When: Thursday 24th April 2025 Time: arrive for 5:45pm with talks starting from 6pm start prompt Location: Robert Walters, Number 1 Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3HF Session will not be streamed over MS Teams Complimentary drinks & pizza provided by our hosts & sponsors Robert Walters

April's PBIMCR will feature ..... Speaker Details - Rishi Sapra

Storytelling With Data

Communicating through telling stories is an innate part of what it means to be human. It’s what allows us to share beliefs and build connections in a way that the brains of other animal species simply aren’t wired to do. We’re used to telling stories through essays and creative writing, but when it comes to using data to tell these stories, people are often hesitant to adopt a stance and use data to argue it. If I’m a BI developer, how do I have the skills (or even the permission) to tell a data story for another part of the business? How can I tell a story over data that frequently changes?

But these are just excuses we make for not building the best data visualizations we know we can! By understanding the specific user personas who the report is for, we can make them the central characters of our data stories and highlight the “tension” (resolved through the storyboard!) that every good story needs.

But these are just excuses we make for not building the best data visualizations we know we can! By understanding the specific user personas who the report is for, we can make them the central characters of our data stories and highlight the “tension” (resolved through the storyboard!) that every good story needs.

In this session, Rishi will:

Walk through the core structure of a gripping story, showing how this translates into Power BI using techniques like pre-attentive attributes, presenting data as arguments (rather than just statements), and providing a “so what” conclusion to the story.

Showcase examples of visualizations he’s built for the community and highlight the data stories he was communicating with them.

Attendees will walk away with an understanding of how to communicate with data in a way that their audience enjoys consuming reports and is able to take action based on the contextualized data arguments presented.

This session is aimed at anyone who wants to understand the impact of data visualizations and how they can be used to effectively communicate what the data is really telling you, framed within the context that the author (report creator) injects into the narrative.

Speaker Details - Craig Porteous -Associate Head of Data Engineering at Advancing Analytics Topic:

Zero to Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric

Fabric is Microsoft's unified software as a service data platform built around the Data Lakehouse architecture but do you create a Lakehouse, or a Warehouse, or both? How does it all fit together and how can you get the most out of it?

In this session I'll explain what all the components of Microsoft Fabric are, a few architecture patterns you can follow to get what you need, and demonstrate how you can bring them together to build a full data Lakehouse platform without ever touching an Azure resource. You will leave this session with a good understanding of Fabric, it's capabilities, and how you can use it.

About Craig: Data Platform MVP \| Associate Head of Engineering @ Advancing Analytics\| DATA:Scotland event founder \| He/Him. Glasgow, United Kingdom I'm a lifelong learner with a passion for creative problem-solving. I share my expertise and insights with the data community through talks, video content, and bringing people together with the DATA:Scotland event.

When: Thursday 20th March 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 Claire Edgson and our very own Ashley Warren

Session 1 - Fabric: Why should Power Platform care? - Claire Edgson Join us for an, demo laden session, designed for those eager to deepen their understanding of impact of Microsoft Fabric on the Microsoft Power Platform. This session is tailored for Developers and Architects who are ready to dive into the "power" of Fabric teamed with Dataverse. We will explore the core components of how Power platform can use Fabric, and best practices of building analytics around Dataverse. We will review the architecture behind it and how that impacts Power platform and Power Bi development.

Key Topics:

• What is Dataverse. - Architecture and integrations
• Explore how Microsoft Fabric integrates with the Power Platform to streamline workflows and enhance data accessibility.
• Dive into Data Exports to Fabric with a live demo, understand what the "Link" means.
• Discuss Power BI options for data modelling from Dataverse.
• Using Fabric in Power apps and automations:
• Look at options including Virtual tables to read data in the Apps and automations with a live demo.
• Recap the key benefits of combining Fabric and Power Platform:
• Discuss the Limitations and best practices , as well as how Fabric can help Data management and reduce costs

Takeaways:

Better understanding of what Dataverse is and how it works with Fabric components. the risks, mitigations and benefits of combining with power platform in your solutions

About Claire Claire is a Microsoft Fast Track Recognized Architect with 30+ years of experience in data, infrastructure, and integration. Specialising in Power Platform and governance, she helps organisations navigate transformation with a focus on security and efficiency.

Session 2 - Power BI deployment methods: For when just hitting publish isn't good enough - Ashley Warren

Power BI has a number of options built in for deploying semantic models and reports. When you're just starting out, you probably just hit publish in Power BI Desktop but is that really the best way to get your content into production? This session will explore more mature & scalable options for deploying Power BI content.

