the classes feature Power BI demos throughout, so viewers can follow along and apply their learnings. ... "
See more info at the link.
Microsoft Power BI team releases courses on data visualization and storytelling by Pradeep
With Microsoft Power BI, data journalism goes beyond data exploration and allows reporters, bloggers, broadcasters, and analysts to spend their time telling stories. Data visualization tools like Power BI helps emphasize messages and engage audiences through immersive and data rich stories. Microsoft Power BI team recently collaborated with renowned visualization expert Alberto Cairo to share the methodology behind graphics and how they can support data storytelling by developing five Data Visualization and Storytelling courses.
The Data Visualization and Storytelling courses include an introduction to visualization, an overview on data exploration, detail on truthful visualization, tips for choosing the right graphics, and insights on design and narrative. Additionally, the classes feature Power BI demos throughout, so viewers can follow along and apply their learnings. ... "
See more info at the link.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Power BI Now Does Twitter Analytics
Been looking at the analysis of twitter streams lately, new from MS Power BI. A campaign management solution template.
Microsoft Power BI Blog
Announcing the brand & campaign management solution template for Twitter Justyna Lucznik, Program Manager
Today we are excited to announce the release of the brand and campaign management solution template for Twitter. Imagine you are an event manager who has spent the past few months planning a conference, lining up speakers, and coordinating catering, venues, and transportation. The big week is approaching, and you want to make sure everything goes smoothly. You want to understand what is well received and respond to negative sentiment immediately. You want to recognize which topics related to your event are trending and how those change across time. You want to find your biggest influencers, fans and critics.
Now imagine that you can set up sophisticated analytics that could answer all those questions for you in the space of five minutes.
Our new brand and campaign management solution template will help you do just that. Whether you manage an event, product, or marketing campaign, you can use our template to quickly and easily do analytics on top of Twitter data. All you will need to get started are Twitter credentials, the search terms you want to track, and an Azure subscription. (Don’t worry if you don’t have one – we help you get started with a trial as well). ... "
Microsoft Power BI Blog
Announcing the brand & campaign management solution template for Twitter Justyna Lucznik, Program Manager
Today we are excited to announce the release of the brand and campaign management solution template for Twitter. Imagine you are an event manager who has spent the past few months planning a conference, lining up speakers, and coordinating catering, venues, and transportation. The big week is approaching, and you want to make sure everything goes smoothly. You want to understand what is well received and respond to negative sentiment immediately. You want to recognize which topics related to your event are trending and how those change across time. You want to find your biggest influencers, fans and critics.
Now imagine that you can set up sophisticated analytics that could answer all those questions for you in the space of five minutes.
Our new brand and campaign management solution template will help you do just that. Whether you manage an event, product, or marketing campaign, you can use our template to quickly and easily do analytics on top of Twitter data. All you will need to get started are Twitter credentials, the search terms you want to track, and an Azure subscription. (Don’t worry if you don’t have one – we help you get started with a trial as well). ... "
Friday, August 19, 2016
Microsoft Links Power BI to R
... By Sharon Machlis
I remain pleasantly surprised at Microsoft's enthusiasm for adding R to its analytics ecosystem (and not [at least yet] fulfilling suspicions its end game is to fork a version of R that is semi-proprietary).
Today offered another example, with an R for the Masses with Power BI webinar touting R as an option for data heavy-lifting within its Power BI platform. Granted, as an R user I'm biased, but it makes a lot more sense to lean on a language already in wide use for data work, as opposed to expecting people to learn its own DAX and M. During today's webinar, Microsoft revealed that its own survey showed more than 80% of respondents wanted to use R for advanced data work.
Power BI users could already run R scripts within the software to pull in data, to reshape and otherwise wrangle data, and to visualize data. During the webinar, Microsoft announced an R Script Showcase with examples designed to "find inspiration for leveraging R scripts in Power BI. There are already examples for using R to find clusters within your data, generate forecasts and create decision trees. ... "
I remain pleasantly surprised at Microsoft's enthusiasm for adding R to its analytics ecosystem (and not [at least yet] fulfilling suspicions its end game is to fork a version of R that is semi-proprietary).
