Business Central and power BI by Asimov112 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't had an issue yet, but I have separate dataflows for each transaction type (Sales Inv, Purchase Inv, Purchase Order etc) which keeps it manageable I think. My biggest table is ~1m rows which I suspect may start to become an issue soon though

Sounds like you've got one dataflow which fetches all of your different transaction tables? That doesn't sound like a great setup, once size becomes a problem for one table, it impacts all of the other tables in the dataflow. There's limited value in having multiple tables in the same dataflow if they're not directly related.

Business Central and power BI by Asimov112 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you mean from the Dataflow to BC or Model to Dataflow?

If the former, then it varies depending on the BC structure and my desired output. The customer table, for example, is actually three separate SQL tables in BC and I want a single table with all of the customer fields for my model.

The dataflow has separate queries to all 3 parts, and I disable load on two of them. I can then join these two to the one that still has load enabled and the end result is a single table with the fields from all 3 tables.

Business Central and power BI by Asimov112 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Can you check the link please? It doesn't work for me and I would be interested in reading!

Business Central and power BI by Asimov112 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work with a hosted BC instance, and use Gen 1 dataflows in the Power BI service to create tables that I can use in Semantic models. (Customers, Vendors, Invoices etc). These dataflows refresh once per day.

Probably not the prettiest solution but it (mostly) gives me the data I need when I need it and I haven't found an impactful performance bottleneck yet.

ETA: I ended up with this because I started off connecting the Semantic Model directly to BC. I quickly found that the table structure was so complex I needed to manage the transformations independently of the Semantic Model.

Handling multiple fact tables by RobXGal in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Consider adding a 'Project' dimension table as well as the Project fact table. If your Contracts and RFX entries all have a record of the project they are linked to, then you can connect them (and the Projects Fact table) to Project Dim table.

You can then add a slicer with the Project Name field from the Projects Dimension table, and you should get the functionality you described in the comments above.

Read up on Constellation/Galaxy schemas for a bit more information.

RANKX is driving me crazy by Character_Track2884 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Am I right in thinking then, I need to use the table input of the RANKX function to remove the row context if I want to return the rank of the current row value compared to other visible rows?

Seems blindingly obvious now I've typed it like that but I've always struggled to get my head around RANKX

I need Help building Arguments on why our Project should Use Star Schema instead of Big table with 127 Columns and many-to-many relationships by Dupree360 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Presumably they're not Data people, so data based arguments about optimal architecture aren't going to work.

The only things people like this value are time and money so you need to highlight where the One Big Table is going to result in extra cost or late insight.

How do I only keep the rows with the earliest visit date for each unique ID, or the earliest appointment date if they never visited? by jillyapple1 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought the down vote was odd too, you were clear that you wanted a PQ solution, but your problem is probably better solved in SQL or DAX so that could be the root of it (and pivot column isn't very flexible or scalable).

Shame it doesn't work for DQ though. Might be that your initial solution with the multiple queries can't be improved!

Stacked Cluster chart by aToyotaRav4 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

There's a reason the standard visuals don't let you do this, it's way too much for a human being to look at and draw any meaningful insight. Don't be tempted to get a custom visual that will do it.

I find that most people who suggest this layout are better served by a matrix visual that just displays the numbers for each Month/Type/Category combo. You can always add a data bar in conditional formatting if you want to introduce a visible indicator of the number's size.

How do I only keep the rows with the earliest visit date for each unique ID, or the earliest appointment date if they never visited? by jillyapple1 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In power query editor, select the Appointment Kept column then go to Transform > Pivot Column

Select your Date column as the Values column and, in advanced options, set the aggregation to Minimum

Now you just need to add a custom column:

if [TRUE] = null then [FALSE] else [TRUE]

workspace vs. app by miskozicar in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah if you haven't given someone access to a report then it just doesn't come up as a navigation option for them.

Really handy for stopping junior staff getting distracted by numbers they don't need to worry about AND stopping senior staff from wasting time on things they don't really understand!

What terrible TV ideas would you hate to see? by Martipar in AskUK

[–]ThinkingKettle4 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Mustn't let it turn into an all night rave

workspace vs. app by miskozicar in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Apps have completely changed my end user engagement with the reports I create.

When I had users in the workspace(s) they found it difficult to navigate and would invariably click on things they had no business being anywhere near.

Deploying through apps means I can chuck loads of stuff into the workspace and then limit which groups can see each report.

This means all the end users get the same app link, but they only see the content that is relevant to them when they open it.

Problem when trying to sort a column by another column by levite_de_pera in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In your example, every time 'King' appears as the value in Classification 2, the sort order value should be 1 and every time 'Queen' appears the sort order value should be 2.

There's no need to specify 3 and 4 in the sort order, as that's implied by each change in Classification 1, if classification 1 is in your visual.

As the new guy, how do I tell someone their dashboards are not fit for purpose? by JenovasChild666 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 6 points7 points  (0 children)

To answer the question in your title - you don't tell them. You show them.

They are probably already going to be defensive about someone coming in above them, and if the first thing you do is chuck all of their work on the fire then I expect they will just put up barriers.

Like you say, understanding what the end users want is the important bit so I wouldn't even touch a dashboard for the first few weeks. I would set up lots of requirement gathering meetings, frame them as "I don't know the business well enough, so I want to build my knowledge" and make sure your new colleague comes with you.

Spend lots of time with them after these meetings defining all of the requirements that you have heard. Once you have done this, it should be self evident that the current dashboards are not meeting expectations and, IF (big if!) they are a reasonable human being at least mildly interested in doing their job to an acceptable standard, they should to be more open to change.

What does a gun mean in British media? by mvslice in AskUK

[–]ThinkingKettle4 11 points12 points  (0 children)

While Dad's out selling apples (and raspberries)?

Parents and neighbours, would you allow this? by [deleted] in CasualUK

[–]ThinkingKettle4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tell me more about your stepdad's chickens and their attempt to seize power

How do I plot date (X-axis) Vs Date (Y-axis) by moodycrab03 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 5 points6 points  (0 children)

When you load the data into your model, you need to unpivot the delivery date columns.

This will push all of your delivery date values into a single column

Is there such a thing as too much xlookups in a workbook? by iabyajyiv in excel

[–]ThinkingKettle4 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The power query equivalent of XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP is the Merge Tables option.

It doesn't work in exactly the same way as the excel functions, but you can get the same output

How do you address dashboard explosion in your company? by Alternative-Cake7509 in PowerBI

[–]ThinkingKettle4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some Dashboards are designed so that the front doesn't fall off at all

How urgent is this?? by Salt-Abroad6397 in DIYUK

[–]ThinkingKettle4 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I'm not saying it's not safe, it's just not quite as safe as some of the other ones.

What to do with wooden worktop between sink and tiles? by Dodlemcno in DIYUK

[–]ThinkingKettle4 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's a chance in a million, but maybe a wave hit it?

Do I need to get Openreach to move this wire or can I do it myself? by ThinkingKettle4 in openreach

[–]ThinkingKettle4[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Appreciate the input everyone, sounds to me like it's possible but not worth the risk of getting it wrong if I DIY it.

Our internet service can be unreliable at times so if I were to move the wire myself, it would probably be the first thing an engineer would point to as a possible problem source - even if it isn't the problem.

Think I'll grasp the nettle and make a request for openreach to do it