PowerBI

Mar 13 2017

Security Updates to Power BI

Author: Ginger Grant • Discussion: 1 Comment
Office 365 Admin Screen for granting Power BI Admin rights

Office 365 Admin Screen for granting Power BI Admin rights

In the past month, Microsoft has made a number of security changes to Power BI. The first one, is not really a feature update, but a PowerShell replacement. No longer do you need to use PowerShell to become a Power BI Admin. Any Office 365 Admin can grant Power BI Admin permissions via this screen in the Admin Center. The Power BI Admin role was first created in October, but the screen was not complete, which was just fixed in February.

Power BI Security Changed from Tenant Only

People who have been granted Power BI administrator rights will also notice a modification to the Admin screen. The March 2017 update to Power BI provides a major change to the security model in Power BI. Previously all the security settings were set at the Tenant Level, meaning that all the privileges were granted to all users. If I wanted to allow one group within the organization to be able to publish reports to the web, but I did not want to allow everyone to publish reports to the web, there was no way that this could be accomplished. All that has changed. It is now possible to include or exclude groups of users from having rights in Power BI. Users can be classified into security groups in Azure Active Directory, either through the Office 365 Admin Center or via the Azure AD Admin Center. Once created the security groups can be used in Power BI. Security Groups are not the same thing as the groups created in Power BI when a new work group is created.

Using Security Groups in Power BI Admin

PowerBINonTenantAdmin

Power BI Admin Portal

The new Power BI Screen looks different. It now lists which rights can be specified to different groups of users. Share content to external users, Export Data, Export reports as PowerPoint presentations, Printing dashboards and reports, Content pack publishing, and Use Analyze in Excel with on-premises datasets now have the ability to be assigned to security groups so that the rights do not have to be the same throughout the entire tenant.

Unfortunately, some of the permissions are still tenant based. For example, the setting Publish to web, which is one permission I would definitely like to turn on only for some users, is still only available as a tenant level option.  These security changes are a welcome improvement to the product as they provide more options for administrators to grant rights to Power BI.

 

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

 

Oct 10 2016

Power BI Auditing

Author: Ginger Grant • Discussion: 3 Comments

Auditing is one of the recent features in Power BI Preview which can be a great tool for monitoring what is going on in Power BI. There were a number of people who asked for this feature on the Power BI Ideas site, which shows that Microsoft is responding to what is posted there. When I read about auditing, I thought that it was a Power BI feature. While that is true, the scope of auditing is much bigger than Power BI. Auditing is designed for Office 365. Yes, you can turn it on for Power BI, as well as for SharePoint and a number of other Office applications. Since auditing is really an Office 365 tool, one has to be an Office 365 admin to be able to be able to access the tool, as it is turned on from within the Office 365 tenant. To be able to audit anything, you need to wait 24 hours until after it has been turned on to receive any data. It doesn’t go back in time, which is unfortunate as usually you figure out that you want an audit after something happens, and then it is too late. Best to just turn it on now. If you have free users and Pro Users, you will notice that you only get auditing for the pro users.

Accessing the Power BI Audit Log

Clicking on the gear in the upper right corner of the Power BI Service will take you to the Admin portal. If you select audit logs, the screen has a button on it which opens Office 365 Admin Center. Clicking on the search box will show all of the applications which have audit logs. Scroll down to Power BI activities.

powerbiaudit

As you can see by looking at the available Power BI options, there are a number of options to choose from. If you select the top item PowerBI activities, then everything gets selected. After doing that click outside of the menu for the menu to go away. Select a date and time range of your choosing, select specific users if you wish, then click on the Search button. Depending on how big your date range is, this may take some time to load. Once you see the results, you have the ability to filter as well.

auditdeletepowerbi

The screen starts responding as soon as you start typing. I got as far as Del, and the screen changed to show only the items Deleted.It’s a pretty neat feature and a simple way to monitor what is going on in Power BI.

ITDevConLogo

I am going to be talking about more methods to administer Power BI at IT/Dev Connections. If you are attending, please come by and say hello. I would love the chance to meet more people who read my blog. For those of you who are not in Vegas this week, I will be posting more information on Power BI and R to provide supplemental material for my sessions. Check back later in the week or please subscribe to my blog for the highlights.

 

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

 

Dec 13 2015

Non-technical Issues Impacting Data Based Decision Making

Author: Ginger Grant • Discussion: No Comments

 Having worked with a number of clients to implement Power BI in their respective environments I noticed that one factor appeared to be common to all. The success of the project depended greatly upon the relationship between the business analyst and the database team. Since this seems to be an issue which greatly impacts the ability to implement Data Based Decision Making, I decided to talk about it in my recent webinar PASS BA Marathon. Too often I see companies which decide to join data together in an analytics platform, such as Power BI, and fail to take advantages of the separate skillsets in the organization. The data team has spent a considerable amount of effort and energy determining the best ways to combine datasets together. Logically one would assume that this expertise would be leveraged to help the business team analyze data. Instead the business teams are tasked with joining data together. While this approach can work, it will take longer to train the business in areas in which they may not be familiar, and the results will be mixed, especially when considering scalability and maintenance needs over time. To leverage the capabilities of the self-service business tool, which tool doesn’t really matter as the same issues will exist in for example Tableau as well as Power BI, the data team needs to be engaged. The skills they have gathered over time allow them to design a plan a data model which can be refreshed automatically without causing issues.