Today offered another example, with an R for the Masses with Power BI webinar touting R as an option for data heavy-lifting within its Power BI platform. Granted, as an R user I'm biased, but it makes a lot more sense to lean on a language already in wide use for data work, as opposed to expecting people to learn its own DAX and M. During today's webinar, Microsoft revealed that its own survey showed more than 80% of respondents wanted to use R for advanced data work.
Power BI users could already run R scripts within the software to pull in data, to reshape and otherwise wrangle data, and to visualize data. During the webinar, Microsoft announced an R Script Showcase with examples designed to "find inspiration for leveraging R scripts in Power BI. There are already examples for using R to find clusters within your data, generate forecasts and create decision trees. ... "
Monday, December 07, 2015
Silicon Angle Examines the Analytics Market
Including mention of the Cortana BI and lead management release:
In Silicon Angle: With chief marketing officers expected to outstrip the technology spending of their peers in the IT department by the 2017, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that vendors are paying more attention to analytics, which has emerged as one of the hottest items on the shopping list. Microsoft Corp. joined the fray last week with a new release of its hugely popular lead management platform that uses machine learning algorithms to help organizations close deals more effectively. ... "
In Silicon Angle: With chief marketing officers expected to outstrip the technology spending of their peers in the IT department by the 2017, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that vendors are paying more attention to analytics, which has emerged as one of the hottest items on the shopping list. Microsoft Corp. joined the fray last week with a new release of its hugely popular lead management platform that uses machine learning algorithms to help organizations close deals more effectively. ... "
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Cortana and Power BI, Together
Have not looked at this yet, but like the idea of introducing a voice and natural language interaction with business visualization. Probably not for building anything than the simplest examples, but better for interacting with data selection and visuals. Will be taking a closer look. In Information week:
It is interesting that when I ask Cortana: 'Tell me about Power BI', she does not have any overview about the connection.
" ... Microsoft is making the connection between Cortana and Power BI available for public preview starting Dec. 1.
Microsoft is giving Cortana an upgrade with Power BI integration. The digital assistant's new capabilities are available for public preview starting Dec. 1.
The connection between Cortana and Power BI is intended to help generate insights on business data. Cortana serves as an interface for users to ask questions about information stored in Power BI. ... "
It is interesting that when I ask Cortana: 'Tell me about Power BI', she does not have any overview about the connection.
" ... Microsoft is making the connection between Cortana and Power BI available for public preview starting Dec. 1.
Microsoft is giving Cortana an upgrade with Power BI integration. The digital assistant's new capabilities are available for public preview starting Dec. 1.
The connection between Cortana and Power BI is intended to help generate insights on business data. Cortana serves as an interface for users to ask questions about information stored in Power BI. ... "
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Review: Tableau Launches Vizable for Tablet
Its nowhere near like all of Tableau, but covers basics. Notably leaves out things like Geo mapping and range filter selection. Also no advanced formatting of visualizations. Has impressive multiple column manipulation. Pinch style editing on tablet. Sorting and rearrangement of columns. Simple comparison trends. The export is a fixed image and non interactive. Says it will import up to 200K rows and 25 MB files. CSV and simply formatted Excel files. Implies it will only work for later version iPads. But I got it to work well on an iPad 2 running IOS 9 with small files.
Vizable would be a good thing to point out to students, to get them used to manipulating files and variables under multiple visualizations. That's often hard to get used to. Also being on a tablet is nice for easy interaction and demonstration. Although for now it is only on one tablet and not on a laptop. Impressive for free. See the Vizable community site for more information, getting started, help and hints and social conversations about its use.
Will follow with other review links here. ....
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Power BI Adds Features
Continued improvements in MS Power BI. Good value so far.
44 New Features in the Power BI Desktop September Update
Check this massive update to our product, with 44 (yes, forty-four!) new features spread across our Report Authoring, Data Modeling, Data Sources and Data Transformation capabilities. Also, help us shape the future of Power BI by taking our survey and enter for a chance to win some prizes! .... "
44 New Features in the Power BI Desktop September Update
Check this massive update to our product, with 44 (yes, forty-four!) new features spread across our Report Authoring, Data Modeling, Data Sources and Data Transformation capabilities. Also, help us shape the future of Power BI by taking our survey and enter for a chance to win some prizes! .... "
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Future of Excel in Business Intelligence
Via Paulina Gibson from Investintech:
" .... An interview with 27 Excel experts, where they talk about the future of Excel in Business Intelligence. ... " Some good thoughts here. Every enterprise uses Excel, so you can't ignore it as an existing consolidation place for data in the enterprise. So also a place where business intelligence will live. It will take some time to evolve away from this situation. And effort's like Microsoft's Power BI will further slow the change.
(Update) I have added the comments on the interviews of my Excel Expert, Walter Riker below:
....
" .... An interview with 27 Excel experts, where they talk about the future of Excel in Business Intelligence. ... " Some good thoughts here. Every enterprise uses Excel, so you can't ignore it as an existing consolidation place for data in the enterprise. So also a place where business intelligence will live. It will take some time to evolve away from this situation. And effort's like Microsoft's Power BI will further slow the change.
(Update) I have added the comments on the interviews of my Excel Expert, Walter Riker below:
....
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Microsoft Analytics Under Cortana, Adds Spark
Does this imply that their new analytics will be strongly voice driven? Fascinating idea that will require some cognitive depth and context? How will this connect to visualization capabilities like that of Power BI? Will follow.
Microsoft Unites Analytics Under ‘Cortana,’ Adds Spark Support
Microsoft today unveiled a new suite of hosted analytic services named after Cortana, the software giant’s personal assistant software for smartphones. Meanwhile, the company is prepping to begin support for Apache Spark on Azure, its public cloud platform.
If you have a Windows-based smartphone, you’re probably familiar with Cortana, the smooth-talking female voice that does various digital chores at your behalf. The new Cortana Analytics Suite takes the personal assistant role and injects big data into it.
The new suite that Microsoft unveiled at its Worldwide Partner Conference today is essentially a mashup of new and existing data analytic capabilities from Microsoft that it will package and sell as an integrated offering with a simple monthly subscription. The offering will be generally available later this fall. ... "
(Update) Informatica & Cognizant Embrace the Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite
Microsoft Unites Analytics Under ‘Cortana,’ Adds Spark Support
Microsoft today unveiled a new suite of hosted analytic services named after Cortana, the software giant’s personal assistant software for smartphones. Meanwhile, the company is prepping to begin support for Apache Spark on Azure, its public cloud platform.
If you have a Windows-based smartphone, you’re probably familiar with Cortana, the smooth-talking female voice that does various digital chores at your behalf. The new Cortana Analytics Suite takes the personal assistant role and injects big data into it.
The new suite that Microsoft unveiled at its Worldwide Partner Conference today is essentially a mashup of new and existing data analytic capabilities from Microsoft that it will package and sell as an integrated offering with a simple monthly subscription. The offering will be generally available later this fall. ... "
(Update) Informatica & Cognizant Embrace the Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite
Friday, July 10, 2015
Power BI Community will Soon be Alive
Been examining the Power BI system from Microsoft in Beta. A free for now and easy to use dashboard data visualization site. Nicely done, not a Tableau or Spotfire as yet, but useful for many applications. Now shortly becoming generally available. They write:" ... We recently announced that Power BI will GA on July 24th including major updates to Power BI Desktop (currently known as Power BI Designer), open source visuals, the Power BI Android app, and authoring enhancements.
Our brand new community site is LIVE!
Although you only see forums , our vision for the Power BI Community Site is much grander! Stay tuned and visit our forums to ask questions about Power BI.
