Power BI Report Sorting - Snack 9

Welcome back to snack time!  This one will be a little lighter than the past several.   Today, we are just going to do a little sorting.

Let's get back to our report.  Remember that you have it stored in "My Workspace."

Looking at our table, we probably want that sorted differently, or maybe we don't.

Sometimes we have the data just as we want it and prefer to leave it to the user to do the sorting.

Hovering the column names in the Table visualization, a little black arrow appears beneath the column name.  It points in the direction that data is currently sorted.

• Click on a column to sort that column.
• Click it again to sort the other way.
• Shift-Click to include another column in the sorting. 
• This sort the first column chosen, then the second column.
• Shift-Click the second column again to sort that second column in the other direction.
• Shift-Click to include a third, fourth, or fifth column.

None of this will remain this way.  The default view dictates otherwise.

In order to establish the default sort on this visualization, you will need to access "Edit" mode, sort the visualization as you would prefer it to display using the methods above, then "Save."  Your chosen sort will be the default display.

Another option, if you only one column sort is required, choose the ". . ." menu at the top right of the visual, then choose "Sort by," then the field you want to sort on.

Notice that above "Sort by" is "Sort Ascending" and "Sort Descending."

That is all for today!  Happy Sorting!

Google Photos tries to Cheat Users

Google is playing tricks with their app, very likely in an effort to force users to buy more storage. 

When Google reversed their decision to offer unlimited storage back in June of 2021 ,many users left the platform.  They migrated to destinations they were already using, or to other platforms that simply continued to offer unlimited storage.

Google did offer users the ability to save storage space, using a setting within the app called "Storage Saver," which compressed photos and videos slightly.  Many kept using Google Photos leveraging this option and it worked great.

An update to the app on May 25, 2025 changed that setting.  This was confirmed with several users.  Of course, everyone had a slightly different date.  That was the date that everything began to backup at "Original Quality," using more storage than it should have been.

This sure feels like "as designed."  Folks are finding different solutions and backing away from the "The Cloud."  What better way to force people to make a choice than to tamper with their settings?

If you have fallen victim to this scam, you will need to adjust the settings within the App on your device.

Be aware that you will need to do this for every app on every device that you backup photos from.  If you use Desktop on your computer, you will need to do it there (and in every browser you use to backup).

Tao Verse 8

 

One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things.

Power BI Report Theme Change - Snack 8

Last time we visited, we addressed the formatting of the Date column.  

It got a little ugly, but hopefully everything worked out for you.

Getting back to My Workspace in Power BI, let's see what else we need to do.

Go ahead an open your report; again, mine is called "FinancialSample."

There are multiple things that stand out about the data.  However, the table visual itself does not seem to stand out too well.  It is difficult to discern where that visual begins and where it ends.  

Let's fix that!

The more that you use Power BI, the more you will find that it is extremely helpful to know exactly where those visualization boundaries are.

Viewing your report in My Workspace in Power BI, 

1. Choose "Edit" from the top menu
2. In Edit mode,
1. Choose View
2. Choose Theme
1. A window should appear with some rather colorful themes.
2. I know you really want to choose your own, but for these demo purposes, 
3. Find the one with the blue background.
1. If you hover over that one, it should say "Tidal"
1. I use this one (Tidal) exclusively, because it matches organizational colors almost perfectly.
2. Click "Tidal"
1. The table appears over a blue background now.
2. Also, the boundaries for your table, as well as the handles that enable resizing it should also be more apparent.
1. This just makes everything a lot simpler.
3. In the top left of the screen,
1. Choose File
2. Choose Save

That is all we have for today.

Still hungry? 

If you really want to change the Theme to colors that better match your personality, repeat steps 1-3.

Should you choose one with a white background, I highly recommend adjusting the background color, so you see visual boundaries better.  You can always change it back to white later.

1. To change your background ...
1. Click on the background of your report so that you have NO visualization selected
1. How do I know that I have NO visualization selected?
1. The Visualizations pane will only have 2 icons at the top
2. At the top of the Visualizations pane,
1. Click the "Format your report page" icon (looks like a paper and paintbrush)
2. Select "Wallpaper"
1. Ensure the box for "Image" says "Browse"
1. If it does not, click the "X"
3. Choose a color from the color pallet
3. File > Save

Yes, you can use a picture for a background instead, if you really want to.

You probably noticed that there are two similar choices in there for backgrounds.

"Canvas Background" is the area within the report page. The boundaries of that are the dashed line going around the report screen.  You cannot move your visuals past that line.  That is the "Canvas."  You may have to adjust the transparency on this to see it happen.

