Why spend time digging through dashboards to find a KPI when you could just ask a question and get the answer instantly?

In this session, we’ll explore how Microsoft Fabric is changing the way we work with data — moving away from static reports toward dynamic conversations. You don’t need to click through filters or build visuals — just ask your question and get straight to the answer.

We’ll walk through the tools that make this possible, including: - Natural language to SQL\, KQL and DAX capabilities in Fabric - Copilot in Power BI - Data Agents (AI Skills) to create your own chat-based data experiences - Copilot Studio & AI Foundry to enrich these experiences

You’ll leave with practical examples and ideas to help you rethink how users engage with data in your own use cases

When: Thursday 16th October 2025 Time: arrive for 5:45pm with talks starting from 6pm start prompt. Location: Method Resourcing (see above for address)

Complimentary drinks & pizza provided by our sponsor Method Resourcing Solutions.

Sit tight for venue details, we'll have them for you ASAP!

Session 1 - Can Microsoft Fabric Materialized Lake Views Deliver Low Effort Data Engineering? - Andy Cutler Materialized Lake Views (MLVs) in Microsoft Fabric Lakehouses offer a declarative approach to building data loading and data materialization pipelines. This session introduces how MLVs simplify data loading pipelines, automate refreshes, and visualize data loading lineage across the process. Attendees will learn how MLVs support integrated data quality rules, enabling trend analysis and alerting for violations, all without manual pipeline orchestration. We'll also cover current limitations and the roadmap for new feature support.

About Andy Andy Cutler has 20 years experience in delivering Data Warehouse, Lakehouse, & Business Intelligence/Analytics projects using Microsoft and Cloud technologies. He focuses on Microsoft cloud data technologies & Fabric. Andy is a current Microsoft Data Platform MVP.

Session 2 - Keeping Your Data Safe When AI Meets Analytics - Victor Wingsing As organisations rush to adopt Copilot and other AI features in their analytics workflows, many are unknowingly exposing sensitive data through AI interactions. This presentation demonstrates how Microsoft Purview's latest security capabilities can automatically detect and prevent data leakage when AI tools access your reports, datasets, and dashboards.

About Victor Victor is a two-time Microsoft MVP (Security) and a seasoned IT consultant at Kroll, with a knack for turning complex compliance challenges into practical, people-first solutions.

We all look forward to seeing you there!!

Unveil the data platform of the future with SQL Server 2025—guided by one of its key architects . With built-in AI for application development and advanced analytics powered by Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server 2025 empowers you to innovate—securely and confidently. This book shows you how. Author Bob Ward, Principal Architect for the Microsoft Azure Data team, shares exclusive insights drawn from over three decades at Microsoft. Having worked on every version of SQL Server since OS/2 1.1, Ward brings unmatched expertise and practical guidance to help you navigate this transformative release. Ward covers everything from setup and upgrades to advanced features in performance, high availability, and security. He also highlights what makes this the most developer-friendly release in a decade: support for JSON, RegEx, REST APIs, and event streaming. Most critically, Ward explores SQL Server 2025’s advanced, scalable AI integrations, showing you how to build AI-powered applications deeply integrated with the SQL engine—and elevate your analytics to the next level. But innovation doesn’t come at the cost of safety: this release is built on a foundation of enterprise-grade security, helping you adopt AI safely and responsibly. You control which models to use, how they interact with your data, and where they run—from ground to cloud, or integrated with Microsoft Fabric. With built-in features like Row-Level Security (RLS), Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Dynamic Data Masking, and SQL Server Auditing, your data remains protected at every layer. The AI age is here. Make sure your SQL Server databases are ready—and built for secure, scalable innovation . What You Will Learn [if !supportLists] · [endif]Grasp the fundamentals of AI to leverage AI with your data, using the industry-proven security and scale of SQL Server [if !supportLists] · [endif]Utilize AI models of your choice, services, and frameworks to build new AI applications [if !supportLists] · [endif]Explore new developer features such as JSON, Regular Expressions, REST API, and Change Event Streaming [if !supportLists] · [endif]Discover SQL Server 2025's powerful new engine capabilities to increase application concurrency [if !supportLists] · [endif]Examine new high availability features to enhance uptime and diagnose complex HADR configurations [if !supportLists] · Use new query processing capabilities to extend the performance of your application [if !supportLists] · [endif]Connect SQL Server to Azure with Arc for advanced management and security capabilities [if !supportLists] · [endif]Secure and govern your data using Microsoft Entra [if !supportLists] · [endif]Achieve near-real-time analytics with the unified data platform Microsoft Fabric [if !supportLists] · [endif]Integrate AI capabilities with SQL Server for enterprise AI [if !supportLists] · [endif]Leverage new tools such as SQL Server Management Studio and Copilot experiences to assist your SQL Server journey Who This Book Is For The SQL Server community, including DBAs, architects, and developers eager to stay ahead with the latest advancements in SQL Server 2025, and those interested in the intersection of AI and data, particularly how artificial intelligence (AI) can be seamlessly integrated with SQL Server to unlock deeper insights and smarter solutions

AI in Microsoft Fabric is designed to help you work smarter with your data. In this session, you will learn how Copilot accelerates analytics by generating queries, building models, and creating visualizations using natural language.

We will explore AI functions in notebooks, which make it easy to apply enrichment such as summarization, sentiment analysis, and entity extraction with a single line of code. You will also see how AI-powered transforms on OneLake shortcuts can automatically process text files for summarization, translation, or PII detection without building pipelines.

Finally, we will show how Data Wrangler provides an interactive way to clean and shape your data inside notebooks while generating reusable code.

Through a live demo, you will see how these capabilities combine to help you deliver insights and intelligent features quickly for your hackathon project.

What you will learn - How to use Copilot for modelling and analytics - How to enrich data with AI functions and shortcut transforms - How to prepare and transform data efficiently with Data Wrangler

📌 This session is a part of a series! Learn more here

🔍 Explore the Global Fabric Hackathon repo

Pre-requisites: Check out the hack repo: https://aka.ms/FabConHack-Reactor

AI in Microsoft Fabric is designed to help you work smarter with your data. In this session, you will learn how Copilot accelerates analytics by generating queries, building models, and creating visualizations using natural language.

We will explore AI functions in notebooks, which make it easy to apply enrichment such as summarization, sentiment analysis, and entity extraction with a single line of code. You will also see how AI-powered transforms on OneLake shortcuts can automatically process text files for summarization, translation, or PII detection without building pipelines.

Finally, we will show how Data Wrangler provides an interactive way to clean and shape your data inside notebooks while generating reusable code.

Through a live demo, you will see how these capabilities combine to help you deliver insights and intelligent features quickly for your hackathon project.

What you will learn - How to use Copilot for modelling and analytics - How to enrich data with AI functions and shortcut transforms - How to prepare and transform data efficiently with Data Wrangler

📌 This session is a part of a series! Learn more here

🔍 Explore the Global Fabric Hackathon repo

Pre-requisites: Check out the hack repo: https://aka.ms/FabConHack-Reactor

AI in Microsoft Fabric is designed to help you work smarter with your data. In this session, you will learn how Copilot accelerates analytics by generating queries, building models, and creating visualizations using natural language.

We will explore AI functions in notebooks, which make it easy to apply enrichment such as summarization, sentiment analysis, and entity extraction with a single line of code. You will also see how AI-powered transforms on OneLake shortcuts can automatically process text files for summarization, translation, or PII detection without building pipelines.

Finally, we will show how Data Wrangler provides an interactive way to clean and shape your data inside notebooks while generating reusable code.

Through a live demo, you will see how these capabilities combine to help you deliver insights and intelligent features quickly for your hackathon project.

What you will learn - How to use Copilot for modelling and analytics - How to enrich data with AI functions and shortcut transforms - How to prepare and transform data efficiently with Data Wrangler

📌 This session is a part of a series! Learn more here

🔍 Explore the Global Fabric Hackathon repo

Pre-requisites: Check out the hack repo: https://aka.ms/FabConHack-Reactor

Dear Data Wizards,

We are looking forward to inviting all of you to our next meetup.

Topics

• What's New - Kristian
• BI for all: How GenAI is democratizing data in Power BI and Fabric - Roman

The session will be recorded and made available on YouTube --> https://aka.ms/FabricUGYouTube

BI for all: How GenAI is democratizing data in Power BI and Fabric With the rapid pace of announcements around Gen AI in Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, it’s easy to feel left behind. In this session, Roman will walk attendees through the latest capabilities, starting from scratch and ramping up quickly. He’ll demonstrate how to use Copilot and natural language features to boost productivity, simplify data exploration, and stay up to date. Whether you're curious about asking questions in plain English or just want a hands-on overview of what’s new, Roman will guide you through a practical tour of the Gen AI-powered experience in Power BI and Fabric

Good to know We want this group to be a safe environment that encourages open discussion, exchange of ideas and problems you may face. Therefore, we kindly ask that no members will leverage the information for unsolicited acquisitions of new customers or projects. This group builds on trust, and without it we cannot learn from each other and excel on this topic.

