Sort by Column in Power BI

The Sort by Column feature of Power BI and tabular data models in general is well-known. The simplest example is sorting month names by their actual position in a year instead of the default (alphabetic) order. There is a popular misconception that there must be a one-to-one mapping between the column you are sorting and the column you are sorting by. This is not so, and in this blog post I am discussing unusual applications of the Sort by Column feature. Continue reading “Sort by Column in Power BI”

Exporting all data from a Power BI data model

The latest version of DAX Studio, 2.8.0, was released yesterday. It has several new features, one of which stands out for me: Export All Data. While you could write your queries to CSV files or Excel before, this feature allows you to export the whole data model at once to CSV files or — and this is why I really like it — SQL Server. In this blog post, I am showing how to do it. Continue reading “Exporting all data from a Power BI data model”

Power Query Advanced Editor keyboard shortcuts

Remember my post about DAX formula bar keyboard shortcuts in Power BI Desktop? Turns out, there are also lots of keyboard shortcuts in Advanced Editor inside Power Query Editor in Power BI, with many being the same as in DAX formula bar! Continue reading “Power Query Advanced Editor keyboard shortcuts”

Checking facts and creating better graphs with Power BI

I am currently taking a data visualization course, and one of the first assignments was to find a bad graph and fix it. To do so, I needed to find the original data and reproduce the graph by applying data visualization best practices. I used Power BI to help me with the task, and I thought I’d share the results. Continue reading “Checking facts and creating better graphs with Power BI”

Choosing font color based on background color in Power BI

In August 2018, the Power BI team has released a new feature: conditional formatting by field value. This feature works for both background colors and font colors. Because different background colors require different font colors for text to be legible,  it makes sense to use both at the same time. In this blog post, I am showing how you can dynamically choose the font color depending on the background color. Continue reading “Choosing font color based on background color in Power BI”

Conditional formatting by field value in Power BI

In August 2018, a new type of conditional formatting has been added to Power BI: by field value. In this blog post I’m explaining how it works.

This feature is already available in Power BI service and is coming to Power BI Desktop in the next release. Continue reading “Conditional formatting by field value in Power BI”

Changing outer background of Power BI reports

When you publish a Power BI report to web, its outer background color will be grey by default. This may be undesirable if your report does not fit the screen perfectly, which will likely happen, because not all screens are of the same size and ratio. This blog post shows how you can change the outer background color. Continue reading “Changing outer background of Power BI reports”