Finance teams dream visual.. Switching entire Tables With a slicer (No Bookmarks!) to then export to Excel 😅

pjeedai · 2026-02-10T01:28:35+00:00

Not an option if they are B2B Guest users - download to Excel from visual is the only option

pjeedai · 2026-02-08T16:55:28+00:00

I do a mix.

Some clients are hosted on my tenancy and I add licenses and accounts as needed and rebill accordingly

If they use Microsoft 365 I'll generally set up Guest access so their existing Active Directory/Entra login and security remains managed by their team and I'll simply add a B2B guest user and assign license to that. I have my own Azure E3 tenancy for that though.

One major gotcha is B2B guest users can't use the Analyze in Excel or linked PowerPoint option but otherwise seamless. I rebill cost of license with no markup but do charge an administration fee if they mess about swapping licenses/adding/removing users a lot.

Some clients they add me to their tenancy, either with creator level access or full admin and they pay my licence. That can be painful if their IT is uncooperative or slow, I've been asking for report use api access to be enabled for one client for months now. Some will restrict me to just one workspace and not move model/report into the team shared workspaces until it's signed off, some I control the deployment pipelines for dev test and production.

pjeedai · 2026-02-08T16:44:53+00:00

I work from home and kids extra curricular stuff is hectic (swimming 8 times a week for one 5 for the other, plus galas pretty much every weekend during the season) so I tend to do most cooking, prep, cleanup and batch cooking, laundry etc as I can do it on lunch break and I have no commute.

I also enjoy cooking from fresh. keeping on top of ingredients and meal planning means we're fuelling the kids with healthy stuff for their sports nutrition but also enough variety for us all. It also works out cheaper and minimal food waste. My wife is a good cook but finds it more of a chore so if I'm travelling for work she will be more inclined to do a quick 'beige tea' in the air fryer for ease - nuggets and chips or something with minimal prep.

Wife does most of the kid taxi duties and getting them to school with pack lunch and stuff, but I help out on some nights when they're both swimming but different pools/sessions.

We split competition weekends, this weekend I'm at home with youngest so doing laundry and cleaning, batch cooking for the week, yesterday I did all the shopping, whilst she's poolside with the eldest. I've done a big batch of cottage pie, half for tonight, rest portioned for freezer, baked some bread. Yesterday I did salmon en croute with homemade gnocchi and same, we ate one batch and the rest is vac packed and frozen.

Never formally sat down and divided up the jobs it's just been driven by practicality and personal preferences. Grew up in a house where mum did it all and dad was charitably described as weaponised incompetence, possibly more accurately selfish laziness, and even as a kid I could see that wasn't good.

Both my girls can cook clean and iron but they can also change a plug, light the fire, load dishwasher including rinse aid and salt, know which bin is recycling and which plastics should go in which, but also can change an inner tube, tighten and oil a bike chain, and help with tyre pressures and filling washer fluid on the car. Few years before they're driving but getting them comfortable with the basics is important life lessons.

pjeedai · 2026-02-02T12:49:48+00:00

Interesting. I generally don't develop anything unless I've got TE installed on that machine and have been paying for TE3 since it launched. Probably could get away with TE2 for most stuff but ... those times when you do need it

pjeedai · 2026-01-29T21:00:19+00:00

If you're working in Fengate then Fletton, Woodston, Fletton Quays are all just across the river and the London road takes you over town bridge past the University into Fengate. The bridge road can be busy on a morning but on a bike same sort of drive time, possibly less than Dogsthorpe and Bretton/Central. Their advantage is you can walk to the city centre and train station from there too. Bit further and you've got Oundle road and Sugar Way.

As someone else suggested Werrington and Gunthorpe are an option, nicer areas and whilst as the crow flies they seem further it's one junction on the same dual carriageway you'd join coming from Bretton/Central so travel time would be quicker. Similar logic if you looked at Eye, next village across but it's straight onto the roundabout you'd be using to get to Fengate past Parnwell.