Want to be a presenter? We are always looking for new speaker. If you are interested and would like to show something to the Power BI Meetup Group please feel free to contact us!

This webinar will showcase the transformative potential of Microsoft Fabric for ISVs and SaaS applications. Discover how you can leverage Fabric to build innovative, data-driven applications that integrate seamlessly with AI capabilities. Learn from your host, Tighe Brennan and guest experts, Holly Kelly and James Boother, as they share practical insights and real-world examples of how ISVs are successfully building and scaling their applications with Microsoft Fabric.

Why you should attend:

Unlock New Opportunities: Learn how Microsoft Fabric can help you modernize your infrastructure, reduce friction in data preparation, and enable new data science use cases.

Enhance Your Offerings: Understand how to embed powerful analytics and AI features into your applications, providing added value to your customers.

Simplify Integration: Discover the benefits of a unified platform that simplifies data integration, governance, and security, making it easier to manage multi-tenant architectures.

What we will cover:

Introduction to Microsoft Fabric: Overview of the unified data platform and its components.

Data Integration and OneLake: How OneLake serves as the center of gravity for data, enabling easy and cost-effective data ingestion and integration.

Real-Time Intelligence: Leveraging real-time data processing for continuous data integration and actionable insights.

AI and Copilot Integration: Utilizing AI Foundry and Copilot Studio to create generative AI solutions and enhance application capabilities.

Multi-Tenancy and ISV Scenarios: Best practices for designing multi-tenant architectures, including tenant isolation models and deployment patterns.

Embedding Analytics: Expanding Power BI embedded capabilities to modernize your applications and provide rich analytics experiences.

Monetization Strategies: How to monetize your solutions through the Azure Marketplace and leverage Fabric's workload services.

This webinar will showcase the transformative potential of Microsoft Fabric for ISVs and SaaS applications. Discover how you can leverage Fabric to build innovative, data-driven applications that integrate seamlessly with AI capabilities. Learn from your host, Tighe Brennan and guest experts, Holly Kelly and James Boother, as they share practical insights and real-world examples of how ISVs are successfully building and scaling their applications with Microsoft Fabric.

Why you should attend:

Unlock New Opportunities: Learn how Microsoft Fabric can help you modernize your infrastructure, reduce friction in data preparation, and enable new data science use cases.

Enhance Your Offerings: Understand how to embed powerful analytics and AI features into your applications, providing added value to your customers.

Simplify Integration: Discover the benefits of a unified platform that simplifies data integration, governance, and security, making it easier to manage multi-tenant architectures.

What we will cover:

Introduction to Microsoft Fabric: Overview of the unified data platform and its components.

Data Integration and OneLake: How OneLake serves as the center of gravity for data, enabling easy and cost-effective data ingestion and integration.

Real-Time Intelligence: Leveraging real-time data processing for continuous data integration and actionable insights.

AI and Copilot Integration: Utilizing AI Foundry and Copilot Studio to create generative AI solutions and enhance application capabilities.

Multi-Tenancy and ISV Scenarios: Best practices for designing multi-tenant architectures, including tenant isolation models and deployment patterns.

Embedding Analytics: Expanding Power BI embedded capabilities to modernize your applications and provide rich analytics experiences.

Monetization Strategies: How to monetize your solutions through the Azure Marketplace and leverage Fabric's workload services.

Learn new skills and discover the power of Microsoft Fabric with step-by-step guidance: Click Here.

This book is a comprehensive guide to building sophisticated and robust Power BI solutions that solve common data problems effectively. Written with hands-on professionals in mind, it provides essential insights and practical advice to help you choose the right tools and approaches for any BI task. Readers will learn to create performant, secure, and innovative business intelligence systems. What this Book will help me do Identify the scenarios where each Power BI component fits best. Apply secure and performance-conscious design principles when building BI solutions. Leverage Microsoft Fabric and other advanced integrations to maximize Power BI's capabilities. Implement AI-powered features such as Copilot and predictive modeling in Power BI. Facilitate collaboration and governance using Power BI's advanced features. Author(s) Nagaraj Venkatesan has over 17 years of professional expertise in data platform technologies and business intelligence tools. Through a rich career in data solution architecture, he has mastered the art of designing efficient and reliable Power BI implementations. This book reflects his passion for empowering professionals to make the most of Power BI. Who is it for? If you are a solution architect, data engineer, or Power BI report developer looking to elevate your skills in designing optimized Power BI solutions, this book is for you. Business analysts and data scientists can also benefit immensely from the book's coverage of self-service BI and data science integration. Some familiarity with Power BI will enhance your learning experience, but newcomers eager to learn will also find it invaluable.

Join us for an interactive Q&A session with the Fabric Engineering Team as we explore the latest advancements in AI capabilities within Microsoft Fabric. Designed for data professionals, developers, and AI enthusiasts, this session will showcase how Fabric’s AI capabilities empower you to build custom AI solutions tailored to your data and business needs.

We will unpack questions about key experiences such as AI Skill, which enables you to build your own AI agents grounded on data in OneLake, as well as new AI-driven capabilities like Copilot and AI tools designed to help data engineers enrich and transform their data seamlessly within Fabric.

When: Thursday 20th February 2025 Time: arrive for 5:45pm with talks starting from 6pm start prompt.

Location: BJSS, 90 Victoria St, Redcliffe, BS1 6DP

Complimentary drinks & pizza provided by our hosts BJSS

Social drinks afterwards will be at Ye Shakespeare (50m away) for those interested.

This #MSFABRICBRISTOL will feature Chris Barber and Rishi Sapra

Session 1 - P&L Models - Chris Barber Profitability is a key metric; any profits can be distributed back to shareholders (owners) either directly or indirectly. A profit and loss (P&L) statement answers high level questions - such as “what was net profit last year?” - and summarises key revenue (i.e., product revenue) and expense (i.e., Research & Development) items. Unlike static reports, a P&L semantic model contains the detail; this allows end-users to ask questions such as “what was R&D spending broken down by a particular research project, fiscal period, or legal entity?” A semantic model also allows end-users to consume information using Copilot prompts, Power BI reports, or Pivot Tables and formulas in Excel. In this session, we will go through:

• Why you should build an income statement semantic model
• How to use an accelerator to speed up development.
• The key questions you need to ask stakeholders.
• The challenges in building a P&L income statement

About Chris Chris Barber is a chartered accountant (ACMA, CGMA), 4 times Microsoft MVP, author of Income Statement Semantic Models, runs StarSchema.co.uk, and has popular YouTube videos (over 100k views) and courses (over 1k participants) on the topic of Profit and Loss (P&L) using Power BI.

Session 2 - Financial Reporting in PBI - Rishi Sapra This session will explore how to transform a traditional Excel-based credit rating model for countries into a modern, interactive, and scalable solution using Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. Participants will discover innovative techniques to enhance financial modelling and storytelling by leveraging advanced analytics and integration capabilities.

Hear from Power Platform in Finance specialist and Microsoft MVP, Rishi Sapra, as we delve into the following areas:

• Replicating Complex Rating Logic: Translating intricate credit rating formulas and methodologies from Excel into DAX to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Interactive Insights: Using slicers, bookmarks, and contextual visualizations in Power BI to enable dynamic comparisons and highlight key drivers of credit ratings.
• Streamlined Reporting: Designing intuitive and user-friendly reports that empower stakeholders to explore insights interactively.
• Scalability with Microsoft Fabric: Harnessing the Medallion Lakehouse architecture to enable seamless data integration, metadata management, and collaboration at an enterprise level.

This session is particularly beneficial for finance professionals and analysts who are seeking to modernize their financial or operational models. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to maintain model accuracy, enhance interactivity, and scale their solutions to meet the evolving demands of modern analytics.

About Rishi Rishi has a unique blend of technical and commercial skills - he is a 5x Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a Chartered Accountant, a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and an Executive MBA (Hons) holder with a first class degree from the London School of Economics.

He currently works as a Data & AI Strategic Project lead at Avanade - a Joint Venture between Accenture and Microsoft which been awarded Microsoft Partner of the Year 18 times! In this role he focuses on Microsoft Fabric Go To Market (GTM) offerings including those around Security & Governance, Industry/Functional accelerators and Azure/BI migration.