Using Areas of Expertise

Business Analysts time is best spent using the unique skills they have gathered over time too. Their familiarity with the data values allows them to determine at a glance how the business is doing. Codifying this knowledge into meaningful reports which can disseminate this information throughout the organization provides the basis for data based decision making. To make them successful, they need a data model which has all of the information they need which is well documented so that they can find the values they need to provide meaningful data visualizations. Too often the report generation is left to the data team, and many times there is a reporting backlog of items as there are not enough resources to do provide all of the information a business needs.

Team Collaboration

Data Based Decision Making should be an organizational goal, as it has been shown to be a major tool for business success. When the Data Team and Business Analysts work collaboratively by using their specialized skills to create and implement a solution, this solution will be successful. The result will be a model which provides the a path for the Business Analyst to continue to use the data to answer either routine questions, such as “How successful was the business last month” to more obscure questions, such as “What happened to sales volumes after a bad story in the press?”. These and many other questions are answered using the model and tools, like Power BI to implement an enterprise wide solution.

Implementing Successful Data Analytics Management PracticesPASS Business Analytics

There is more to implementing a self-service BI Tool such as Power BI than merely knowing how to make the tool work. A process and a commitment to work among teams is required as well. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about integrating the tools with the company data management polices at the BA Marathon. If you would like to know more about this topic, please come join me at the PASS Business Analytics Conference in San Jose May 2-4 as I will be going into more depth than was possible in the webinar.

 

 

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

 

Aug 28 2015

DAX Date Calculations Not Working in Power BI Desktop? Here’s a fix.

Author: Ginger Grant • Discussion: 3 Comments

Power BI offers a number of different ways to access data needed for data visualization and analysis. The reasons for selecting Power BI Desktop or Excel Power Pivot are more than likely going to change after I write this, but right now, Excel provides the ability to upgrade to a Tabular SSAS model, where Power BI Desktop does not. While Power BI Desktop and Excel both provide the ability to create formulas in DAX, only in Excel Power Pivot do you have the ability to use DAX Time and Date based calculations, but you can make Power BI Desktop do it, with help from Excel.

DAX Time and Date Calculations won’t work in Power BI Desktop

The DAX language has a number of Time and Date Calculations which contained common functions which relate to a given time frame. Here’s a list of Time and Date DAX Functions from Microsoft. These are very useful functions which you may find yourself wanting to do from time to time. None of them work in Power BI Desktop. Why? Power Pivot requires you to click on the Mark as Date Table to identify a table which contains column containing a list of unique Date and Time fields for DAX Date and Time functions to work. If you don’t have a table containing a list of dates and times in your model, you cannot use any DAX Time and Date Calculations. If you need a table like this, check out my blog post on Date table generation using a CTE to create one for you.  There is no place in Power BI Desktop, as of right now, to perform the equivalent of Mark as Date table which means that DAX Time and Date Calculations like SamePriorPeriodLastYear will not work.

Example of Power BI Desktop DAX Calculation Not Working

Here’s an example of something I tried to do in Power BI Desktop. In this first screen, I have created a new measure, which I called Prior Sales, which is designed to return the PriorPeriodnotWorkingprior period, which can be something smaller than year, of the Total Sales. The DAX for Total Sales is Total Sales = sum([Sales Amount]). Note there are no errors in the Prior Sales DAX measure.

 

Here’s what the report using the two measures, Total Sales and Prior Sales. Prior Sales shows no values but a total. This is exactly the same thing which happens in Excel when the Mark As Date Table has not been selected.

Fixing DAX Time Date Calculations in Power BI Desktop

What can you do to fix this problem? Fortunately the fix is pretty easy, but the only trick is you have to start by creating your date table. You cannot do it later, you will have to start over. Here are the steps. In Excel, create a Power Pivot Model and add in a ImportIntoExcelDate table. You do not have to have anything else in your model. Make sure that the date table is marked as a Date Table. Save the Excel Document and exit out of it. You are going to import this file into a Power BI Desktop Model. You do this by clicking on the menu button at the top Left of Power BI Desktop and selecting the menu option Import. If you do not see this option, you probably are not using the August 20, 2015 version of Power BI Desktop. Go get the latest version of Power BI from Microsoft which you can do here. Select Excel Workbook Contents, and you will get the Import window shown below. If you read the text, which to be honest I didn’t until after I hit Start PriorPeriodWorkingand ended up in a new Power BI file, you will see that the text clearly states a “A new Power BI file will be made for you”. This means when you import data into a Power BI Desktop file, you have to do it first, you can’t excel data to an  existing file. If you import the Excel file you just created with a date table marked as date table, and then add all of the other data you are interested in using, the DAX Date Time Functions will work.

Where should I model my Data, Excel Power Pivot or Power BI Desktop?

