Many of you are either familiar or have heard of either Tableau or Microsoft Power BI.
At one point Tableau had advantages over Power BI, but with recent changes to the licensing structure for the Microsoft line and updates, (almost weekly), Power BI can do just about everything Tableau does. This all at the same time when Tableau drastically raised their pricing after being purchased by Salesforce.
Over the past 8 or so years, I have had the opportunity to work with dozens of State and County Departments to help implement custom dashboards and create customized classes.
During some discovery calls, I have customers say, “we’re going to utilize the Microsoft training first since it’s free. If we need something additional, we’ll contact you” or “we just want a 1-day class on how to build dashboards.”
I’m never disappointed, and always respond with something like, “No problem. We appreciate the opportunity to have talked with you and please keep us in mind for future classes”.
Fast forward a month or two later, I get a call they have exhausted the free Training from Microsoft as well as learn at your own pace options, which in no way satisfied their learning needs. Most equate it to the lack of labs or just the amount of information covered and connecting the pieces.
Ultimately, they still need training. We then work together to create a class, often times modifying the PL-300 class and it’s always a hit.
Well, it’s no surprise. What the heck is Power BI? Often, people think it is just an extension of Excel. They already know Excel so it should be an easy transition.
Not so fast. Power BI is actually a full suite of products/tools in Microsoft’s Business Intelligence line.
I thought I would give a very brief explanation below of what Power BI is.
Microsoft Power BI is a tool that helps you turn your data into easy-to-understand visuals and reports. It has three main parts: Power BI Desktop for creating reports, the Power BI service for sharing them, and Power BI Mobile apps for viewing them on the go. You can also make detailed reports with Power BI Report Builder and publish them on your own servers with Power BI Report Server.
Additionally, Power BI integrates with various external tools like DAX Studio for optimizing queries, ALM Toolkit for application lifecycle management, and Tabular Editor for advanced data modeling. It works with tons of different types of data and helps you see trends and insights clearly. With Power BI, you can make smart decisions based on your data.
Power BI is currently being implemented in many departments. If yours is one of them and you’d like to learn how we can help, or if you simply want to have a conversation to learn more about it, feel free to give me a call!
Have a great week. Let me know if this was helpful.
-Kris Crawford
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TOGAF 8.1 Certification, Course No. TOGAF, Jun 2-5, limited seats left
TOGAF is an architecture framework – The Open Group Architecture Framework. It enables you to design, evaluate, and build the right architecture for your organization. Customers who design and implement enterprise architectures using TOGAF are ensured of a design and a procurement specification that will greatly facilitate open systems implementation, and will enable the benefits of open systems to accrue to their organizations with reduced risk. To register, or for more information, click here.
ITZIK BEN-GAN TEACHES ADVANCED TRANSACT-SQL
Itzik Ben-Gan, international expert and the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress, 2006) and Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming will teach the course, Advanced Transact-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning for SQL Server. Course ISI-1119, Sep 15-19. A limited number of seats are left. Itzik Ben-Gan is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books on Microsoft SQL Server. He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN. Itzik’s speaking activities include Tech Ed, DevWeek, various SQL User Groups around the world, PASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and other events to name a few. Don’t miss out on you opportunity to learn from him directly here in Sacramento. Find out more information on his course by clicking here.
KALEN DELANEY TEACHES SQL SQL Server 2005 Architecture, Internals and Tuning, Course ISI-1079, Sep 8-12
You’re reading her books. Now you can attend her class. The instructor, Kalen Delaney, a well-known world expert in SQL Internals, is the author of the best selling books, Inside SQL Server 2000 and Inside SQL Server 2005. Kalen has been a columnist at SQL Server Magazine since the first issue, as well as writing for MSDN and TechNet Magazines. The course includes extensive demonstrations and hands-on exercises that illustrate the details of SQL Server internals as well as tuning techniques. This course will be presented on SQL Server 2005 and cover features specific to that version, but much of the information is relevant to SQL Server 2000 as well. For more information on this course, please click here.
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