"Wallpaper" refers to the area outside the report canvas.

Looking at how I have been doing this for the last bunch of years, it seems that I only use the Wallpaper with the Canvas background Transparency set to 100%.

Why?

I don't know.  The dashed line surrounding the Canvas is good enough for me to know where my layout space ends.

Until next time, play around with it and see what works best for you.

Power BI Report Date Display - Snack 7

It is time for another Snack!  Let's get back to that data we loaded several weeks ago.

Go to Power BI Service online, access "My Workspace," and click on the name of the report we are working on.  

If you are using the same sample data that I am, it is probably called "FinancialSample" or whatever you named it.  The type is a "Report."

It looks like a plain old ordinary table, right now.  It is nothing exciting, so we should start forming into something that is.

If you only added the date column last time, go ahead and add more.

The last time we were here, I added the following:

• Date
• Sales
• COGS
• Country
• Discount Band
• Gross Sales
• Manufacturing Price
• Product
• Profit
• Sale Price
• Units Sold

Viewing these, some of the column names may include "Sum of ..."

This is all OK.

Also, remember the Date is going to appear divided out by Year, Quarter, Month, and Day.

Today, we are going to fix that!

1. Click the EDIT button at the top of the page.
1. You should three panels appear on the right. 
   (One or more might be collapsed.  Don't worry about that too much.)
1. Filters
2. Visualizations
3. Data
2. Click on the data table on the screen so that the table visualization is selected.
3. Under the Visualizations panel, find the column that shows,
1. Date
1. Year
2. Quarter
3. Month
4. Day
2. Click the itty-bitty down arrow to the right of where it says "Date"
1. A menu appears that shows the following (or more items),
1. Remove field 
2. Move >
3. Show items with no data
4. Date
5. ✓ Date Hierarchy
3. Click the one that says Date
1. The data table should change to display something like "Friday, July 25, 2025" instead of all of those extra columns.
1. While that is pretty, it is not really want we want for this.  An adjustment to the Semantic Model is needed to get it to look the way we really want it.
4. Choose File from the top left
5. Choose Save
4. At the top of the screen, click "Open Data Model"
1. A new tab opens, related to your Data Model aka Semantic Model
2. Click the "Viewing" button in the top right
3. Choose "Editing"
4. In the Data panel,
1. Expand your data (click the little > next to "financials"
2. Click "Date"
5. In the Properties panel,
1. Choose "Date time format"
2. Choose "*3/14/2001 (m/d/yyyy)"
6. Close this tab (changes save automatically)
5. Back in your original tab, you may need to reload your window to the see changes.
1. The date column should display all dates in a format that looks like 7/25/2025
6. Choose File
7. Choose Save

We are with this for today.  I know it seems like a lot now, but most of these things will never need touched in this report again.  Power BI will remember everything we did.

Power BI Report Data Refresh - Snack 6

Now that we have everything relatively stable, and before we get to far into it, let's take a moment to consider how we might keep this updated.

This can be done easily, if you are getting data from a source that is consistent in format, meaning it looks exactly the same every time but with new numbers.

This can be done with very little effort and without having to go through the previously discussed process every single time.

Let's go over a couple of facts.

• The data set is in "My Workspace" in the Power BI Service.  
• It is named "Financial%20Sample," if you are using the same dataset that I am.
• The data (aka your spreadsheet) is still stored in OneDrive.
• It is named "Financial Sample.xlsx" if you are using the same file I am.
• I can't tell you where you stored it though.  You need to know that.

That file can be overwritten new data any time and update your Power BI Report with that new data.

There are a couple of conditions. 

• The file must be in the exact same structure every time.
• The file must use the same exact name.
• The original file must be overwritten with the new file.

Let's do it!

1. Get your new file, if you have one.
2. Ensure that file is exactly the same.
3. Ensure that file has the exact same name as the old one.
4. Copy that new file into the folder where you stored your original file.
1. A message will appear indicating "A file with this name already exists so we couldn't upload "Financial Sample.xlsx" Add it as a new version of the existing file or keep them both.
1. Choose "REPLACE"
5. Go to the Power BI service online
6. Go to "My Workspace"
7. Locate your "Semantic Model" (refer to type to discern the difference)
1. When you hover over your "Semantic Model," a circular arrow appears.
1. Hover over that circular arrow and it will say "Refresh"
2. Click that arrow to refresh your data
1. To the right of the "Refreshed" date stamp, you will see some dots chasing each other.   
2. When they stop chasing each other, the report has read your update.
8. Go look at your report.
1. If you have had it open, reload the page and your report now has new data.