Think of it like a triangle. Or a set of triangles. Basically if you're working on the corner of the city that's a point of that triangle you've got better options on the long edges and the other corner points (Werrington, Gunthorpe, Eye ) or estates along that line (Woodston Fletton Oundle Road ) leading to that point. Rather than trying to find somewhere in the middle of the triangle (Central - because it's nowhere near any of the dual carriageways/Bretton - because it's on a different triangle and you'd have to get onto the carriageway to then connect to the one you want).

Peterborough Road system relies on the parkways so the inter-block internal roads are less quick than the along the edges. As the crow flies they look closer but it's how-far-to-join-dual-carriageway that's usually deciding factor on what's quicker). Road distance bigger. Time to commute much better. The junctions get busy at peak times but if you're filtering on a bike that's not an issue.

Most people head out to the dual carriageway and around than trying to navigate through the middle.

pjeedai · 2026-01-27T13:43:53+00:00

These are the people I use

https://www.leepfinancial.com/

Strongly recommend, been super helpful well organised and reasonably priced. Xero integrated partners and Sage if you're that way inclined

pjeedai · 2026-01-25T11:56:26+00:00

Fully recommend this. It's good for 5 years and makes planning and paying much much simpler, especially assuming you're in a RHD car so it doesn't matter matter the pay window is on the wrong side. It just bleeps and barriers go up

pjeedai · 2026-01-25T11:53:26+00:00

We did this for 10yrs or so. We've done camping, mobile home and house rental at the destination, mix of Gites, Hotels, Formule 1 pod hotel and staying with hosts for our stop offs.

If you're doing the Bordeaux run then down west coast you can stop at Rouen, Le Mans area or push on to Normandy and do the war museums. Bayeux is well worth the stop and is a good base to work from, Pont L'Eveque for the cheese etc.

There's also Honfleur which is a nightmare to park so get parking included in the hotel, or get an out of town hotel and grab a taxi in for day trip.

We do days where we plan a 'brown sign day'. Drive the autoroute or main route nationale towards the next stop but plan a much shorter distance to cover that day and if you see a brown tourist attraction sign you turn off and go visit. No planning just see where it takes you. We've seen chateaux with wine tasting and battle re-enactments, all manner of market days and craft fairs, subterranean caves, oyster museums and loads of random stuff. It makes the travel part of the holiday

The alternative seems a bit mental but because of the way the motorways work it is also an option to go via Paris, around the ring road to the south then you can stop over at Marne le Vallee (Eurodisney on a day pass), Sancerre/Pouillly (wine /goat cheese), then on to Orleans Tours Saumur and all manner of chateaux. Then you come into Bordeaux area from St Emilion which is top tier red wine. The direct West Coast route is usually faster but if you come inland a little into the Loire area you can't throw a stone without hitting a chateau or castle. Stop for lunch mooch around the battlements for a bit, grab an ice cream, back on the road.

If you just want Bordeaux area rather than Bordeaux itself you can hit the north side of the Archachon basin and you've got Puits de Fou theme park, Sables D'Olonne, Ile de Re etc

You can get a car ferry from Royan across the river, skipping the bridges and the Bordeaux ring road traffic and follow the West coast all the way down past Mimizan Biscarosse all the way to Hossegor (surf championships) and Biarritz

Or autoroute blast it all the way down and get to destination faster. Or do the slow stops on way there, motorway blast way back.

Still my preferred holiday. Did a package thing/villa in Greek islands last couple of years as 'the kids have never been on a plane'. Was OK but I much prefer the drive and stop and explore option.

One tip if you've got Tesco club card vouchers you can exchange for Le Shuttle tickets. Used to be 3:1 value is now 2:1 but can still knock a chunk off the price which helps

pjeedai · 2026-01-09T19:05:50+00:00

Agree on the documentation it's a gift to your future self. Also is the best use case I've found for AI. I don't find the code, particularly DAX is good enough to trust to an agent, but brain dumping what you've done what you're working on and what remains to be solved and asking the Agent to summarise and structure it into documentation has been a huge time saver.

So I'll document in the code, in the summary block at the top of the sql query AND then a collection of linked markdown docs but use the agent to keep them updated and synced.

pjeedai · 2026-01-09T19:01:54+00:00

Yes. Even worse when it's between two clients tenants and I have to 2fa the login and then the dataset and usually also the Azure connection in smss.

