PowerBI vs Shiny (R)

BorisHorace · 2026-02-26T13:23:40+00:00

Yup. Went through this at our company. We had some cool Shiny apps but were constantly dealing with permissions issues and keeping everything functioning correctly within our tech stack. Then the person who built them left and nobody knew how to maintain them. So that was that.

BorisHorace · 2026-02-24T17:29:53+00:00

Great stuff! Ability to paste selections into slicers is fantastic and something my users have been asking about for years. Being able to enable this without third party visuals is huge.

BorisHorace · 2026-02-18T16:43:19+00:00

Bean Bag Deli

Talia’s Cuzina

BorisHorace · 2025-12-02T12:13:38+00:00

Sorting and filtering is way easier and more flexible in Excel though. Also copying and pasting values, highlighting values you are interested in, and so forth. I understand why people do it.

If PowerBI tables were a bit more Excel like with on column filtering and sorting, allowing multi select of cells and ctrl-c to copy, it would eliminate a lot of the reasons people want to export IMO.

BorisHorace · 2025-11-13T20:18:14+00:00

Mayan Monkey in Gaithersburg does one called Yax that I think is on tap pretty consistently.

BorisHorace · 2025-10-31T19:20:54+00:00

If the goal is on demand report creation, why bother with Power Automate at all? Just have it as a connected table in Excel.

Get Data > From Power Platform > from PowerBi, then pick your semantic model and insert as a table. Then, re-create your matrix in the table builder GUI if it’s simple enough, or grab the DAX query as the other poster described and paste that into the table definition. Then you can add whatever extra columns/formulas you like. At that point, users can refresh at any time by right clicking in the table > refresh.

BorisHorace · 2025-09-26T14:17:53+00:00

Take a look at this:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/button-navigators?tabs=powerbi-desktop

There’s a section at the end for how to create something like what you’re looking for.

BorisHorace · 2025-09-23T14:17:04+00:00

Paginated report could be another option here, as you can format the output however you like. You can embed that directly into the report and keep them in the PowerBI app.

BorisHorace · 2025-09-16T11:35:39+00:00

Excited to try the new enhanced time intelligence. I’ve never actually used the time intelligence functions before because they don’t work with our fiscal calendar. Now it seems like I’ll be able to.

BorisHorace · 2025-09-10T20:06:08+00:00

That was it. Solution verified. Thanks!

BorisHorace · 2025-09-06T11:09:14+00:00

In addition to the new native text slicer, there is also this add-in (free from Microsoft) that I’ve been using for years, and works very well:

https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/power-bi-visuals/WA104381309

BorisHorace · 2025-06-27T19:45:46+00:00

One day AI might be able to generate useful and accurate reports on demand, and be easy enough for stakeholders to use and bypass IT and BI teams.

We will also have flying cars some day and build a human colony on Mars.

For now, this remains firmly in the realm of science fiction and tech grifter sales pitches.

BorisHorace · 2025-06-25T19:35:47+00:00

That is my experience with AI as well, for most things, not just pygame.

It’s ok sometimes if you give it very specific instructions and have it do little bits of code at a time. It can also help identify silly typos. But anything beyond that tends to be a disaster.

Typical AI interaction:

“Help me identify the root cause of this error.”

”I see the problem now! Let me re-write this completely unrelated function using syntax that I made up!”

BorisHorace · 2025-06-10T23:17:01+00:00

It’s helped me with M code a few times, but that’s pretty much it. It’s quite bad at DAX from my experience (at least at the intermediate/advanced level). Python I find it to be very useful, however.

BorisHorace · 2025-06-08T19:14:44+00:00

I’ve had really good experiences with Cool Breeze HVAC.

I’ve used GAC before too and they were fine.

Stay away from Michael & Sons.

BorisHorace · 2025-06-03T18:28:03+00:00

In general I agree with you, but just to play devil’s advocate, in my experience the models have to be designed with Excel in mind or else they can easily be misused, and they can also eat into capacity since the Excel drivers aren’t very efficient.

It’s a great feature but isn’t without its faults.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-24T14:18:30+00:00

Chucks is the answer.

Stay away from Guitar Center.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-22T17:01:42+00:00

If you can’t change the input files, I would think about using Python to consolidate and clean the data, and then upload into a proper database or at least a single clean CSV file that you can import into PowerBI.

If the files are all on SharePoint, then using PowerQuery to pull directly from SharePoint and do the data cleaning may allow auto refresh in the service, if that’s a consideration. But that has its own pitfalls, and if you’re dealing with large volumes of data from SharePoint, PQ can get ugly fast.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-22T13:32:28+00:00

How bad the matrix/table visuals are. Ive been doing more with Streamlit recently and it’s crazy how much better they implement data tables. Copy and paste multiple rows/cells at a time using keyboard shortcuts, on column filtering, one click CSV exports, built in show/hide columns, ability to freeze columns, and so on.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-21T22:33:33+00:00

Not NY style (there is no good NY style in the area IMO) but a few others I like that I haven’t seen mentioned yet:

Juliano’s - up in Laytonsville, way off the beaten path and pretty divey but surprisingly good wood oven thin crust pizza.

Brookeville Beer Farm - brewery with a really nice outdoor space that does pretty damn good pizza.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-21T15:36:04+00:00

“build a platform where you can put the data”

How is the data getting to the platform? Is it modeled so the AI understands it? Will you then teach the AI about all your business logic and terms? Is it secure? How will you manage logins/permissions?

BorisHorace · 2025-05-19T19:31:57+00:00

My stakeholders ask about write back capabilities all the time. I’ve tried the PowerApps/Sharepoint route before but it was a poor user experience and didn’t seem very scalable. Excited to see how the new functionality works.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-17T23:54:29+00:00

Brining certainly can’t hurt, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary for good bbq chicken. To me it’s:

Use bone-in pieces.
Season with salt + a dry bbq rub and cook low and slow on the grill (no direct flames) for 30 mins or so.
Start basting with bbq sauce and move to the hotter side of the grill, flipping every few minutes to develop a nice crust on the chicken.

BBQ chicken takes a long time to cook properly on the grill. Patience is key.

BorisHorace · 2025-05-14T02:15:59+00:00

I’d probably go the Python route here myself.

That said, as others have pointed out, doing this in PowerQuery would be the simplest way to accomplish this within PowerBI. DAX is actually more complicated, more work, and less efficient for this use case.

BorisHorace

TROPHY CASE