Power BI Desktop – February 2020 – Please wait to use it!

At the beginning of this week, the February 2020 Release of Power BI Desktop was released. It includes many new features and users are eagerly waiting to try those out. With the Windows Store version, the update is automatically rolled out and installed on your machine. In most of the cases, this automatic process is great to be up to date with the latest Power BI Desktop version.

In the February 2020 version, there are some hick-us that prevented users around the world to successfully open their existing PBIX files in Power BI Desktop.

The Power BI Support page (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/) mentions those problems and the team is already working on a fix.

 

If you are affected by this issue, please downgrade to the December release of Power BI Desktop OR set the Regional Format to “English (United States)”.

 

The updated version of Power BI Desktop should be available (according to the support page) at the end 2020-02-22.

It’s #SQLSatVienna 2020 time..

In less than three weeks, it’s time for another edition of #SQLSatVienna. Like in the past, we are guests at the JUFA hotel in Wien where both, the preconference full-day workshops AND the conference day will take place.

Full-Day Workshops

On Thursday, 23^rd January 2020 you can choose from four different full-day workshops. A registration for the workshops is mandatory!

• Execution Plans in Depth (Hugo Kornelis)
  
• Power BI Advanced Developer Course (Asgeir Gunnarson, Bent Nissen Pedersen)
  
• Enterprise analytics on-premises and in-cloud with SQL Server and Azure (Tomaz Kastrun)
  
• Columnstore Indexes: Practical Solutions & Techniques (Niko Neugebauer)
  

As of today, we are fully booked, BUT: All workshop attendees get an admission ticket for the conference day!

Conference Day

We have worked hard this year to provide an (hopefully) interesting schedule with six tracks in parallel!! All in all, 36 sessions ranging from SQL Server performance tuning, Power BI, Machine Learning, Data Science, DAX to Data Lakes and Cloud data platforms.

Community & Sponsoring

We are organizing the event (conference day) for free…

• Free for you as an attendee – you get a full, free day of education. Starting with coffee in the morning, sessions, lunch and breaks/drinks again..
• Free for us as organizers – we are not getting paid to organize the event. It’s done in our free time; it’s done in the evenings and weekends. But we love to support the community, we love to spread the news and knowledge about working with data and the Microsoft data platform landscape.
• Free for the speaker – speakers are travelling to our SQLSaturday for free! NO financial support is coming from our side – it’s their money, their time! What we can do for them is to welcome them in Vienna, make their stay a pleasant one and have a nice dinner evening together! What you can do is to THANK them at the event for the invested time and resources!

But how do we finance the event? It is only possible with the generous help of our sponsors! Without them, there would be no (free) #SQLSatVienna! Some of the sponsors will be onsite at the conference day – We would encourage you to visit their booth, talk to them and THANK THEM for their support!

In addition, if you or your company would like to support this years edition of #SQLSatVienna – it’s never too late to sponsor the event!

Have a look at the available sponsoring options and maybe there is an option that suites you .. http://Bit.ly/SQLSatViennaSponsor

With that,

See you at #SQLSatVienna 2020

Wolfgang

• https://www.sqlsaturday.com/917/eventhome.aspx
• https://www.sqlsaturday.com/917/Sponsors.aspx
• https://www.sqlsaturday.com/917/Sessions/Schedule.aspx

Power BI für Dummies – Jetzt erhältlich!

Jetzt ist es soweit – mein erstes Buch – Power BI für Dummies
–  ist ab 4. Dezember 2019 bestellbar. Nun ja, es ist nicht nur mein Buch, wir (= Tillmann Eitelberg (t), Oliver Engels (t), Frank Geisler (t) und ich (t)) haben es gemeinsam geschrieben. Wie der Titel vermuten lässt, haben wir eine Einführung in Power BI geschrieben. Vom Power BI Universum über das Datenmodell, dem Power BI Desktop, der Datentransformation mit Power Query, der Erstellung von DAX Formeln für die Kennzahlendefinition, dem Power BI Service und vielem mehr, haben wir die Themen mit zahlreichen Beispielen erklärt. Ihr könnt Euch nicht vorstellen, wie groß meine Freude war (und ist), als ich das erste gedruckte Buch in meinen Händen halten konnte. Frisch aus der Druckerpresse haben wir dieses gemeinsam am PassCamp 2019 in Seeheim feiern dürfen. Das Buch ist ab sofort bestellbar – wir würden uns freuen wenn du zu den Lesern gehörst!