Join the BI Community. ... "
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Power BI no Tableau yet
A friend is continuing to take a closer look at Microsoft's Power BI, and I am following. A means for doing simple data visualization starting with Excel tables. Good impressions so far, continuing to evolve. Worth a look, An overview comparision.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Microsoft Power BI Demo
Yesterday attended the Microsoft Power BI introductory demo. The presentation given was a bit shaky, but I did like what I saw in the simplicity of the approach for setting up data visualizations on easy to use dashboards. This is NOT an advanced data viz tool, but looks to be an easy way to create basic dashboards. Sign up here. This is still an alpha version that may be changing.
Several examples are shown of how to create dashboards. Easy to do. Most intriguing was the ability to use a natural language search or query about the data you are connected to, then you can pin the query results to a dashboard. Might be a good way to have a non-analyst iteratively create a dashboard.
Easy to connect to Excel and many other database forms. Easy to selectively share resulting dashboards. They have also connected to a number of outside data resources. A separate package called Power BI Designer lets you create more advanced visuals. A Mobile App for the iPad has been created to display mobile dashboards. (other mobile devices to come) That App has alerting capabilities to update your data and alert you to specified data changes via notifications. An advanced API exists as well. Currently PowerBI is entirely free for use. They say there will always be a free tier for experimentation, it appears a 1 GB restriction will be used.
Once this is complete it appears it will be competitive for basic visualization.
Pointer to the presentation. Don't know how long this will be available.
Warning: you need now to create an access ID based on an email address that is corporate or .edu, not Gmail or other 'non business' email addresses. I note here that other entry points to MS services do not have this restriction. Poor, inconsistent restriction.
Several examples are shown of how to create dashboards. Easy to do. Most intriguing was the ability to use a natural language search or query about the data you are connected to, then you can pin the query results to a dashboard. Might be a good way to have a non-analyst iteratively create a dashboard.
Easy to connect to Excel and many other database forms. Easy to selectively share resulting dashboards. They have also connected to a number of outside data resources. A separate package called Power BI Designer lets you create more advanced visuals. A Mobile App for the iPad has been created to display mobile dashboards. (other mobile devices to come) That App has alerting capabilities to update your data and alert you to specified data changes via notifications. An advanced API exists as well. Currently PowerBI is entirely free for use. They say there will always be a free tier for experimentation, it appears a 1 GB restriction will be used.
Once this is complete it appears it will be competitive for basic visualization.
Pointer to the presentation. Don't know how long this will be available.
Warning: you need now to create an access ID based on an email address that is corporate or .edu, not Gmail or other 'non business' email addresses. I note here that other entry points to MS services do not have this restriction. Poor, inconsistent restriction.
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Windows Business Intelligence Automation
In CWorld: Mentions the integration of business intelligence and voice interaction with an operating system. We could all use a personal assistant with business intelligence advisory and delivery skills. Assuming all the data would be easily available and understandable. This is probably more deeply integrated with Microsoft's Power BI. (See below for that, currently using it) This is not automating Data Science, but the more mundane need for data visualization and basic statistics. My guess is that is a big percentage of business intelligence needs. BigData/Data Science can be added for more innovative solutions. Yet voice interaction with something detailed like spreadsheet data can be a problem. Looking forward to see what this might look like in practice.
Sunday, May 03, 2015
MS Power BI Tools
In GeekWire:
Acumatica launches content pack for Microsoft’s Power BI data visualization tool
SAN FRANCISCO–Microsoft executives showed off a new set of tools from Acumatica during the company’s second day keynote at its Build Developer conference in San Francisco this morning. The Seattle-based cloud ERP provider unveiled a new content pack for Microsoft’s Power BI application that lets users better process data from Acumatica.
