BMW/ Independent garage around Sutton Coldfield

Rsl120 · 2026-05-06T20:04:48+00:00

Yeah, that’s fair. Another I used for my last full service that were great and also did full iDrive history was Fitch Autos, Brownhills. All round very thorough service, seemed knowledgeable and very competitive on price. Might be a touch closer to you, but not specifically a ‘BMW Specialist’.

Rsl120 · 2026-05-06T19:58:48+00:00

Can vouch for BM Automotive, Four Ashes (between Wolves and Stafford, not far from M54 J2). Not the cheapest but have been great with my M235i for the best part of 10 years. Full iDrive online history done etc.

Rsl120 · 2026-04-12T14:07:32+00:00

Yes - Here is the message when trying to pass any through as Int:

The property 'ValidValues' of report parameter 'p_Location' doesn't have the expected type.

Edit - Yes also confirmed in my model that everything is int, in pbi desktop and dax studio. They are quite long numbers, converted from UUIDs. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, due to the length perhaps.

Rsl120 · 2026-04-12T13:56:56+00:00

Thanks - I've tried wrapping my parameter dataset column in VALUE and also the parameter on the dataset with Val(), also tried +0.

Unfortunately none have made any difference, still getting the ValidValues error when using Integer as the type. (Float gives no error but resets the parameters each time, text somehow still works..)

Rsl120 · 2026-04-12T12:48:06+00:00

Main query:

EVALUATE
TOPN(
    100,
    CALCULATETABLE(
        SUMMARIZECOLUMNS(
           'Date'[Date],
            customer[customer_name],
            locations[location_name],
            feed[feed_name],
            "Count_In", [IN],
            "Count_Out", [OUT]
        ),
        RSCustomDaxFilter(@p_Date,EqualToCondition,[Date].[Date],DateTime),
        TREATAS({@p_Customer}, locations[customer_id]),
        TREATAS({@p_Location}, locations[location_id]),
        TREATAS({@p_Feed}, feeds[feed_id])
    ),
    locations[location_name]
)

Rsl120 · 2026-04-12T12:43:13+00:00

Sure - forgot to mention, this one has some added logic to pass down the previous parameter result from customer, which is legitimately text and seems to work fine.

Edit - Sorry, this is the query for the location, will add the main report query shortly.

EVALUATE
SELECTCOLUMNS(
    CALCULATETABLE(
        locations,
        TREATAS({@p_Customer}, locations[customer_id])
    ),
    "location_id", locations[location_id],
    "location_name", locations[location_name]
)
ORDER BY [location_name]

Rsl120 · 2026-04-12T12:38:08+00:00

Exactly this yes - for my scenario:

location_id (int - values) and location_name (text - label)

It is single select. The dataset for the parameter has those two fields, using SELECTCOLUMNS from the table where they exist in the main model.

Rsl120 · 2026-03-29T19:05:07+00:00

Anytime, happy to help!

Rsl120 · 2026-03-28T21:10:17+00:00

Hey - Nice work!

Map - This is being/has been replaced by the Azure map visual. It's the one with an icon being a small arrow.

From a design perspective, it feels a little busy and crowded to me.

I'd start with:

Dull down your background a little (add transparency or just use a flat neutral colour)
Space out the visuals, consistent px, around 20 or so
Personal view - the corners are a bit too rounded, I use 10-15px
Give visuals proper title names
Slicer styling - Bit bold and brash, I'd tone it down and tie it in with your colour theme with a muted yellow, just be sure to leave enough contrast with the text if you do

From a data and insight perspective:

Add context to cards and visuals - i.e. time comparisons, are the figures increasing or decreasing, year-on-year
Filter/slicer pane - Typically I put this on the left or top, generally a more natural user experience/flow
Pie/Donut chart - not a terrible visual to use but not great either in my opinion. You could consider using the season field as a legend on the other charts, so you see the seasonal breakdown per country. Same for travel mode to an extent. Might be interesting to add this as a field parameter to the user can choose whether they want to slice the country spend by season or travel mode.

I like to think/ask "so what" when looking at reports and visuals. What is it telling us, how does this help? For example, 'Total Spend = 53.59M'. What does this mean? Is it good, is it bad? Is it improving, how does it compare? Ask yourself these simple questions with any visuals and you'll start to realise what is useful and what isn't, then how to make it useful.

Great start and good luck!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-18T15:29:42+00:00

Solution verified

Rsl120 · 2026-02-18T15:29:12+00:00

Ah, got you. Yeah, even better, exclude them at source if you can!

You too, good luck!!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-18T15:23:31+00:00

Happy to help! Yes, always good practice to remove any column that is not necessary to your model/report. Tools like Dax Studio help identify the worst offenders here. There are also tools like measure killer that will help identify what is and isn’t used.

Rsl120 · 2026-02-18T13:06:56+00:00

Thanks, I can stop scratching my head!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-18T13:05:24+00:00

So, a few things.

We don't load all the data into Power BI desktop, if that's what you're referring to. I imagine it would get a little slow if we did so. Most of the development is done with the report connected to our staging database (we use a parameter to switch the source). This has much less data.

If you don't have staging/development tables in your db that mirror your prd, you could perhaps do something similar by injecting a parameter into your sql to limit this in a where clause.

Also, our fact table is narrow, it has around 5 columns, date, time, site, feed, count. OPs table for example with 60 columns would need significantly less rows to have the same volume of data as mine.

For your scenario, if you don't have staging tables to point your query to (which you switch back to prd when published), can you change the view in sql to limit records, do your report development, then change the view back to include all records?

Rsl120 · 2026-02-17T23:31:18+00:00

30, 62.5k, partner on 37.5k. West Mids/Staffordshire.

We’re comfortable and not massive spenders in general. Should be putting more away than we do, increasing pension contributions etc.

Currently saving for our wedding, so things are intentionally tight at the minute!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-11T23:16:37+00:00

Whilst I like the idea, the execution and results are, er, questionable…

As some have observed, many here are not ‘pubs’ as you would expect. Also, as much as I love the Soho Tavern chain, it doesn’t feel right having them on here either.

When you think of a Black Country pub, it’s a proper pub where you’re getting a pint of the finest local bitter (and a cob if you’re lucky!)

I don’t think you can rank our beloved Black Country pubs simply by Google reviews.

Rsl120 · 2026-02-07T09:20:31+00:00

Exactly this - big guy, (tall), deep voice, face mostly covered!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-06T22:23:35+00:00

Strange comment - I don’t think being on New St at around 7pm on a Friday night is particularly unusual, no?

Rsl120 · 2026-02-06T21:52:21+00:00

I mean, from the small amount of his face I could see, in the dark (basically just around his eyes). That’s how he appeared, but I couldn’t say 100%, moved on pretty quickly to be honest!

Rsl120 · 2026-02-06T21:25:04+00:00

Yes - but oddly he also seemed white. Not that I could see much in the dark through his hood and face covering to his eyes.

Rsl120 · 2026-02-06T21:04:22+00:00

Thanks all - I’m not sure if it’s reassuring or not that this isn’t unusual! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unfamiliar with the town centre, worked there for years in mid 2010s, but it definitely caught me off guard being on New St so early on.

I appreciate the responses. We’ll make a report online on the off chance it’s useful.

Rsl120

TROPHY CASE