About Ashley Ashley currently works as a Senior Analytics Consultant for Advancing Analytics and is a co-organiser of Fabric & Power BI - Bristol. During Ashley’s career, he’s managed data teams through re-platforming, led report development teams and designed training on analytics best practice. He’s driven by a passion for Power BI and delivering insightful reporting, that creates business value, into the hands of end users.

We all look forward to seeing you there!!

Details

Welcome to the Databricks Scotland Meetup in Glasgow! Whether you're a seasoned Databricks user, just dipping your toes, or simply intrigued about what the platform can offer, this meetup promises to deliver insights, best practices, and opportunities for networking with like-minded individuals. We hope to see you there!

Come join us for the Scotland Databricks meetup at BJSS, March 13th at 5.30pm for an evening of Databricks!

17:30 - 17:45 Welcome & Networking 17:45 - 18:30 Sean Caldwell 18:30 - 19:00 Networking, Food and Drinks 19:00 - 19:45 Networking, Food and Drinks

Spark up the Savings - Sean Caldwell

Migrating data ingestion Spark jobs from Databricks to AKS to allow more control over compute for each job. Reducing the overall cost of a data platform.

Fabric and Databricks: Better together? - Craig Porteous

Fabric is Microsoft's new unified data platform and with it brings many questions of which platform to choose, where does Databricks excel, What makes Fabric the right choice?

But it doesn't have to be a binary choice. Rather than thinking about which route to take, You can enrich your Databricks Data Lakehouse with Microsoft Fabric, taking advantage of Fabric's key features such as lightning fast Direct Lake connectivity from your Delta Lake to Power BI.

In this session we will deep dive into the synergistic relationship between Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric. Together these platforms can deliver performance and value in data analytics. We'll explore architecture patterns to enhance and augment your existing Databricks Lakehouse allowing you to fully harness key features in Fabric all built upon the same robust storage of Delta Lake.

We will also explore how the close integration of these platforms can lead to improved analytics capabilities, and ultimately, better business insights. Whether you are an analytics engineer looking to get the most out of your data, or a business leader seeking to drive data-driven decision making, this session will provide valuable insights into maximizing the potential of your data platform by bringing Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric together

About Us If you need to contact us for any reason you can email us at: [email protected] We are sponsored by:

• Databricks
• Advancing Analytics
• BJSS

Build business intelligence with insight from a professional Microsoft Power Platform For Dummies covers the essentials you need to know to get started with Microsoft Power Platform, the suite of business intelligence applications designed to make your enterprise work smarter and more efficiently. You'll get a handle on managing and reporting data with Power BI, building no-code apps with Power Apps, creating simple web properties with Power Pages, and simplifying your day-to-day work with Power Automate. Written by a business consultant who's helped some of the world's largest organizations adopt, manage, and get work done with Power Platform, this book gets you through your work without working too hard to figure things out. Discover the tools that come with Power Platform and how they can help you build business intelligence Manage data, create apps, automate routine tasks, create web pages, and beyond Learn the current best practices for launching Power Platform in an organization Get step-by-step instructions for navigating the interface and setting up your tools This is a great quick-start guide for anyone who wants to leverage Power Platform's BI tools.

* This a Data Celi event and you MUST register and pay 250 Euro on https://www.dataceili.ie/precons to attend

Data Celi is a community run event for the Irish Microsoft Data Platform. *

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more... ​ And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there! ​ That's why this workshop is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

Participants will walk out well-equipped to identify the potential Power BI development areas that need improvement. By understanding specific important concepts and features, and the way Power BI works internally, participants will be able to create highly efficient reporting solutions.

We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI. We'll also examine how to get the most out of the latest Direct Lake mode in Microsoft Fabric, and in which scenarios makes sense to go this route.

When: Thursday 23rd May 2024

Time: arrive for 5:45pm with talks starting from 6pm start prompt Location: GM Digital Security Hub (DiSH) Heron House, 47 Lloyd Street M2 5LE

Session will not be streamed over MS Teams Complimentary drinks & pizza provided by our hosts & sponsors Robert Walters

May's #PBIMCR will feature Mark Endicott and Brian Bønk

Session 1 - Advanced Incremental refresh in Power BI - Mark Endicott

Incremental Refresh is nothing new in Power BI, and if you’ve got a large data model it can really help look after your Power BI environment. But what if your requirements for data refreshing are a bit more bespoke? What if you need to customise things a little bit? In this talk we’ll look at ways we can leverage the use of the XMLA Endpoint to implement Advanced Partitioning.