When I last wrote about where you should model your data, there was no work around to the DAX Time Date Calculation issue. That has changed with the August 20th release. If this is the only reason that you are choosing to model in Excel, I would think again. But if you want to migrate your model to a tabular analysis services solution at some point, you will need to model in Excel to be able to use the Visual Studio project which makes that process easy. I hope you found this helpful in deciding whether you should use Excel or Power Pivot. As Microsoft continues to release fixes, the reasons for choosing one tool or another change, and when they do, check back here as I am likely to blog about it.

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

***UPDATE: Power BI has been updated to include the ability to mark a table as date table, which means that you can now join on integer based date keys. For more information see this post.

 

Jan 11 2015

Presentation Follow Up to Data Analytics and Distribution with Power BI

Author: Ginger Grant • Discussion: No Comments

Thank you to all of the people who took the time to view my session on Data Analytics and Distribution with Power BI. I really enjoy getting the chance to decrease the confusion I hear regarding Power BI, and hope that you will find the question and answer section helpful if you are trying to learn more about the product.

Questions and Answers

 In Power BI Designer, is it possible to manipulate the colors of the charts?

While this may change as Power BI Designer is still in preview mode, currently the colors are assigned automatically. As you might guess, this is a feature that other people are interested in so it is on Microsoft’s list of things to add. If Power BI Designer color selections are implemented like they are in Power View, which is very similar to Power BI Designer, it is likely themes of colors will be available, rather than the ability to pick each color like in Report Designer, but we will have to wait and see.

Are Power BI designer/dashboard changes specific to each user?

If you have created a Power BI Designer Dashboard, you have the ability to share it with people in your organization. There are a couple of things that need to happen for this to work. The people that you share it with must have Power BI accounts, and they have to be in the same domain as you are. When you share the reports they are only able to read, not edit them. For more information regarding security and Power BI, see Microsoft’s guide here.

Can I grant access to users outside of our domain?

Power BI’s security model is a separate tenant from the security model for SharePoint in the Office365 cloud, but they are related as you can only grant access to Power BI if those users are able to access your version of Office 365 SharePoint. As stated in the previous question, for Power BI Designer Dashboard, the users must be part of the same domain.

How does Power BI perform predictions? Is it the same logic which is used in Data mining?

Power BI uses the Forecasting and Hindcasting features to perform predictive analytics. There are a number of different analytical categories, and the kind used in Power BI use Time Series. As the name suggests, Time Series models analyze a set of measurements performed over time to determine patterns in the past which can be used as guides going forward. Data Mining looks at variables, which may or may not include time, as it looks for patterns throughout the data. These underlying statistical models are not the same.

Does Power BI have Power Map feature?

Power BI definitely contains Power Map. In fact Power Map is only supported in preview mode if you do not have Power BI. This link can provide more information about the limits of Power Map in Excel. Power Map is designed to be run as a movie, and provide a directed look of the data on the map, rather than providing the interactive drill down mapping features which are available in Power View. You can share a Power Map by saving it as an mp4 video file and posting it anywhere. There are a number of Power Maps on You tube if you care to search there.

How does “R” play here?

The R language is completely agnostic as to what is the source of its data, you have the ability to use excel if you want to as a data source. If you want to use R within Excel, try the RExcel add-in, which is available here.

Is the PowerPivot where the data is stored for Power BI Designer?

No. Data can come from anywhere, not just from Power Pivot in Excel. For example, if you want to use a website as a data source, you could do that too as there are a number of different available data sources, and that is one of many.

Do you have to use Power BI Designer on the Web?

While Microsoft has designed the Power BI Designer as a web project, so that you can create Power BI Designer Dashboards as part of the preview, there is also an application available for download here. The desktop application works very similarly to the web version, with the exception of course that you will need to upload and Select Power BI Designer file as your data source. Should you wish to modify the dashboard once it is loaded, you can do so.

How would you determine anomalies or freak instances in data versus true trends?

The problem of determining anomalies is one which the practitioners of predictive analytics are constantly struggling. For trending to occur, the numbers of what was previously considered an anomaly need to increase. Forecasting within Power BI applies one of the more standard methods for accounting for anomalies, looking at the standard deviations and probability. The likelihood a number will fall within a certain range of numbers are based upon the number of times this has happened in the past, which is graphed as a bell curve. The values representing the far sides of the Bell curve are discarded, which is known as variance, which in Forecasting in Power BI is represented as 1δ .The number increases with the more variance you wish to represent.

Does SharePoint on premise support Power BI Designer?

No. Power BI Designer is currently in preview version in the US for Power BI subscribers. You can download the application to play with it.

Will Power BI be available in next version of SharePoint?

While I cannot speak for Microsoft, I can tell you that it isn’t there now. For more information on SharePoint, check out their website here.

Does this work in Office 365 SharePoint? And this replace the bi feature offered in SharePoint on the cloud?

Since I do not work for Microsoft, I am hesitant to talk much about how their licensing plans really work. For more information, please check out their website.

If we want to start learning Power BI, where do we start?

There are a number of great places to learn about Power BI, the best and most up to date being here. I have included some other places where you might want to go to learn more about Power BI

 

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur