My List of Top Contributors in the Data/BI Community

As I read the many posts from those in the community who I follow, I am reminded that the community brain trust is much greater than any individual. As a writer and blogger, I’m occasionally compelled to express an original thought or opinion that I think is uniquely my own. However, we work in a world where everything comes from somewhere and there are many contributors who I trust and rely upon for advice and cutting-edge information. This “corner” of my blog is to highlight these community contributions that I find informative.

James Serra, Microsoft Solution Architect and former Data Platform MVP, continues a deep expose’ of Azure Synapse Analytics, with the sixth post in the series. This new Azure service headlined at both Ignite and PASS Summit, currently in Preview from Microsoft, is the evolution of the modern data warehouse. Azure Synapse Analytics is an orchestration of services including Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Data Bricks Data Lake Gen2. It will be an important consideration for serious cloud-based BI, analytics and data warehouse solutions at enterprise scale. You can view all these posts by clicking his name/link above. 

Azure Synapse Analytics & Power BI Performance
Azure Synapse Analytics New Features
Azure SQL Data Warehouse Gen2 Announced
Azure SQL Database vs SQL Data Warehouse
What is Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics?
Azure Synapse Analytics & Power BI Concurrency

Marco Russo, a name synonymous with DAX and BI expertise, captures what happened in the DAX world in 2019 in a an aptly-named blog post: “What has happened in the DAX world in 2019” :-). He also writes “I’ve seen the future, and it’s bright – but unfortunately, it’s under NDA!” and actually goes on to describe some of the announcements expected in the next year and major conference events.

David Eversveld, Data Platform MVP, writes about improvements to the Power BI theme capabilities. In addition to the new design ribbon in Power BI Desktop, themes can be exported from the designer. Adding to his collection of reference material that I have found valuable in my Power BI toolbelt, David posted this data color reference to assist with color selection for reports.

The new Power BI Activity Log was announced this month. This will make it easier to capture and monitor user and report activity. It also simplifies Power BI tenant administration by isolating report activity from Office 365 events and other log events. Power BI started out as an extension of Office 365 and SharePoint Online services but not all organizations use or manage Office 365 and Power BI under the same administration role. Microsoft continues to deliver on the promise to provide comprehensive automation APIs and tooling for administration.

The consistent contributions of Guy In A Cube’s Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc are too numerous to mention. Notably, they were awarded the “Most Helpful Data Video Channel” by Data Literacy Awards. Data Literacy LLC is a Seattle-based training and education company founded by Ben Jones.

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