Of interest:  If your department has a defined Workspace, you can do all this work there, then go into the settings for that Semantic Model and schedule a refresh, so you do not have to do steps 5-7

Karen drives a Ford

 

Ever wonder what "Karen" drives?  You are looking at it.  Karen loves his Ford F-150 Pick-em Up Truck.  Karen also enjoys cutting people off, break-checking, and then yelling at people for not following their rules of the road, as well as frightening little girls with his own personal brand of crazy and profanity.  If you see Karen, stay away.  He is considered armed with a head full of lunatic and dangerous.  His mother should be proud that he is such a good Christian.

Power BI Snacks Intermission

In case you missed it, we have been walking through how to get yourself going with Power BI Online through little snack size posts over on Viva Engage and Teams.

We learned some terms, grabbed some data, imported it, and created our first simple visual.

There are definitely more exciting things to come!

It seems everyone was out for a super-fabulous holiday weekend, so I thought I might just do a quick recap this week.  Use this opportunity to explore what we have done already, simply catch up, work on your tan, or all of the above.

Below are links to what has been covered so far, to help you in those efforts ... sunscreen not included.

• Power BI DIY Snacks! Starting off with Power BI Online - Snack 1
• Power BI Terms - Snack 2
• Power BI Side Bar - Snack 3
• Power BI Report Data Import - Snack 4
• Power BI Report Simple Table Visual - Snack 5

See you for the next round?

As an interesting side note, I only just now discovered Mina Saad over on LinkedIn wrote along similar lines about a year ago.  Super informative posts on the topic and even tinier bites.  That's where I hijacked this week's image.

Another Fourth of Arkansas

 

It probably comes as no surprise that we again returned to Arkansas for this fourth of July.  It is becoming quite habitual in nature.   The crew of a few grew to a crew of seven on this particular expedition south in the north central area of the state.

The journey offered up a few new intrigues by way of Boliver, Springfield, and the Peel Ferry.  Our ongoing investigation into the location included visits to the usual haunts along the Mossy Bluff and the Sugar Loaf.

The fourth of July exploded all around, fitting with the regular expectations.  Heber Springs stood apart this year, holding its return fire until Saturday the 5th.  That seemed to work well for folks further south, enabling them to stick around in Little Rock for the main event, and arrive the following down for the closer.

The return trip was nothing to write home about but did give up a story idea and some new scenery.  Otherwise, we put our effort into avoiding lake traffic, of which there turned out to be very little.  One can never be too cautious though, especially with boat-trucks unable to maintain their lane.

Tao Verse 7

By having no claims to life, they cannot be claimed by death.

Power BI Report Data Display - Snack 5

Slightly funny story.  Someone contacted me last week and said they can't see anything in their report.  

We only imported the data last time.  

Now, we will visualize it and this won't take any time at all.

Head back over to the Power BI service online and let us see what we can see.

1. Click "Workspaces"
2. Click "My workspace"
1. At least two things are listed and for me, those are:
1. Financial%20Sample
1. Type = Semantic Model
1. This is the data!
2. FinancialSample
1. Type = Report
1. This is the report you created based on that data.
3. Open the one where Type = Report
1. A blank screen appears!!
4. Click "Edit"
5. In the right sidebar is the imported dataset
1. For me, it is simply named "financials"
1. Yours might be "Report-Result1" or "Worksheet" or "Sheet1" or whatever the Excel worksheet was named.
2. Click the little " > " next to the dataset name
1. A list of all the columns that were in the spreadsheet appear.
6. Under "Visualizations" in the right sidebar,
1. Click the little button that looks like a table.
1. That is the one that has a white grid, not the one that is partially blue.
1. See the attached screenshot that has a little red box around this feature.
2. On the left of the screen, a box appears that says "Select or drag fields ..."
7. Under "Data" in the right sidebar, quite literally do what that box says to do.
1. Use the check boxes that appear there or click on those column names and drag them over into the box on the left of the screen.
1. Make absolutely certain one of the columns is a date.
1. Add them all if you like, or just the ones you have a greater appreciation for.
2. If another box appeared when you went through this, that is ok.
1. For the empty one you would like to get rid of ...
1. Hover over the box and a little menu will appear above it.
1. Click the " . . . "
2. Choose "Remove"
8. File > Save

Your screen should look somewhat similar to the screenshot.  That with your data box has handles you can grab and stretch it out to see more of your data.

You might have noticed that the date looks kind of funny too.

This is what is called a hierarchal view.  

Power BI always displays dates in that format by default. 

We will get that fixed next time.

