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Breakout sessions 2023

You can experience the following sessions. Delivered by international experts from both Microsoft and the field.

  • Keynote

    Power BI’s mission is to empower individuals, teams and organizations to drive a data culture. Our keynote will outline the Power BI strategy and what’s coming, and show some fun demos of the latest features.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 09.15 – 10.00
    • Intermediate
    • All around
  • Different types of many-to-many relationships in Power BI

    The sentence “many-to-many relationships” has different meanings in Power BI.
    The “classical” many-to-many relationships in a data warehouse is a design pattern requiring a bridge table.
    A many-to-many cardinality relationship in Power BI is different from the one commonly used in dimensional modeling, and it commonly solves a granularity issue in managing data coming from different data sources.
    This session clarifies design patterns and best practices for using the different types of many-to-many relationships in a Tabular model for Power BI and Analysis Services.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 10.15 – 11.00
    • Intermediate
    • Data Creator
    • Datamart
    • DAX
    • Modeling
    Session presentation
    Different types of many-to-many relationships in Power BI.zip
  • Deploy Power BI as Code

    In the last couple of years versioning, change control, and collaboration on Power BI artifacts has been a challenge. With the recent changes of TMDL, Git Integration and the new file structure .pbip, it becomes easier to set up a proper deployment and release strategy.

    And let me tell you, that makes my engineer heart beat faster. It started with just a “Publish” button, then we moved to deployment pipelines which introduced metadata deployments and file comparison. Unfortunately, there was no versioning and change control in place, and collaborating together on the same file remained a challenge. The aforementioned recent changes have improved this experience significantly and to one goal: Deploy Power BI as Code!

    In this session I will show you a step by step approach how to deploy your Power BI data model and report with the latest features in Power BI. This session is valuable for, but is not limited to, professionals who build business critical Power BI solutions or build Power BI solutions fully integrated within a data platform solution.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 10.15 – 11.00
    • Advanced
    • All around
    • Admin
    • Governance
    • Modeling
    • Premium
    • Source Control
    Session presentation
    20230922 – Deploy Power BI as Code.pdf.pdf
  • Driving alerts and actions on your data

    Everyone wants to drive actions on data, however, today it can be a manual, time-consuming and repetitive task. In many cases automating alerts and actions on your data requires writing code.
    With Microsoft Fabric there is a new service called Data Activator and it can help your organization become even more data-driving, by utilizing triggers and turning data into actions. The amazing part is that you can achieve all of this without writing code. In this session you will see how Data Activator works in action

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 10.15 – 11.00
    • Advanced
    • Data Architect
    • Data Alerts
    • Distribution
    Session presentation
    Driving alerts and actions on your data.pdf
  • Professional Developer Experiences in Power BI

    Developer mode seamlessly integrates developer-centric features directly into Microsoft Power BI Desktop. This advancement empowers users to effortlessly implement source control for their work, thereby boosting efficiency and enhancing the maintenance of Power BI projects.

    When combined with Azure DevOps and Fabric Git Integration, Developer Mode opens up unprecedented collaboration possibilities, facilitating the establishment of robust Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. These pipelines not only improve the reliability of Power BI projects but also enable scalability, ultimately elevating the development and collaboration experience to new heights.

    Join me to explore how these powerful tools can transform your Power BI development experience.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 11.15 – 12.00
    • Intermediate
    • Data Creator
    • Distribution
    • External tools
    • Fabric
    • Modeling
    Session presentation
    PBINextStep – Power BI Developer Experiences.pdf
  • Applied Data Storytelling Techniques in Power BI

    Reports often fail to engage their target audiences and explain the data they present. This leads to inefficient data communication that does not enable insights to be discovered and actions to be taken.

    This presentation focuses on effective data storytelling and how to incorporate several of its techniques into Power BI reports. We will “debuzzify” the term Data Storytelling and see its potential for data communication. Report Creators will learn how to incorporate narrative elements into their report design, leading to increased clarity of visuals, narrowed focus on important points, and enhanced sense of sympathy towards the data presented.

    By incorporating narrative and visual storytelling techniques into Power BI, we see how resulting reports are more engaging and explanatory, leading to greater adoption and an increased probability of uncovering insights. Using my own experience as a data analyst and behavioral economist, along with drawing inspiration from (and challenging the presuppositions of) Brent Dykes’s book “Effective Data Storytelling”, we will look at different cases where data storytelling principles may be applied and offer a specialized data storytelling toolset to empower Report Creators.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 11.15 – 12.00
    • Advanced
    • Report Creator
    • Adoption
    • DAX
    • Storytelling
    • Vizualizing
    Session presentation
    Files.txt
  • Designing Efficient Architectures: Best Practices for Governance, Security, and Sharing Policies

    The session is for those who are responsible for, or involved in, rolling out, governing, or designing Power BI architecture.

