Articles for the Month of July 2017

Missing Custom Power BI Visuals

One of the great new features of the July release was the ability to now get all of the Power BI Custom Visuals from within Power BI.  I had a bookmark to get the visuals from the Office Store, but it always seemed kind of a kludgy solution.  Personally, I liked the visuals better when they were on the Power BI website prior to March of 2017.  The filters worked better and they also included a sample file.  Now I have a different and more technical reason to not like the visuals in the Office Store, some of the Power BI Custom Visuals are not there.

Some Power BI Visuals Are Not in the Office Store

PowerBIFishCustomVisualThis week I decided to do a demo using the Aquarium custom visual.  As readers of my blog know, I have used the custom visual before, but it has been a while and I have changed PCs since then.  No worries I can always go download the visual from the store, right? Wrong. The aquarium visual is not available on the new store. Neither is Image Viewer, if one is looking to add that into your latest Power BI report it is not available. What happened?

So Long and Thanks for All of the Fish

I found out from Adam Saxton b | t  that moving Power BI custom visuals was not the simple cut and paste process that I had always assumed that it was.  The people who write custom visuals had to re-write them.  What’s more unlike when the custom visuals were housed on the Power BI Website, custom visual creators also had to pay $25 to register or $99 for their company.  This means that some custom visuals may never appear in the store as the people who created them aren’t willing to pay money to give them away.

If you have the custom visuals, or as in my case you know someone who can give you a copy of a Power BI custom visual which was published prior to the move over to the Office Store, the visual will still work when you upload it to the service.  I have also been told that Microsoft is working on adding the aquarium visual to the Office Store so at some point it will again be available for download.  For those who have noticed that the Box and Whisker custom visual is not the same as the previous version, I doubt they will be able to download the old one. If they can find someone to give it to them, it will still work.

If I do find out when the Aquarium visual will be available from the store again, I will update this post. Until then, if there is a visual you want, I would try asking on Twitter, as that worked for me.

****UPDATE: On August 4, 2017 the Enlighten Aquarium is now available again! Here’s a link to the Office Store.

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

Getting Started with Integrated Python and SQL Server 2017

As part of the effort Microsoft is making at incorporating analytics, Python is being added into SQL Server 2017.   This means SQL Server will support the two primary languages of Data Science within SQL Server, R and Python.  As I have previously reviewed using R in SQL Server, I wanted to also review using Python with SQL Server. Since Python is near the top of the most popular programming language charts, many people are interested in learning more about it.  As many data professionals are unfamiliar with Python, I wanted to introduce the topic not just here, but in my upcoming webinar for 24 Hours of PASS on Implementing Advanced Analytics with SQL Server 2017 and Python.

Installing Python in SQL Server

SQL Server 2017 Install Window

SQL Server 2017 Install Window

The process for using Python in SQL Server is very similar to the previous process of installing R.  Microsoft renamed R Services to Machine Learning Services, and now allows both R and Python to be installed, as shown in the screen.  Microsoft’s version of Python uses Anaconda, which is an open source analytics platform created by Continuum. This is where Python differs from other open source languages, as Continuum is providing the version of Python as it contains data science components which are not included in the standard distribution of Python. Continuum also sells an enterprise version of Anaconda, with of course more features than come with the free version. It is important to remember the python environment as you will need select the same distribution when running Python code outside of SQL Server.

Configuration Changes for Python

The last thing needed to run Python is to configure and restart the SQL Server Services. In a new query type the following command

sp_configure 'external scripts enabled', 1
GO
Reconfigure
GO

After restarting the SQL Server Service, SQL Server will now run Python code, or if you installed SQL Server with both R and Python as I did, both languages can be used.

Python Development Environments

SQL Server Management Studio is designed for writing TSQL code, not Python.  The process for implementing Python code in SQL Server would be first to create and test the code in Python, then once the code is working, deploy the code in SQL Server.  There are a number of different User Interfaces that you might want to consider when writing Python.  Python comes with IDLE, but as it rather a feature bereft application, chances are that if one is coding Python, they want to use some other user interface.  Some of the more common ones are JetBrain’s PyCharm , Atom Python Tools or the UI Windows developers use the most, Visual Studio with Python language support.  Selecting and setting up the environments is a surprisingly complex process.  Python is a very flexible language and is widely used beyond the realm of data science to do things like create web applications.  For this reason, the environments selected matter as they create different ecosystems.

Incorporating Python to solve Data Science Solutions

24HoursofPASS2017-PreconPreviewIn my upcoming session for 24 hours of PASS, I will review the pros and cons of several development environments, and let you know which one I selected and the steps needed to make it work.  We will also take a look at implementing some Python code in SQL Server so that we can perform advanced analytical analysis with Python.

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

 

Power BI – Beyond the Basics

When helping clients recently with their Power BI implementations, I have noticed that when talking to people about Power BI there seems to be some areas where there continues to be a log of questions.  While it is easy to find a plethora of information about getting started with Power BI, when it comes to implementing a solution, the information is scarce.  How do you handle releases? Should an implementation contain only one data model? Is Power BI’s data secured on the cloud? Is it required to have Office 365 use Power BI? Do you have to have Power BI Premier to have the Power BI run locally?

Advanced Power BI Techniques in Norway

While I have discussed some best practice techniques on my blog, as usual new features released in Power BI have a

Norway Parliament Building in Oslo

Norway Parliament Building in Oslo

tendency to change some of the available options.  For example, App workspaces, the updated take on Content Packs released a few months ago, now offer a new method for releasing not only dashboards but the reports behind them and the ability to easily migrate sources. I am excited that I will have the opportunity to discuss the answers to the questions received by doing a full day of training at SQL Saturday Oslo. I am looking forward to visiting Oslo, which is home to the best preserved Viking Ship, an Opera House designed to be walked on and the home of the guy who painted the Scream.  If you happen to reside somewhere where it is possible to make the journey to Norway, please register to attend this full day of interactive training.  We will cover all of these items and go into detail about Power BI administration, security and new features and design techniques which will improve Power BI implementation techniques.

sqlsat667_osloFor those of you who are unable to attend, I feel obliged to answer some of the questions I posed earlier.  Implementations generally require more than one data model.  Power BI is encrypted both in transit and at rest. You do not need to have Office 365 to run Power BI.  Power BI can be run locally with Power BI Report Server, which is part of SQL Server 2016 Enterprise with Software Assurance, and you do not need to sign up with Power BI Premier to install it.

I hope to see you in Norway.

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur