Git Workflows for Fabric and Power BI Projects Speaker: Mathias Thierbach, Microsoft Data Platform MVP After last week's conceptual session about branching strategies and git development workflows, this week Mathias will present an opinionated practical workflow for collaborative Fabric development, incorporating core DevOps principles. Expect lots of demos. Join the session for some guaranteed practical take-aways for you and your team!

Version control is essential for modern analytics development—but how does Git fit into the world of Power BI and Microsoft Fabric? This session demystifies Git workflows and shows how they can bring structure, collaboration, and CI/CD capabilities to your Fabric and Power BI projects. We'll explore common branching strategies such as trunk-based development, GitHub flow, and feature branch flow, and demonstrate how these approaches can be applied in practice. Whether you're just getting started with Git or looking to refine your workflow, you'll leave with actionable insights and a practical foundation to manage analytics development like a pro. Mathias is a Data Platform MVP who is passionate about modern DevOps and DataOps principles and practices for Microsoft's data analytics stack. His open-source project pbi-tools pioneered source control and CI/CD for Power BI solutions, and ultimately led to Microsoft's release of the Power BI Project (PBIP) format. Furthermore, Mathias contributed the TMDL format which is now the de-facto standard for developing and maintaining Fabric semantic models.

Git Workflows for Fabric and Power BI Projects Speaker: Mathias Thierbach, Microsoft Data Platform MVP

Version control is essential for modern analytics development—but how does Git fit into the world of Power BI and Microsoft Fabric? This session demystifies Git workflows and shows how they can bring structure, collaboration, and CI/CD capabilities to your Fabric and Power BI projects. We'll explore common branching strategies such as trunk-based development, GitHub flow, and feature branch flow, and demonstrate how these approaches can be applied in practice. Whether you're just getting started with Git or looking to refine your workflow, you'll leave with actionable insights and a practical foundation to manage analytics development like a pro. Mathias is a Data Platform MVP who is passionate about modern DevOps and DataOps principles and practices for Microsoft's data analytics stack. His open-source project pbi-tools pioneered source control and CI/CD for Power BI solutions, and ultimately led to Microsoft's release of the Power BI Project (PBIP) format. Furthermore, Mathias contributed the TMDL format which is now the de-facto standard for developing and maintaining Fabric semantic models.

Speaker: Mathias Thierbach Start Date: Tue, Oct 22nd 2024 · 7:00 PM EEST (4:00 PM UTC) Language: ENGLIGH Location: Online (link visible for attendees)

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Description:

In this session, we’ll explore the powerful concept of Git branching and how it can elevate your development processes within Microsoft Fabric and Power BI projects.

We'll start by introducing the fundamentals of Git branching, highlighting how it enhances collaboration, improves quality control, and enables versioning in professional development environments. You’ll learn why branches are essential for any development team aiming to streamline workflows and maintain project stability.

Next, we’ll take a closer look at Fabric’s branching capabilities, specifically the "branch-out" feature. We’ll dive into its strengths, where it simplifies your workflow, and where additional steps or workarounds may be necessary to achieve optimal results. By understanding these nuances, you’ll be better equipped to make the most of Fabric’s tooling in your own projects.

Finally, we’ll explore branching in the context of various industry-standard Git workflows. Whether you’re familiar with Git Flow, GitHub Flow, or other branching strategies, you’ll see how these practices apply to Fabric and Power BI projects. We'll tie it all together with practical examples, helping you understand how different development flows function in real-world scenarios, and how to choose the right strategy for your team’s needs.

By the end of this talk, you’ll have a clear understanding of how Git branches can transform your development processes in Fabric and Power BI, along with actionable insights on how to implement them in your day-to-day workflows.

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At the end of the Meetup we'll have a Raffle with prizes offered by Enterprise DNA: 2 (two) 1 year FREE Membership Licenses on EDNA Platform for two lucky winners from the Live attendees !

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Speaker: Mathias Thierbach Microsoft Data Platform MVP

Mathias is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP with a deep expertise in DevOps workflows and developer tooling, across .Net software projects, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric.

With over 20 years of diverse experience spanning technical, managerial, and commercial roles, he is passionate about advancing CI/CD and DevOps practices. Mathias is on a mission to empower data engineering teams of all sizes by providing better tools and training that promote mature, efficient collaboration and development patterns. As the creator and maintainer of pbi-tools, he has also made significant contributions to the Power BI community, including the development of the TMDL definition language for semantic models.

Connect with Mathias here:

• LinkedIn

PBI Manchester 27th July 2023 Location: Bruntwood Sci-Tech - 103, Oxford House, Oxford Rd, Manchester M1 7ED 5:40pm for a 6pm start (event will wrap up around 8:15pm)

Key note guest speakers

1. Rishi Sapra -
2. Mathias Thierbach

Who is Rishi ? He works as a Group Manager at Avanade - a Joint Venture between Accenture and Microsoft which has been MS Partner of the Year for the last 15 Years - specialising in Power BI. Prior to this he has spent 12 years in Consulting /Financial Services (Deloitte, HSBC, Barclays, KPMG) and is a qualified accountant with a background in Business modelling and process improvement. He is actively involved in the Power BI Community in London and has presented at Meetup groups and several global conferences. He also runs two core communities - LDI (www.learndatainsights.com) for people to take data analytics quizzes and courses and PPF (www.powerplatformfinance.com) for helping finance professionals apply the Power Platform technology stack in their roles.

Topic wise Rishi is planning on showing the (new) back end behind the Fabric quizzes he has on his LDI site https://learndatainsights.com/ - xml files for each quiz attempt pushed through real-time analytics in fabric with direct lake PBI on top

What's new for Power BI Source Control

Learn about three recent substantial innovations for Power BI Pro Developers: TMDL, Power BI Developer Mode, and Workspace Git Integration. TMDL, the new Tabular Model Definition Language, was announced in Public Preview in April 2023. It is a new declarative format for Power BI tabular models that is designed to be human readable and editable as well as collaborative. It is perfectly suited for use of source control and CI/CD when developing tabular models in a professional environment. Mathias contributed the language design and implementation to the Power BI product team as part of their Community Contributor Program. Learn from him, first-hand, what it is all about, how TMDL works, what problems it solves, and which tools are available. Power BI Developer Mode, released in Preview in Power BI Desktop June 2023, enables developer-centric workflows for reports and datasets. Instead of binary .PBIX files, Power BI projects are saved into a source-control friendly text format. Many people have been waiting for this feature for years! See how works, and what workflows it enables. Thirdly, the recent release of Microsoft Fabric has brought native git integration to Fabric/Power BI workspaces. Initially limited to Power BI reports and datasets, alongside Power BI Desktop Developer Mode. How is it enabled, what are the limitations during Preview, and what's coming?

• TMDL Announcement
• learn.microsoft.com: TMDL Overview
• Power BI Developer Mode (Release Plan)
• Introducing Git Integration
• Fabric Git Integration Docs

Bio

Owner of pbi-tools Ltd, Data Platform MVP, and Developer of pbi-tools and TMDL In 2015, after having spent over ten years as a Software Developer and Architect with Microsoft technologies, Mathias Thierbach moved into the Microsoft BI space. He soon landed on Power BI, but also realized quickly that the development and engineering tools and practices were nothing like the ones well established in software development. This is how pbi-tools started as a project, the only complete source control solution for Power BI. During seven years of leading a data management team at YouGov, he experienced the benefits of those efforts every day. Having open sourced the project in fall of 2021, Mathias spends a lot of his free time bringing source control and DevOps practices to the wider Power BI community now. In addition to his open source engagements, Mathias cares deeply about his role as an enterprise technology leader. Like many, once having started as a single contributor technologist, he had to pivot significantly when he moved into a manager role, responsible for building, stabilizing and growing a team of data engineers, analysts and architects. Mathias is now passionately sharing the many experiences and learnings that came out of that journey with the community.

