Power BI Focus for April's Training on the T's

Power BI is always a popular training topic at Pragmatic Works. The versatile platform brings together data so it can be analyzed in seconds across a multitude of devices. With the numerous recent updates and introduction of Power BI Designer, we’re focusing our free Training on the T’s webinars for April on Power BI.

This month’s free training will include sessions on leveraging Power Query, Power Map, Power Pivot and Excel Power Tools with leaders in the BI community including members of the Pragmatic Works team. We’re even featuring a bonus Power BI Panel to answer your top questions.

April's Free Training on the T's Webinars

Bradley Schacht is a Senior BI Consultant and Trainer for Pragmatic Works with vast experience on the Microsoft BI platform including DTS, SSIS, reporting, migrations and conversions. His background in creating custom solutions for clients and partners provides great experience for delivering real-world value through his courses. Brad uses his experience as well as his background in creating custom solutions for clients and partners as the foundation for his training courses. 

In his webinar, Deploying and Managing Power BI, Brad will cover the number of options for deploying reports as well as their restrictions. Additionally, he'll also walk you through all the relevant topics for managing Power BI both to prepare the environment for deployment and how to maintain the environment after reports have been deployed. This is a must see session for anyone getting started in Power BI whether you are a developer or an administrator. 

April 2, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Mark Vaillancourt is a BI Consultant with Tail Wind Technologies. He's been working with SQL Server since 2007, and as of April 1, 2014, he's a Microsoft SQL Server MVP.

Mark’s session, Power Query: Data Chemistry for the Masses, will show how Power Query can be easily used to take advantage of data's properties to drive the change necessary to support goals.

April 7, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Steve Hughes is a BI Architect at Pragmatic Works who works with Microsoft’s SQL Server stack and Windows Azure to deliver data and business intelligence solutions. He’s passionate about using data effectively and helping customers understand that data is valuable and profitable.

The Power Map tool in Power BI uses space and time to tell stories with data. Power Map: Custom Mapping with Restaurant Traffic will look at a scenario using a building layout to show traffic patterns and other interesting information including restaurant seating and sales to determine if where someone sits matters to cost. This implementation is an example of what is possible with custom maps in Power BI. 

April 9, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Patrick LeBlanc is a Microsoft SQL Server and BI Technical Solution Professional. Along with his 10+ years of experience, he holds a Masters of Science degree from Louisiana State University. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was awarded the Microsoft MVP award for his contributions to the community.

Patrick’s session, Power BI: Data Refresh and SSAS On-Premises Connectivity, will take a Power BI deep dive into two Hybrid Scenarios for Power BI. The session will explore the data refresh capabilities, allowing reports published to Power BI to connect to varying data sources for data refresh. It will also discuss exciting new capabilities that allows Power BI to connect directly to SQL Server Analysis Services on-premises and interactively query.

April 14, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Josh Luedeman is a Business Intelligence Consultant with Pragmatic Works. He has been working with SQL Server for almost ten years, and he speaks at multiple IT events every year, including SQLSaturdays and Code On The Beach. He’s also a member of the Business Intelligence and Big Data Virtual Chapters of PASS. Josh lives in Orlando, FL where he is a member of Orlando’s local PASS chapter.

His session, Diving Into Big Data Using Excel Power Tools, will show you where to pick up after a Big Data solution has been designed and implemented. He'll go through the available "Power Tools" in Excel and show how to create a beautiful visualization experience with your data while never leaving your cluster. 

April 16, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Devin Knight is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, Training Director at Pragmatic Works and author of six SQL Server books. He speaks at conferences like PASS Summit, PASS Business Analytics Conference, SQLSaturdays and Code Camps and is also a contributing member to the PASS Business Intelligence Virtual Chapter. 

Power Query is a powerful data transformation tool that allows for self-service data extraction all within a familiar toolset: Excel. While Power Query does have a user interface that allows for simple transformations to be applied, there are some scenarios that go beyond what’s provided in the UI and require code to be written. M is the query language that powers the data transforms utilized by Power Query. This session, M Query Basics for Power Query, covers the basics of using the language and shows real world applications on why you might need to write your own M.

April 21, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Steve Wake is a BI Consultant with more than 20 years of experience in various IT organizations. He began his career as a COBOL programmer, and has since expanded into SSRS, SSIS, SSAS, SharePoint and others. Steve is also very involved in the Denver community, speaking at various User Groups in Colorado and being elected President of the Denver SQL Server User Group in 2011.

Power BI Designer is a new standalone Business Intelligence tool that allows you to design and build Power BI reports outside of the web and Excel. While Power BI Designer is currently only in preview, it shows where Microsoft is going with Power BI to try and make a more complete and well-rounded Business Intelligence solution. This introductory session will explore what is currently offered in the latest version of Power BI Designer with live demos and what might be coming in the future.

April 23, 2015 11:00 AM EST

David Siska-Salkin is a BI consultant with Pragmatic Works with experience over several industries. He has experience teaching at the college level and has presented at SQL User Group meetings. David has an MCSE SQL 2012 in Business Intelligence and an MBA in Computer Information Systems. 

Intro to DAX for Power Pivot and SSAS Tabular will cover the basics of the DAX query language used in both Excel Power Pivot and SSAS Tabular. Calculated columns and members will be created and navigating the data model will be discussed. The session will start with common calculations before moving on to more complex calculations as time allows. 

April 28, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Angel Abundez is a Business Intelligence Practice Lead for DesignMind focused on delivering quality, cost-effective business solutions using Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, Excel and Tableau. He’s a highly involved member of international user communities as a speaker, blogger, mentor and consultant on many BI topics: effective visualization, dimensional modeling, reporting tools, self-service BI, mobile business intelligence, Project Management, ETL, ELT, OLAP, MPP Development and designing these systems either on-premise, hybrid, or in the cloud. 

In his session, Automating Power BI Creations, he invites users to come learn how to build and automate data sets and data models in Excel using the Power BI toolset. Data will be pulled from a variety of on-premise and cloud data sources to familiarize the latest capabilities of Power Query and Power Pivot. Then he’ll review the software required to automate a Power BI analysis whether you are trying to refresh your Excel workbooks on a file server, in SharePoint Online, or SharePoint on-premise. 

April 30, 2015 11:00 AM EST

Addtionally, this month we'll be featuring a free Power BI Panel with the Pragmatic Works team.

Pragmatic Works Power BI Panel 

April 22, 2015 11:00 AM EST