Questions? As always, post them up below.

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.
  

Copilot, the Artificial Idiot

I remain unconvinced of the usefulness of AI at this time.  It is the equivalent of attempting to hike with a car.  While it may work, it is a bit of overkill.

Multiple model collapse situations reinforced this belief. Building a little app in Power Platform, I asked Copilot to import all rows from my spreadsheet.  It imported 20 and not the 78 requested.  I asked that it import the remainder of the rows, so it made stuff up, 5 at a time.  Then, when asked to list the rows for me to review, Copilot insisted that it had, when it had not.  

This is not the first time either.  

I should not have to argue with the Artificial Idiot.

"We're in the midst of the AI Slop, where the internet feeds itself."  

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.'"

Tao Verse 6

 

Tao is limitless, unborn, eternal —

Power BI Terms - Snack 2

Did you get your homework done?  When you accessed Power BI last time, I asked you to poke around.  Did you discover anything interesting?

Before we really dive in, there are a couple of high-level terms you should be familiar with, as they relate to Power BI.

Report - An interactive collection of visualizations enabling analysis and insights, based on a Semantic Model.

Dashboard - A single-page, interactive canvas enabling a high-level overview of your data through single visualizations that live in a Report, or even an entire Report page.

App - A collection of dashboards, reports, datasets, and other Power BI content created and shared through a single access point.

Semantic Model - the logical layer that represents the structure and meaning of the data within a specific context. It captures the relationships, transformations, and calculations needed to create reports and dashboards. 

Workspace - A collaborative space where a group of folks can work together on dashboards, reports, datasets, and other content.

Essentially, a Semantic Model defines a Report, whose visualizations may live in a Dashboard, a collection of all may reside within an App.  These reports and models may also live in a collaborative workspace or only in your own individual workspace.

Your homework.  Remember this forever.

Celery Salad Base

Found this base somewhere and modified it slightly.  Turned out rather nicely.

1/4 Cup of Sweet Onion

1/8 Cup of Lemon Juice

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan

A bunch of celery

1. Mince the onion.  
2. Slice celery 1/4 inch.
3. Except for the celery, mix it all together.  
4. Toss the celery in the mixture.

Add other veggies for fun.  This time, I added a small zucchini.

Bad Luck Hills Fort

Among the more remarkable snapshots-in-time sits high on a bluff along the Missouri River on the eastern outskirts of Kansas City in the small town of Sibley.  A good portion of the backstory associated with this site is familiar to nearly everyone, while other parts of its history remain obscured.

These "Bad Luck Hills," as they were once known, look out across the Missouri River valley just above the confluence of Beasley Creek and the Missouri River.  It is a uniquely defensible, yet accessible position offering opportunities in overland and water-born trade from a secure location.

One of the leading explorers associated with The Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery, otherwise known as the  Lewis & Clark Expedition, landed upon this spot in June of 1804.  William Clark and the band of explorers spent the weekend here plagued by gnats, ticks and mosquitos, as well as being mired in mud a good portion of that time.  It is surprising he held any inclination to return.

Clark held onto memory of the distinctly favorable location more so than the aggravations encountered there, returned to the site with other government appointees, and set about establishing Fort Osage in 1808.  The military garrison and successful government factory served the region for another 20 years before private fur traders finally demanded closure of this competition.

Local settlers salvaged lumber and other parts from the shuttered fort to develop the surrounding community, nearly erasing it from history. Oral tradition, research, and persistent documentation kept the memory alive though, and the 1940's brought it back to life through a massive restoration effort.  

The sixties opened the door to a more detailed history of the area that included recognition of those that had come before.  Excavations uncovered evidence of human habitation by the Osage tribe, as well as the Hopewell culture that populated the region from around 200 BCE to 500 CE.

As more is learned about the site, it continues to demonstrate an interesting display of relatively consistent land use in one location, though by distinctly different cultures.  Thoughtfully arranged specimens and memoirs on display lead one through the time before man into that of the "Sky People," through westward expansion, and into the modern day.  It is a undoubtedly a unique National Historic Landmark worthy of an afternoon of exploration.

...

further reading

Day by Day - June 23, 1804

Discover Lewis & Clark

Fort Osage
National Park Service

Fort Osage National Historic Landmark

National Landmark Site

Fort Osage

Historic Sibley, MO

Starting off with Power BI Online - Snack 1

If access is enabled to Power BI, you have a relatively simple and powerful data tool at your disposal.  

Indeed personally, I have found it to be more intuitive and flexible than Excel, enabling a variety of automation possibilities, pairing of data, as well as distribution of data and reports from the simplest variety to the most complex.