Prior to joining Altius in 2017 (Which was acquired by Avanade in 2020), he spent 12 years in the Big 4 /Financial Services (Deloitte, HSBC, Barclays, KPMG) and has a strong background in Business modelling and process improvement.

He is actively involved in the Fabric Community in London/globally and has presented at Meetup groups and several large-scale conferences. His passion is in helping organisations achieve the holy grail of Self-Service BI and helping individuals learn the necessary skills to succeed. Under his community Learn Data Insights (www.learndatainsights.com), he runs Microsoft Fabric Training (www.msfabrictraining.com) and Power Platform Finance (www.powerplatformfinance.com) with e-learning courses and quizzes for Analytics and Finance professionals.

We all look forward to seeing you there!!

Join us as we unveil the latest announcements for Power BI in Microsoft Fabric. Explore how Copilot's advanced AI capabilities are transforming data analytics by automating report creation, generating intelligent insights, and enhancing data visualization. Discover how Power BI seamlessly integrates to enable smooth data flow and enhance collaboration. We'll also share real-world success stories, demonstrating the profound impact of this innovation on data analytics.

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀: * Mohammad Ali * Kimberly Manis

𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: This is one of many sessions from the Microsoft Ignite 2024 event. View even more sessions on-demand and learn about Microsoft Ignite at https://ignite.microsoft.com

BRK202 | English (US) | Data

MSIgnite

Details

PBIMCR September 2024 session

When: Thursday 26th September 2024 Time: arrive for 5:30pm onwards with talks starting from 6pm start prompt Location: Slalom - Bloc \| 17 Marble St \| 12th Floor \| Manchester \| M2 3AW \| Session will not be streamed over MS Teams

September's PBIMCR will feature

Session 1 Title: Profit & Loss Semantic Models in Power BI

Abstract: Profitability is a key metric; any profits can be distributed back to shareholders (owners) either directly or indirectly. A profit and loss (P&L) statement answers high level questions - such as “what was net profit last year?” - and summarises key revenue (i.e., product revenue) and expense (i.e., Research & Development) items. Unlike static reports, a P&L semantic model contains the detail; this allows end-users to ask questions such as “what was R&D spending broken down by a particular research project, fiscal period, or legal entity?.” A semantic model also allows end-users to consume information using copilot prompts, Power BI reports, or Pivot Tables and formulas in Excel. In this session, we will go through: Why you should build an income statement semantic model. How to use an accelerator to speed up development. The key questions you need to ask stakeholders. The challenges in building a P&L income statement.

Speaker 2: David Mitchell (Microsoft) Fabricating Your Move: A Tailored Path from Power BI Premium to Fabric

As Power BI evolves into Microsoft Fabric, transitioning from Premium to Fabric capacities unlocks new possibilities. In this session, discover a streamlined, automated solution using Semantic Link Labs that ensures a smooth migration, enhancing your analytics capabilities. We’ll explore key features, benefits, and demonstrate the process in action, equipping you with the tools to effortlessly embrace Fabric. Join us to learn how to future-proof your analytics environment with minimal effort and maximum efficiency.

David is a Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, specializing in Data & AI, mainly focusing on the following areas: • Microsoft Fabric • Power BI • Azure DevOps / DataOps • Azure SQL David has worked in data and analytics since 2009 and previously worked at a Microsoft Gold Partner prior to joining Microsoft.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmitchell85/

Generative AI, including tools like Microsoft Copilot, are transforming the way we analyse and report on data. But organisational data remains a challenge - the raw data still needs to be modelled and enriched to provide meaningful insights. In this session Rishi will:

• highlight the current capabilities of Microsoft Copilot in Power BI
• Discuss role-based Copilots (e.g Copilot for Finance)
• explain how can we prompt Copilot to get good insights on structured data e.g., in a lakehouse or a Power BI semantic model
• How can we use Copilot across the entire analytics workflow

Applying Copilot to analytics is challenging but this talk will keep you firmly in the drivers seat!

Our speaker, Rishi Sapra, works at Avanade's Global Data & AI Integrated Centre of Excellence, overseeing strategic projects like Microsoft Fabric and Azure/BI migration. His expertise is as a commercial technologist, bridging business and technology. He is a 4x Microsoft MVP, Fast Track Recognised Solution Architect, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. He is also a Chartered Accountant with an Executive MBA and nearly two decades of experience in finance and technology consulting. His passion lies in aiding data-driven decisions using Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. He runs Learn Data Insights and Power Platform Finance communities, and speaks at international conferences.

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