Power BI Report Data Import - Snack 4

Enough fooling around, let's get down to making a basic Power BI Report.

You will need a properly formatted Excel file of your data.

If you are not sure of what that is, take a look at this sample file. Even if you think you are sure, take a look at the sample file anyway.

What do I mean by properly formatted?

Named Columns and their data ONLY.

If you have totals at the bottom, or special calculations off to the side or pretty colors representing something only known to you, none of that is going to work.

Named Columns with data. Period.

Make sure it is all in one worksheet too.

The Instructions Below (using that sample file)

In OneDrive

1. Create a New Folder
1. I called mine "Power BI Data"
2. You will use this to store all of your data for Power BI there.
2. Copy your Excel file in that folder

In Power BI,

1. Click "New Report"
2. Choose "Excel"
3. Window appears -> Connect to data source
1. In some instances, you may need to "Create a new connection"
1. Do that now, if you are unable to access your OneDrive.
2. Browse to your Excel file
3. Select your Excel file
4. Click "Next"
5. Window Appears -> Choose Data
1. Select the worksheet that has the data you want
1. If the data is in two sheets, you will need to merge it into one.
2. Click "Create"
6. Window Appears > Loading your data
1. After it is done processing ...
1. If your screen looks like the screenshot below, you win this round!
1. Note:  The Data sidebar in the right panel must display the name of your data to win (in this case, financials - highlighted).  
1. Yours will not be highlighted.
7. Last Step - Save your work!
1. At the top left of the screen, choose File > Save
2. In the screen presented after that, click "My Workspace"
3. At the bottom "Enter a name for your r..."
4. Click Save

Snack time is over.

Oh!  

Wait!

That reminds me!

There are a few more terms to know, related to that screen shot.

• Build visuals with your data
• This is where the report building will happen.
• Filters Panel
• Filters applied to your data.
• Visualizations Panel (there are 2 hidden beneath icons)
• Choose which visualizations to use and customize them.
• Data Panel
• The data associated with this particular report.
  

What happened to the Mall?

What exactly happened here?  The shopping mall has become a zombie artifact from the 1980s.  What was once a thriving shopping community is no longer.  A recent visit to the East Hills Mall in St. Joseph found a space mostly devoid of life.  There were three or four shops open.  Everything else stood shuttered.  Contrast that with the photo below, which is of another photo of the mall, taken at the mall, displaying thriving storefronts.

According to one source at the mall, "everyone wants to go to the strip mall down the street," with storefronts stretching across a mile of open air.  Shoppers buzz in and out of these stores, as they once did in the climate controlled mall.  The difference now is they can drive right to the store they want and ignore all the others.  They do have to trudge through the heat, snow, and whatever other elements accost them, should they decide to visit more than one store.   It is all very ironic, really.

The question remains though, what happened here?  Was it the mall rats or was it that stores no longer wanted to share space.  I have a hard time believing Midwesterners would rather shop outside.  There are only a handful of months in the year that are good for that.

What will become of East Hills, a mall that still proudly displays its 60+ year history in a diorama for all to see that the end began with acquisition by the Craig Realty Group in 2014.  Ten years later, their quest to dismantle the property is nearly complete.

. . .

further reading

East Hills Mall
St Joseph, MO

East Hills Mall
Craig Realty Group

Teams Storyline

image borrowed form Thurrott.com

A few weeks ago, Microsoft introduced a cool new feature to Teams called "Storyline."  

It looks as though it could be quite a little game changer for keeping up with colleagues, customers, and friends, as well as enabling them to keep up with what is going on in your world.

Microsoft explains it as "a feature that enhances team communication by allowing users to share updates, experiences, and milestones in a social media-like format within Teams and Viva Engage."

This feature has always been over on Engage and is now integrated with Teams!

So how did I get there?!?!

1. Go to Teams
2. Go to Chat
3. Choose yourself, as if you might chat with yourself!

At the top, you will see ...

• Your Name (You)
• Chat
• Yes, you can actually talk to yourself here, if you are so inclined
• ... or just make notes to yourself for later.
• Shared
• Send a file or link to yourself in Chat and it will show up here.
• Viewing someone else, these are files and links you shared with them.
• Storyline
• This is what I am talking about ... click it!

That's neat.  So how do I follow people?

If you are using the latest version of Teams, you kind of already are.  All you have to do is click their name from chat, like you did in the previous steps, and go to their Storyline.

If you want to be updated when someone adds something to their Storyline, simply click the "Follow Storyline" button, when you are viewing their Storyline.

Note:  That will activate notifications for their Storyline.   To adjust the how and when ...

1. Go to your Storyline
2. Choose Following
3. Choose an Individual
4. Look for the little bell next to "Following" and Click It!

. . .

Read all about it this new feature here, from Microsoft.

Power BI Side Bar - Snack 3

Today's snack is brought to you by the Side Bar (boxed in a red rectangle in the screenshot).  No, it is not cocktail hour.  I am talking about the navigation options available to you in the ever-present left side bar.  Let's take a look.

Home - This goes without saying, "There's no place like home."  The button will always take you back to the main Power BI screen.

Create - Go here to begin your journey in creating a new report, semantic model aka data model, and other options available with your current subscription.

Browse - This is where you can look at all of reports you have created, your favorite reports from others, and all of the other reports that have been shared with you.

OneLake - View and manage all of your data models, access to your data, as well as its integration with other semantic models

Apps - All of the apps that have been installed for you, that you have access to, or that you have created.

Metrics - A superfabulous feature enabling you to build, manage and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) that you define.  This is better than the spreadsheet you are using because you can connect it directly to your reports in Power BI and the data comes in automagically.   I did already do a little demo on this last fall, if you want to jump in now.

Monitor - Mostly for us Admins, so we can keep track of data refreshes, performance, and other key metrics related to reports and datasets.

Learn - You can actually go wandering off on your own and learn all about everything Power BI in a more Microsoft-structured format.

Real-Time - Used to manage and visualize real-time data streams through APIs and other Fabric integrated data sources.

Workloads - This is for managing and configuration of various workloads such as AI, Dataflows, and Paginated Reports within the Power BI Premium licensing capacity.

Workspaces - These are the workspace options available to you, where reports live that you have created or that have been created with you. "My Workspace" will always appear here.  It is yours and only accessible to you, unless you share something from there to someone else.  They will still only have access to what you have shared with them though.

More aka ". . ." - More options are available through here, such as Deployment Piplelines and the Functions Hub.  These options are really only available with a higher-level Premium subscription

. . .

Below these tiles, items that you open will appear for you to quickly access again, if you should jump over to another report, and want to quickly jump back to the one you were just in.

At the very bottom, is the Power BI logo. Clicking that offers access to a relatively new view, which is only relevant to those with a Fabric subscription, or Premium users.  We are still just Pro here, so you can pretty much disregard this button.

Our Future President

This is likely the funniest thing I have read in awhile.  It is from Volume 1 of the Autobiography of Mark Twain, related to him speaking about General Grant in 1881.

"I had been picturing the America of fifty years hence, with a population of two hundred million souls, and was saying that the future President, Admirals and so forth of that great coming time were now lying in their various cradles, scattered abroad over the vast expanse of this country, and then said 'And now in his cradle somewhere under the flag the future illustrious Commander-in-Chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeur and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouth  - something, meaning no disrespect to the illustrious guest of this evening, which he turned his entire attention to some fifty-six years ago.'"