Over the course of however long it takes, I hope to offer up some snack-size pieces that walk through getting started in Power BI.  This will be within the scope of using the Power BI service, also known as Power BI Online.

A license is needed, or access through a trial version, which costs nothing to sign up.  It will likely prove insufficient for this series though.  Lacking that essential piece, the free desktop version is available, to which these instructions can easily be adapted.

Today's snack-size piece is simply about the platform we will use for this.

1. Visit the following link and login > https://app.powerbi.com
1. It should look similar to the screenshot below.
1. Not exactly.
1. Similar.  Microsoft changes things all the time, but the general screen layout has not change significantly in the last couple of years.
2. Poke around in there.  
3. See what there is to see. 
1. You cannot break anything.  
1. Do not be afraid to push buttons.  It is, after all, kind of what Power BI reports are all about, bringing a level of interactivity to otherwise boring, two-dimensional reports, enabling consumers to more quickly understand their data.

That is all I have for now; we can connect again later.  Go play! See if you can break it!

Lake Morning Platte Hikes

Enjoyed an opportunity to escape the drudgery for a couple of hours this morning and take a look at a couple of trails that I had not yet seen.  A beautiful sunny and crisp 15° C morning found the first, Green Hills of Platte Wildlife Preserve, generally okay. Half of the trail was mostly a wide gravel path, with the second half of the trail winding through a dense forest and a collection of poison ivy and ticks, within earshot of passing traffic.  I emerged unscathed and will probably have another look here once everything dies again.

The second trail was one that I had driven by several times, though had not had a chance to stop, being urgently on my way to another destination.  Charlotte Sawyers Nature Area offered a better opportunity to get away from civilization.  Voices from a neighboring farm could be heard along with random air traffic and that was about it.  It was little more than a mowed path around an overgrown field but served the purpose.  It offered space for quiet contemplation.

Second Grade Zoo Field Trip

 

An invitation to join in a field trip to the zoo, only charged with leading a couple around the massive complete, led to capturing a few new aspects of this particular location. The new aquarium is an intriguing new addition and left my second-grade troupe amazed.  It was definitely their top pick for the day.

Mother's Day Unity

 

Prior to other festivities planned for the afternoon, we made a brief journey out to the garden at Unity Village for Mother's Day.  There is some intriguing architecture loitering about the place, and quite an array of fountains and roses.  We may need to make another trip go get a closer look at other aspects of this location.

Tao Verse 5

Heaven and Earth have no preference.

My Easter Prayer

 

Whatever else is going on in the universe, this, right here, is good.

That is all that I offered, which is 1000% more than I usually do.  That part is always left to someone else.  I am not sure how many heard or even understood, since  a couple were busy interrupting and clowning.  It is what it is.

Whatever else is going on in the universe, this, right here, is good.

Dog Wheat Play Box

 

Originally constructed to host a small patch of herbs, it turned playpen, with the acquisition of a new puppy.  I planted wheat in the box last fall, and this spring she has snacks.  When it turns, it will become a play area again.

2001 Kawasaki Vulcan for Sale

 

If you are seeing this post, it is still for sale.

2001 Kawasaki Vulcan 750 ... 14,500+ miles and in generally good condition, regular riding and maintenance.  Tires have only a couple thousand on them.  Clear title. No major defects.  Just a little dusty.  One Owner.  Leave a message below to get in touch.  Serious offers only.

https://bigbikereviews.com/kawasaki-vulcan-750/

Strong Strawberry Bloom

 

Strong blooms this year on the strawberry patch.  This photo is but of a 1'x1' area, but it all looks this good today.  It should be quite a little harvest.

Ragged Old Patio Table

 

Rehabilitated an old iron table that someone threw out last year.   It is not the best.  The one corner in the foreground ended up a mess, but it is close enough for a ragged old table for the patio.  The top was particle board surrounding the glass.  It was broken and did not fair very well.  A 2x4 of treated wood and we were on our way.

The Great Ocean of Truth

Occasionally, we stumble upon quotes that resonates.  I ran across this one today, so snatched it up and planted it on top of one my own photos taken on the shores of Lake Superior.  

Fruit Tree Bloom 2025

Cherry and peach trees are blooming in unison this year and looking really good.  The peach tree is just finishing up, the Bing is in full bloom, and Montmerency just beginning to light up. This is year 5 for all of them, so we should see some sort of harvest.

Tao Verse 4

Tao is empty yet it fills every vessel with endless supply.

March Lightning

 A couple of shots taken out over the field, while the storm moved in.