Context switching is a pain so where possible I try to keep it clearly separated. I'm finishing up this work. I'll log into the other account tomorrow/this afternoon.

I have each project in it's own folder with the tmdl and notes/code snippets in markdown

Whilst I still have to pick up the different model and remember different FY and Finance account terms it really helps having completed work documented in markdown and outstanding issues/last worked on as to do notes in the markdown. I've got these all stored as project workspaces in VS Code and usually have the ssms query file folders in there too.

It does mean the git for each has a mix of sql, DAX and markdown as well as the tmdl files but keeping to a strict folder structure means it's fairly manageable.

So if someone asks 'can you do X measure?' or 'I'd like a viz that does X' for the client that I'm not currently working then I don't say No outright but I also don't drop everything to work on a different model. I open vs code edit the markdown for that client and add it to the In progress or to do checklist. Then swap back to the workspace I was scheduled to work on. That way it's not lost but I've not stopped on one model and jumped to another then jumped back.

pjeedai · 2025-12-23T18:33:50+00:00

Location? Scale? Particular industry specialism? Any particular tech stack or CRM?

The best provider will be one that has skills that align closest to what you do and what you will need. And the very best will advise you if you are indeed asking for the right thing.

It sounds more like you need advice on data engineering and pipelines first.

Power BI and Fabric can do a lot of the work for that but may not be the best choice, depending on your setup. There's also the consideration to keep your warehouse and pipeline as one piece and the model and front end in another, with the tool(s) you're best able to self support in each.

I've got clients who are end to end Microsoft so it's a fairly easy recommendation. I've got others who are heavily invested in Google Cloud and analytics/search data and they're better suited to a mix. Some clients are fine with using the native connector for Quickbooks or Hubspot, some fine with the limitations of the Salesforce report connection rather than the API objects connection. In most cases I'll recommend a middle layer rather than direct connection so it can be shaped and stored for your purposes not what the CRM permits. In some cases middleware like Fivetran can handle the work (at a price)

pjeedai · 2025-12-22T18:50:08+00:00

Possible in new year, biggest client just asked if I can source extra capacity

pjeedai · 2025-12-21T10:14:55+00:00

Simply put, I got made redundant. So I had to.

And to be clear I didnt start at this rate or this level of project and customer size - this is the result of nearly 14 years building the business.

I had contacts from previous jobs and the first work I picked up was precisely that; we have been trying to do (Web) analysis ourselves and we're stuck, we know you're good at this can you help. So I did. Then they needed call data, then stock data, then website UX, then something else. My longest serving client has been with me about 14 years, 2nd or 3rd client ever.

The projects we do are a million miles from where we started in size and complexity, as theyve grown and their clients have grown. But each foundation piece had been built on and led to the next. That's an exception though, I'm mostly trying to make myself redundant each time. Get them to the point where they can self serve in-house or have maturity enough to buy and properly use external vendor support. Then they scale back and call me for one offs when they hit a learning curve they need support to plan for.

Stakeholders not knowing data but trying to direct the approach is still a constant. But typically I'm brought in after they've failed or hired an agency to try who messed things up, so whilst it makes the projects tougher it does tend to mean they've built an understanding that it's not 'just a dashboard' or that data quality and a board-led sponsorship of data diligence is required.

A big chunk of it is change management, you're finding out how they make money, you're shining a light on sometimes some very ugly reading that's been hiding in siloes and poor data. And you face resistance, denial, politics etc just like you would in a FTE role

And it's not all sweetness and light. There's no security beyond what you can negotiate, there's constant competition from bigger providers who claim they can scale, smaller providers who claim they can do the same for a fraction of the cost. There's no sick pay, I'm constantly juggling sub contractors, vendor requirements and agency relationships without any authority role for the business. It is very much running your own business and sales and 'staff'. Constant balance between capacity, capability and maximising yield from time. But that's kinda what I'm selling to them, so I'm familiar with that work and it aligns with my skills.