• Power BI für Dummies bei Amazon
• Power BI für Dummies bei Thalia

Long time no see!

Hi everyone! May I re-introduce myself back to business 🙂

It’s been a tooooooo long time I’ve not been active on this blog.

Busy times, holiday, summer, projects, work, projects, work, not enough time to blog… but I’ve got the feeling, that this can be changed..

Summer was quite quiet in a conference-sense for me:

• I attended SQL Saturday Oslo 2019 (2019-08-31)and presented my “The Microsoft Power Platform – What is it?” session. It was my first trip to Norway and we took some days off around the conference and visited the Oslo area.. and we really, really liked it!
• In the following week, I had the chance be part of the presenter and organizing team of the “Global AI Night Vienna 2019“.  I enjoyed presenting the power of Azure Cognitive Services and show the possibilities of quickly implementing a powerful, AI-powered solution!

In a more organizer way, the summer was full of tasks…

• I was part of the program selection committee for the Power Platform WorldTour stop in Vienna. The conference is held on two days at the end of October –  so hurry up and register for two days full of sessions plus an optional pre-workshop day!
  If you are interested – Use the code 2019PPWT100VIENNA to save 100$!
• SQLSaturday Vienna 2020 is on it’s way.. we got more than 180!!! session proposals and we had endless discussions during the selection process… but stay tuned for the (I hope great) agenda!

In a writing way… well .. summer was full of work..

• but please stay tuned for a separate announcement post for that topic! 🙂

Autumn is getting a “little bit” busier

• Next week, SQLDays 2019 in Erding will be the first autumn conference stop. I will present a new session “Session Evaluation using PowerPlatform”
• SQLSaturday Munich 2019 is my next stop. Beautiful city, nice venue and even nicer people …. Join me for my “Hybrid Power BI” session!
• Next stop – Power Platform World Tour Vienna – I am joining the stage for two session – my introductory, demo-filled session “The Microsoft PowerPlatform – What is it?” and “Hybrid Power BI” (info).

In addition, until the end of the year, I will present and guide six Dashboard in a Day events in all over Austria.

If you are interested, hurry up and register for free! Places are filling up very quickly!
#cubidoOnTour it is!

Happy learning,

Wolfgang

PowerPlatform Session at DataGrillen 2019

Today I had the pleasure to present a session about the Microsoft PowerPlatform at the amazing #DataGrillen event in Lingen (Germany). It was my first time I had the change to come to Lingen and I definitely do not regret it..

Perfectly organized by William Durkin (t) and Ben Weissman (t), we had two nice and enjoyable days at the IT Zentrum Lingen.

As the name of the event implies, there needs to be a Grillparty (and a decent Grillparty needs beer, yes there was beer involved) .. and that happend…. at the end of the first day!

On Friday – 09:15am, first timeslot in the morning – I started my presentation about the #Microsoft #PowerPlatform – describing some of the possibilities YOU can try and work out with #PowerBI, #PowerApps and #MicrosoftFlow!

For those of you that attended my session, thanks for coming by and the cosy vibes.. I really enjoyed my session! If you are interested in the slides, you can download them >>here.

The dates for next years event are already announced: May 28th & 29th 2020! See you hopefully again in Lingen! 

Hybrid Power BI session at Business Applications Summit 2019

Thanks for attending my Hybrid Power BI session at the #MSBizAppsSummit 2019 in Atlanta. Thanks for getting there so early in the morning (8:15) and for your valuable questions and feedback!

As I promised, I will share the most current slidedeck with you. Please get in touch with me if you want the copy in your inbox!

Happy #PowerBI-ing,

Wolfgang

Slides for my “Introducing Power BI dataflows” session at Intelligent Cloud Conf in Copenhagen

Hi everyone,

Late but here they are – the slides of my Session “Introducing Power BI dataflows” at the Intelligent Cloud Conf in Copenhagen.

I had fun presenting in a huuuuuuuuge cinema room with an even huuuuuuuger IMAX screen.. .

Here is the PDF download of my slides:

• Power BI Dataflows – Copenhagen 2019-04 Wolfgang Strasser_download