    It will delve into the creation of process maps and establishing roles and responsibilities through the RACI model. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the Optimized Architectures Document, which serves as a blueprint for optimizing content delivery infrastructure. Architecture will highlight asset certification and endorsement. On top, we’ll see how Fabric architectures contribute and what needs to be included.

    The session will also review how to create essential forms and policies. These include asset and workspace request forms, data certification policies, and security and sharing policies. Attendees will learn best practices for streamlining the content delivery process and ensuring data integrity and protection.

    Drawing on real-world projects and expertise gained through collaboration with Microsoft, this session will be delivered by a the Data Analytics lead a leading consultancy firm. These are real tools used to deploy robust architectures in large companies across Europe,

    Participants will learn practical insights. They will be equipped with the necessary tools and frameworks to design and implement efficient and secure content delivery architectures within their organizations.

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 11.15 – 12.00
    • Intermediate
    • Data Governor
    • Admin
    • Adoption
    • Governance
    • Security
    • Strategy
    Session presentation
    Architecture.pptx
  • You’re a Power BI Admin? Let’s get your threads aligned for Fabric!

    May 23rd 2023 will be remembered by many as a day that shook the Data & AI ecosystem for Microsoft, potentially even beyond. Many of the Power BI Admins lived their life of dealing with the woes and worries of a reporting environment, until that very day a few things were made public. With the announcement of Fabric, an all-in-one Analytics solutions, covering a whole new range of possibilities, this means Power BI Admins have a lot more ground to cover. But how will they do it? How will they keep up with all the new options and responsibilities.

    This session will focus on the life of a Power BI Admin moving over to the extended Fabric realm, and keeping their things in check. We’ll look at the familiar topics of capacity and workspace management, and how they align with the new workloads that have been introduced. We’ll notice there’s a very large overlap, as Fabric has been built on the foundations of Power BI.

    To wrap up, we’ll look at some of the new tools that were introduced to help you keep an overview of the tenant, and make sure the right data gets to the right people. This means getting an inventory of our tenant settings, and setting up alerts for when something changes, working with the newly introduced Admin Monitoring workspace to have an easy overview of what is happening where.

    Walking out of this session, a Power BI Admin should feel more confident about Fabric, and be convinced it can actually make their life easier.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 13.00 – 13.45
    • Advanced
    • Adminstrator
    • Admin
    • Governance
    Session presentation
    Fabric-PowerBIAdmin.pdf
  • Telling Compelling Data Stories with Power BI in Jupyter Notebooks

    Data storytelling is the art of using data and visuals to communicate a narrative that inspires action or drives decision-making. In today’s data-driven world, it’s more important than ever to master this skill. In this talk, we’ll explore how you can use Power BI and Jupyter notebooks to tell compelling data stories.

    We’ll start by discussing the basics of data storytelling and why it’s such a powerful tool for communication. Next, we’ll dive into Power BI and learn how to create visually stunning reports that highlight key insights and trends. We’ll cover topics such as data modeling, report design, and interactive visualizations.

    Once we have our Power BI report, we’ll explore how to bring it into a Jupyter notebook. We’ll discuss the power of Jupyter notebooks for data exploration and how we can use the powerbiclientPython package to embed Power BI reports directly into our notebooks. We’ll see how we can export data from visuals in our report to Jupyter for further analysis and how we can use bookmarks to quickly switch between different views of our report.

    Throughout the talk, we’ll use real-world examples to illustrate the concepts and techniques we’re discussing. By the end of the session, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to use Power BI and Jupyter notebooks to tell compelling data stories that drive action and decision-making.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 13.00 – 13.45
    • Advanced
    • Report Creator
    • AI
    • External tools
    • Storytelling
    • Vizualizing
    Session presentation
    Power BI Next Step.zip
  • Turn your model from turtle to rabbit performance

    Do you recognize this – after creating a “perfect” data model the users start to complain about the reports are slow.

    In this session I will take show you how you can locate the elements that is causing poor performance in the reports.
    We will look at different tools to identify the reports that is slow and which visual that might be causing this by looking at the power bi logs.