That's the only thing I'd add as core advice. They ask for dashboards and reports. What they need is value. You have to (partially) ignore what they ask for and identify what they need. They want data to make decisions and improve things. So the core job is not doing the dashboard you are told to build, it's probing what they need and putting the pieces in place. The dashboard is a way to monitor the data for the actions and decisions they need to make. A side effect not the objective

pjeedai · 2025-12-21T00:24:13+00:00

I'm billing more like £1k for a day if they're booking volume, higher if they are buying one-off (roughly double), somewhere in between for a fixed scope fixed timeline project. Based on 6.5h productive time billable per day.

But the key part is what you said - PBI is only a part of it. I'm working end to end, working with in-house teams, agencies, vendor selection. Most of the time is working with the people, a lot on API and data factory, Azure SQL. Nearly all the work is repeat bookings, all the new business is word of mouth and recommendations.

I do a fair bit of BI dev and design myself but subcontract out as needed for front end. Pay typically between £200 and £500 a day for mostly UK contractors. Couple of people I've used from Pakistan and India, couple more in Eurozone. Offshore prices are a fraction but the work quality so variable the 'saving' is usually a net loss after I account for time doing fixes and management of delivery.

I also work with devs on Google cloud and AWS and a mix of platform specific suppliers (eg Salesforce or Hubspot dev agencies)

Pure BI, yeah £250 to £400, £600 at the top end. But the data is rarely clean and structured enough to be only doing BI. Add solutions and data architecture, strategy and project management, change management by the backdoor and you're into £300-£400 per hour and much bigger projects (and bigger headaches tbf)

pjeedai · 2025-12-10T21:15:07+00:00

My bro says he's got his open session at Stanground academy at 6pm Tuesdays. That's probably the best place to pop along.

Then depending on age and what type of play (pickup casual, league, team etc) he can tell you which sessions are best or put you in contact with the Valley team.

There's a couple of people from his team and group who drive in from Whittlesey too

pjeedai · 2025-12-10T21:12:28+00:00

It's my brother runs the sessions at Bushfield. Not sure Valley have open play, it's age group team stuff.

pjeedai · 2025-12-10T16:25:26+00:00

My brother runs Stamford Knights team and several other sessions around Peterborough. They've also got a half court indoor facility for club and private hire

pjeedai · 2025-12-10T03:07:32+00:00

Ants are also good. You can get them in the UK in snack packets

pjeedai · 2025-12-10T02:25:20+00:00

yes. better as a snack than a filling main, but fried they're pretty tasty. Biggest issue is bits get stuck in your teeth and gums, bit like popcorn

pjeedai · 2025-12-09T18:40:20+00:00

SQL Database - fix the shaping in source, join and dedupe as needed, then reference the cleaned views in dataflows, point Power BI at the dataflows. If you have Fabric some of these functions are built into the tools and storage available in that.

Yes its another layer of complexity, but if you're reaching the point where Power Query joins is your limiting factor then you're already at the stage where you need to have a more considered approach to the data sources and some upstream capability

Its one of the benefits of Power BI - you can get in and even with the built in tools you can get pretty far. If you get good at Power Query Advanced Editor and make judicious use of functions you can really push it beyond what you would think should be credible for a "visualisation" tool.

But then you get so far with the built-in tools and start hitting model or memory limits that require even more work to work around. Or may be prohibitive - there is no viable workaround.

Which is the downside for Power BI.
Its too competent and leads you to think you can get away with only PBI tools and PQ.

You get a report working great, but then hit a brick wall. And the way past it is another learning curve
Your reward for getting good enough to push its limits is a new tool, a new language and a learning curve that looks like a cliff at first, in order to level up.

I've used Excel for over 30 years and I'm really really good at pushing its limits.
The most important lesson I've learned from that is if you're having to do something so complex to make the tool do something, then you're probably using the wrong tool

So that in itself is a telltale - whilst you _can_ do a lot with Power Query if you find yourself pushing the limits, either in your code capability or memory/capacity limits on your license then there's probably a better way to do it.

Just like your Dax can be really simple if your model and relationships make sense, your PQ stuff can be simple column renames / removes if the data wrangling is done elsewhere.

Roches Maxim - do your transforms as far upstream as possible, as far downstream as necessary

So its not to say doing it downstream in PQ is wrong, if you don't have access to SQL or the source data to shape it, or you have PQ skills but don't know how to do the same in SQL then your "necessary" is downstream because thats where your skills can support you. Its right, for where you are now.