Hi everyone

Thanks for your patience while we confirmed all the details for June's events. Last month we renamed the London Power BI User Group to the London Fabric User Group to recognise the broad range of capabilities, including Power BI, that are available as part Microsoft Fabric - announced on the day of the last user group.

Whilst we were exited to bring you the announcements hot off the press as they were being announced in Seattle, it was a little frustrating not being able to show you Fabric, so we promised that we'd arrange this for the next session.

So for this month's meetup, we have two great sessions lined up for you.

Session 1 with Mathias Thierbach:

What's new for Power BI Source Control

Learn about three recent substantial innovations for Power BI Pro Developers: TMDL, Power BI Developer Mode, and Workspace Git Integration. TMDL, the new Tabular Model Definition Language, was announced in Public Preview in April 2023. It is a new declarative format for Power BI tabular models that is designed to be human readable and editable as well as collaborative. It is perfectly suited for use of source control and CI/CD when developing tabular models in a professional environment. Mathias contributed the language design and implementation to the Power BI product team as part of their Community Contributor Program. Learn from him, first-hand, what it is all about, how TMDL works, what problems it solves, and which tools are available. Power BI Developer Mode, released in Preview in Power BI Desktop June 2023, enables developer-centric workflows for reports and datasets. Instead of binary .PBIX files, Power BI projects are saved into a source-control friendly text format. Many people have been waiting for this feature for years! See how works, and what workflows it enables. Thirdly, the recent release of Microsoft Fabric has brought native git integration to Fabric/Power BI workspaces. Initially limited to Power BI reports and datasets, alongside Power BI Desktop Developer Mode. How is it enabled, what are the limitations during Preview, and what's coming?

• TMDL Announcement
• learn.microsoft.com: TMDL Overview
• Power BI Developer Mode (Release Plan)
• Introducing Git Integration
• Fabric Git Integration Docs

Bio:

Head of Finance Systems at YouGov Plc, Data Platform MVP, and Developer of pbi-tools In 2015, after having spent over ten years as a Software Developer and Architect with Microsoft technologies, Mathias Thierbach moved into the Microsoft BI space. He soon landed on Power BI, but also realized quickly that the development and engineering tools and practices were nothing like the ones well established in software development. This is how pbi-tools started as a project, the only complete source control solution for Power BI. Today, leading a growing data management team at YouGov, he experiences the benefits of those efforts every day. Having open sourced the project in fall of 2021, Mathias spends a lot of his free time bringing source control and DevOps practices to the wider Power BI community now. In addition to his open source engagements, Mathias cares deeply about his role as an enterprise technology leader. Like many, once having started as a single contributor technologist, he had to pivot significantly when he moved into a manager role, responsible for building, stabilizing and growing a team of data engineers, analysts and architects. Mathias is now passionately sharing the many experiences and learnings that came out of that journey with the community.

Session 2 with Kasper de Jonge:

Introduction to Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is here, and it fundamentally changes our data landscape. It introduces a Power BI like SaaS model for the data platform. You can now with a few clicks ingest data into the cloud by running pipelines, create a Lakehouse to make that data accessible and run Python, Spark, SQL and DAX on top of it. All in a single tenant, with single security as a SaaS platform.

In this demo filled session we will do a general overview of Microsoft Fabric so you will understand concept like OneLake, OneCopy and see how the workloads all work together. If you want to set up yourself and your career for success with Microsoft Fabric, this is the session for you!

Bio:

Kasper de Jonge is a Principal Program Manager on the Power BI team at Microsoft, where he has worked on developing features for Power BI, Power Pivot and other Analysis Services products such as the Tabular model and Multidimensional cubes.

VENUE: We will meet at the Nigel Frank Offices at 60 Great Tower Street. If you've not been there before, it's just a little further up the street from Brewdog. Google Maps link to help you find the building: https://goo.gl/maps/GRZWr5LfScZhApu6A