    Then we will dig down in the different tools to identify the bottlenecks in your model and measures – and how to use the performance analyzer, DAX studio, vertipaq analyzer and tabular editor.

    Using these tools will help you identify the issues and also where you should try to do you optimizations.

    We will also look at some of the issues that can be caused by the users when they design their reports

    After the session you should have a clear understanding of how to locate the “needle” in the haystack when user complain about slow performance in their reports.

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 13.00 – 13.45
    • Advanced
    • Data Creator
    • DAX
    • External tools
    • Performance
    Session presentation
    Turn your model.pdf
  • Self-service BI as a two-edged sword

    Self-service BI tools are sometimes described as a two edged sword. SSBI is a powerful tool for solving common problems at scale, but it can also introduce new challenges as more users are empowered to work with more data. There is no one “right” or “best” way to deliver managed self-service capabilities, but there are common patterns and approaches that successful teams apply.

    In this session, Matthew Roche from the Power BI CAT team will present patterns and practices learned from from conversations with over 100 global enterprise organizations. If you’re already struggling with challenges from self-service BI, if you’re tasked with establishing a BI center of excellence and don’t want to reinvent the wheel, or if you just want to a head start to understand the road ahead, join Matthew to learn from those who have gone down that road before you.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 14.00 – 14.45
    • Advanced
    • All around
    • Admin
    • Adoption
    • Fabric
    • Governance
    • Storytelling
    Session presentation
    Self-Service BI as a Two-Edged Sword.pptx
  • Beyond the GUI: Power Query and M techniques

    A fast-paced and demo-heavy tour of advanced functionality in Power Query with case studies based on problems seen in the field with consulting clients. This session will introduce the M language through a series of demo exercises.

    The goal of this session is to teach the fundamentals of the M programming language and understand the queries that are generated by Power Query.

    Coming out of this session attendees will understand
    – M syntax
    – Common data types in M
    – Common data structures in M
    – Writing M by hand
    – Creating custom M functions

    Attendees are expected to be comfortable with Power Query, but need not be advanced.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 14.00 – 14.45
    • Advanced
    • Data Creator
    • Power Platform
    • Power Query
    Session presentation
    beyond-next-step.zip
  • Enhancing User Experience with Embedded Power BI Content

    The Embedding Power BI Content session is a comprehensive guide on how to embed Power BI reports into other applications.

    This session covers the different methods of embedding Power BI content, including using the Power BI JavaScript API, Power BI Embedded, and Power BI Publish to Web. Attendees will learn how to customize the embedded content’s appearance and configure access and security for the embedded content.

    Moreover, the session covers different scenarios where Power BI content embedding can be used, including customer-facing applications, operational reporting, and business intelligence solutions. Attendees can learn how to use Power BI content embedding to improve decision-making processes, drive business growth, and create a better user experience.

    Overall, the Enhancing User Experience with Embedded Power BI Content session is an excellent opportunity for developers, data analysts, and business intelligence professionals to learn how to integrate Power BI content into their applications. Attendees can gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of using Power BI content embedding and how to implement it effectively to create robust data analytics solutions.

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 14.00 – 14.45
    • Intermediate
    • Report Creator
    • Embedding
    Session presentation
    Enhancing User Experience with Embedded Power BI Content.pdf
  • Tracking changes in Power BI Reports

    With Fabric workspace git integration and Power BI Desktop Developer Mode, Microsoft has finally made substantial investments into source control capabilities for Power BI content creators.

    The sources describing Power BI data models have long been known across the industry and are well documented (BIM, TMDL), but what about the report?

    With the public preview of Developer Mode in PBI Desktop, released in June 2023, the sources behind reports (pages and visuals) have been made visible everyone for the first time. However, documentation and general understanding of those artifacts is still very sparse.

    This session gives you all the information you need to take advantage of this change for your own development workflows:

    * Learn to “read” the report sources in their current shape
    * Understand upcoming improvements to the format
    * Get an introduction to existing tooling, including some new, recently released, external tools
    * Use your new understanding of the report sources for quality checks and sign-offs

    Mathias has many years of experience implementing source control solutions for Power BI reports via his open source tool, pbi-tools. He also contributed the declarative TMDL format for datasets to the product team – explicitly designed to support source control scenarios.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 15.00 – 15.45
    • Intermediate
    • Report Creator
    • External tools
    • Source Control
    • Vizualizing
  • Unlock the potential of Real-Time Analytics with Fabric

    If you are a Data professional but you didn´t get the chance to explore streaming data scenarios, this session is for you!
    Before Fabric, building analytics on top of real-time data was a complex and challenging task (not to mention costly!).