The content pack allows users to bring information from Acumatica into Power BI to take advantage of the latter’s capabilities when it comes to visualizing and filtering information, so it’s easy for people to see information like the number of sales made in different cities. ... "
Acumatica launches content pack for Microsoft’s Power BI data visualization tool
SAN FRANCISCO–Microsoft executives showed off a new set of tools from Acumatica during the company’s second day keynote at its Build Developer conference in San Francisco this morning. The Seattle-based cloud ERP provider unveiled a new content pack for Microsoft’s Power BI application that lets users better process data from Acumatica.
The content pack allows users to bring information from Acumatica into Power BI to take advantage of the latter’s capabilities when it comes to visualizing and filtering information, so it’s easy for people to see information like the number of sales made in different cities. ... "
Friday, April 17, 2015
Microsoft PowerBI Preview
Walter Riker points me to the Microsoft PowerBI site. Preview free trial. Which adds data visualization and dash boards to many MS and other data sources. "Power BI works for your role ... Reduce risk and increase rewards - unlock insights to drive more informed and confident decisions. ... ". Also now has an IOS App: Microsoft Power BI Which I have installed. Will be looking more closely.
More on Power BI from article in the MSDN blog announcement:
" ... This morning at Microsoft’s Convergence Conference, we announced new products and services that will enable organizations to create a data culture in all parts of their organizations. Adopting a data culture starts with making information easily accessible to all - our Power BI offering is helping to accelerate that adoption by changing the way people access, use, manage and share data.
First unveiled in January, the new and improved Power BI is a cloud-based (software-as-a-service) business analytics service for non-technical business users. With just a browser or a Power BI mobile app, customers can visualize and analyze their data with easy-to-use, accessible tools and innovative technology ......
With Power BI our customers can keep a pulse on their business by bringing all their data together and monitor it through a single pane of glass. Live Power BI dashboards and reports show visualizations and KPIs from data that reside both on-premises and in the cloud, providing a consolidated view across the business regardless of where the data lives." ... '
Power BI Blog.
More on Power BI from article in the MSDN blog announcement:
" ... This morning at Microsoft’s Convergence Conference, we announced new products and services that will enable organizations to create a data culture in all parts of their organizations. Adopting a data culture starts with making information easily accessible to all - our Power BI offering is helping to accelerate that adoption by changing the way people access, use, manage and share data.
First unveiled in January, the new and improved Power BI is a cloud-based (software-as-a-service) business analytics service for non-technical business users. With just a browser or a Power BI mobile app, customers can visualize and analyze their data with easy-to-use, accessible tools and innovative technology ......
With Power BI our customers can keep a pulse on their business by bringing all their data together and monitor it through a single pane of glass. Live Power BI dashboards and reports show visualizations and KPIs from data that reside both on-premises and in the cloud, providing a consolidated view across the business regardless of where the data lives." ... '
Power BI Blog.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Microsoft's Power BI for Office
It has been some time since I looked at any of Microsoft's Business Intelligence offerings. As MS partners in the enterprise we did see some of their BI acquisitions that work with Access. New writeup in Nextweb which overviews some of their updates. One aspect, 3D visualization, in my opinion is only useful for very specialized applications that overlay data atop 3D objects. As I said previously, I much like their improvements made to BI embedded in Excel. Their early GIS was developed from a package we also used: Mapinfo. Did MS lose the war on location intelligence?
Meanwhile other BI player Tibco Spotfire have acquired Maporama to bolster their geo capabilities.
" ... Microsoft today announced an update to Power BI. For those who don’t know, Power BI is a set of tools that provide data query, mapping, modeling, and interactive charting usually built on top of Excel. Power Query and Power Map were previously known as Data Explorer and Geoflow, if those names ring a bell. ... "
Meanwhile other BI player Tibco Spotfire have acquired Maporama to bolster their geo capabilities.
" ... Microsoft today announced an update to Power BI. For those who don’t know, Power BI is a set of tools that provide data query, mapping, modeling, and interactive charting usually built on top of Excel. Power Query and Power Map were previously known as Data Explorer and Geoflow, if those names ring a bell. ... "
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