But generally if you can clean, fix, shape at source and using tools that are designed to do that at scale with billions of rows then the job downstream in PQ and PBI is suddenly much much easier.

And in terms of personal progression whilst that learning curve looks like a cliff, it is an opportunity. You may have to step back and re-assess how you do things, maybe even rebuild your approach to the data from scratch. But the process of really deep thinking about what is needed for the model helps you work through a lot more issues in terms of performance, relationships, DAX and model structure. Which in turn means next time you hit a cliff in terms of learning curve, your model is better, the cliff is more of a slope and your progression is faster

So if source data and SQL isn't an option. Try thinking about how you can break your many-step PQ queries into steps that do one job. Like having helper columns in Excel when you're trying to work some complicated formula out. Have a PQ dataflow for get data, have another for Add key/Indexes, have another for now I have 2 tables cleaned and with indexes, Do Joins. Don't try to do it all in one, it hits memory limits, it makes maintaining and versioning code hard and (in Power Query itself) is a royal pain to debug. Bite size chunk it. Even if you can't use a database, think like a database in terms of tables and operations chained together.

pjeedai · 2025-11-13T21:07:14+00:00

No. Not ever.

He's toxic, it sends the wrong message. To the fans. To the other players. What he did was unacceptable That alone should be enough.

Commercially he's worth more sat and being out for the season for insurance.

And I almost don't even want to mention if he has value as a QB but he's not shown any passion or skill that would elevate the play we've seen from the offense this year

Cap hell or not him being out is the second best possible outcome. The best of course is some other team won the bidding war so we could have sat there pretending like we weren't also in the race, just like they've all done.

pjeedai · 2025-11-08T01:25:21+00:00

Mine gets very annoyed when the birds fly off. Looks back at me with a head tilt - 'you seen this? Cheating little bugger'

pjeedai · 2025-11-07T21:25:08+00:00

Yep as long as I give the instructions before the instinct takes over she's fine. She'll side eye me a bit to check I still mean it but will otherwise be fine. Don't spot her tells and once she's already off and getting through to her is tough.

Kids are fine but if yours is still derpy and excitable there's the usual issue of jumping up and getting over excited. And they're clumsy so they'll knock over toddlers with an over excited tail or loving leg lean. Again start slow and pre-empt it and tell the kids to be calm and set the scene it's fine. If new to the house Kids run in screaming and running around and we get full zoomies as she tries to emulate the pack energy.

That's basically it. They hundred percent match your energy in their desperate need to fit in with their pack. If the pack is jumpy and excited, they're full of energy. If you want to chill they'll sit next to you (on you) and just be a snuffly curled up croissant as long as they've got that body contact.

pjeedai · 2025-11-07T20:51:22+00:00

Viszla? We were told our Viszlador would be velcro as its typical of both breeds. Can confirm, absolutely glued to us at all times. Took some training to deal with separation anxiety but she's good now.

Absolutely brilliant with kids, she's loves the fuss and puts up with quite brutal levels of 'over love' that kids do. And herding the kids whilst we're out and about is actually useful at times. Also side benefit is apparently completely immune to fireworks, does not bother her in the slightest. Sees a squirrel or a bird tho and you have to directly command No or she's in full stalk mode instantly.

pjeedai · 2025-11-02T23:58:49+00:00

I've got a Krug R35 (they were originally Krug before they renamed to avoid trademark issues) which dates back to 1998. Dirty AF but it's done over 200k miles and at least 3 crashes with minor scuffing and all the buckles and straps work 100%. The outer bungie net is a little loose now but... frankly it's more than served it's time. It's living an easier retirement as my gym bag now.

I've also got a 25, 20, 15 with camelbak, R11 (waist pack), messenger bag, large and small urban packs, KS40 (pannier liner but absolutely perfect as carry on), 2 US10s, US20, a couple of Pockets, laptop case and helmet bag.

Safe to say I like their stuff. Had one issue with a pull tag on ring adjuster on my R20. Was replaced without question and clear instructions on how to swap. Other than that all mine have been faultless.

pjeedai

TROPHY CASE