    In this session, we will show how you, as a data professional, can take advantage of Fabric’s Real-time Analytics (previously Kusto) to unlock the value of your real-time data in a simple way.

    We will cover the main use cases for Real-time Analytics, showcase how to integrate real-time data into your One Lake using Kusto, and finally how to visualize it all within Power BI.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 15.00 – 15.45
    • Intermediate
    • Data Architect
    • Fabric
    • Streaming
    Session presentation
    Unlock the Potential of Real-Time Analytics with Fabric.pdf
  • Leveraging Power BI’s capabilities for Next level Access control

    Does the Row Level Security feature not quite get you all the way? There are other ways to make accessibility more specific.
    Use the full range of Power BI to make access control on your report as dynamic and easy for both you as the developer and the report viewer as possible.

    Was the Multiple Audience feature not exactly what you expected? Here’s how you could leverage the audience feature in conjunction with Row Level Security to make it work to your expectations. Build your reports with pinpointed access control.

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 15.00 – 15.45
    • Intermediate
    • Data Creator
    • DAX
    • Distribution
    • Security
    Session presentation
    NextLevelAccessControl.pdf
  • A deep dive into Direct Lake

    The new Direct Lake storage mode in Power BI promises to revolutionize data handling by blending the real-time nature of DirectQuery and the high performance of Import mode. Is this all just hype, or does Direct Lake truly deliver on these claims?

    In this session, we will put Direct Lake under the microscope, conducting comprehensive performance testing across varied data sets and query types. We aim to stress test Direct Lake, uncovering where it meets expectations, where it excels, and where it has room for improvement.

    The key areas we’ll explore are:

    • Direct Lake: Understanding what we know about the engine
    • Analyzing performance across different scenarios
    • Strengths and weaknesses
    • Advice for data modelling for Direct Lake

    By the end of this session, you’ll have a well-rounded understanding of Direct Lake’s capabilities, potential for your Power BI data modelling projects.

    Festival (190)
    Fri 16.00 – 16.45
    • Expert
    • Data Creator
    • Composite Models
    • Fabric
    • Modeling
    • Performance
    Session presentation
    A deep dive into Direct Lake.pdf
  • Get a Load of this – Realistic Load Testing for Power BI, explained!

    Are you a Power BI developer or admin?

    Do you have Power BI reports that work great during development and UAT, but performance drops once released to production with multiple users?

    Or perhaps you’re a decision maker, and want to know how much Premium capacity to buy?

    You need automated Power BI Load Testing!

    In this session we will discuss Power BI production report performance woes by answering:

    – Why do Power BI performance issues arise unexpectantly in production?
    – Why do we need load testing?
    – How can we carry out load testing with Power BI reports?
    – How can we use load testing to understand what the right level of Premium capacity is for our tenant?

    We will also go through a live demo of the Realistic Load Tool, which uses a PowerShell script to replicate a specified amount of users opening a report simultaneously. We will discuss what to keep in mind when using the tool, what are its restrictions, and how to use it most effectively for your own reports.

    Strand (130)
    Fri 16.00 – 16.45
    • Intermediate
    • Adminstrator
    • External tools
    • Performance
    • Power Platform
    Session presentation
    Get a Load of this!.pptx
  • Learn to create three types of low-code Power BI & Microsoft Fabric Extensions with Power Apps

    Power BI and Power Apps are good own their own but better together. With Power Apps we can build custom low-code extensions into Power BI, making the Power BI experience much more dynamic and interactive for the user.

    This session will go through the entire journey of creating three different Power Apps extensions to be embedded in Power BI reports in Microsoft Fabric, as well as teach you all the tips & tricks to make the most of the integration.

    After this session you will know:
    – How to build your own Comment Extension for your Power BI reports
    – How to build a LookUp extension with ChatGPT integration to allow users to deliver Prompts and get responses directly in Power BI.
    – How to build a write-back to Microsoft Fabric extension, which writes data inputted by your users directly to a Fabric Data Warehouse, and show up LIVE in your report.

    Theatre (80)
    Fri 16.00 – 16.45
    • Intermediate
    • Report Creator
    • Power Platform
    • Other
    Session presentation
    Power BI Next Step – Power Apps Extensions.pptx
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