About Mark Mark has just over 8 years of experience in the world of data, choosing to hone his skillset in Data Visualisation, Modelling and all things Power BI, but he can also write a mean SQL query and can talk strategy & culture too. Mark’s experience was built up working in the Recruitment and Facilities Management industries, before moving into Consultancy just over 2 years ago, where he focuses on teaching best practice across both Modelling and Visualisation disciplines and delivering user centric, self-service Power BI deployments at an Enterprise and SME level.

Session 2 - The Kusto experience in Fabric - Brian Bønk Want to make a cutting edge data platform using Kusto in Fabric?

Then come along for a journey into the world and wonders of Kusto and the new Streamevent service in Fabric.

In this session I will guide you through the experience and close collaboration between Fabric and the Kusto database and querysets. Along with how to help Power BI get the most out of your Kusto database with small tweeks.

Springled with a bit of new magic in the Jupiter Notebooks for the Kusto language, we will also set a course towards how the data engineer can begin to leverage the Kusto service.

After watching this level 200 session I hope you'll have found inspiration to work with the Kusto service in Fabric and know how to give the Kusto engine the small push it needs to perform the best in close collaboration with Power BI.

About Brian Brian has worked with SQL Server for more than two decades - varying projects on both size and complexity. Now he's working to support the Data & Analytics team at Fellowmind. Honored with MVP on Data Platform from 2023. Currently given the honor of being Microsoft Recognized Fasttrack Solution Architect since 2022. Brian loves data and is always trying to glue the business and tech together using his knowledge and experience. He is always open to meet new people and help them get better at their job or task.

Update on 18th-Feb Everybody who completed the building registration form should now have received an email with a visitor pass and barcode to scan at the barriers. This email comes from "2 Kingdom Street Appointments", the address of Microsoft's office in London. The invites is for a meeting at Microsoft on Monday 19 February at 17:00 at 2 Kingdom Street, London W2 6BD. The talk starts at 6pm but please arrive any time from 5:30pm. See you tomorrow.

Power BI is one of the anchor products within the Microsoft Power Platform. In this session we'll see a number of scenarios where it can be used to work with Power Automate and Power Apps in order to get the most out of this wonderful product.

Along the way we'll see how to use Power Automate to:

• Trigger a dataset refresh
• Create an email with the latest data included

In addition to this we'll see how simple it is to:

• Add a Power BI report to a model driven app
• Configure the Power Apps Power BI control to deliver a revolving status dashboard

Speaker Bio Rory is a freelance Power Platform Trainer and consultant, and has been working in the Power Platform since the early days of Power BI and has trained people across Europe in that time, from Italy up to Iceland and from Ireland across to Finland and his courses have been viewed worldwide.

An accountant by trade, he is the founder of www.powerplatformlearn.academy and powerapps4kids.com and has worked both as a contractor, trainer and a consultant in the Power Platform space for many years.

Rory is a Microsoft Business Applications MVP, MCT and Qualified ACA. He has been active in the community as a presenter, blogger and vlogger and is always looking for new opportunities to create simple value when using Power Platform.

Note the new location for this event: the new Microsoft Reactor at their Paddington office, Paddington Central, 2 Kingdom St, London, W2 6BD. (Please remember the old location in Shoreditch is closed!)

Building security rules for the event location mean that we had to provide full names and email addresses of all attendees 3 days before the event. They are super strict about this. We have sent off the list to Microsoft and have closed the form and have emailed all those people who completed the form to confirm that they are registered.

Important: If you do not register with the registration form, please do not come. Signing up on meetup is not enough. Microsoft building security will not admit you without registration unfortunately.

Tap the power of Big Data with Microsoft technologies Big Data is here, and Microsoft's new Big Data platform is a valuable tool to help your company get the very most out of it. This timely book shows you how to use HDInsight along with HortonWorks Data Platform for Windows to store, manage, analyze, and share Big Data throughout the enterprise. Focusing primarily on Microsoft and HortonWorks technologies but also covering open source tools, Microsoft Big Data Solutions explains best practices, covers on-premises and cloud-based solutions, and features valuable case studies. Best of all, it helps you integrate these new solutions with technologies you already know, such as SQL Server and Hadoop. Walks you through how to integrate Big Data solutions in your company using Microsoft's HDInsight Server, HortonWorks Data Platform for Windows, and open source tools Explores both on-premises and cloud-based solutions Shows how to store, manage, analyze, and share Big Data through the enterprise Covers topics such as Microsoft's approach to Big Data, installing and configuring HortonWorks Data Platform for Windows, integrating Big Data with SQL Server, visualizing data with Microsoft and HortonWorks BI tools, and more Helps you build and execute a Big Data plan Includes contributions from the Microsoft and HortonWorks Big Data product teams If you need a detailed roadmap for designing and implementing a fully deployed Big Data solution, you'll want Microsoft Big Data Solutions.