Top 3 Timesavers in Power BI

Angelica Choo Quan shares her top tips for saving time when working with Power BI. Drawing from her experience mentoring Power BI users, Angelica reveals key timesaving features that can boost productivity in report development. These tips, which are easy to implement, are designed to help users work smarter, not harder, and significantly reduce report design time.

1. Using Column from Examples to Speed Up Data Transformation

One of the first tips Angelica demonstrates is the Column from Examples feature in the Power Query Editor. Here's how it works:

• Start by opening the Power Query Editor and selecting the customer table.
• Navigate to the Add Column tab and click on Column from Examples to create a new column for the customer full name.
• Simply type the desired full name in the first row (e.g., John Doe) and Power BI will automatically fill in the rest of the column for all customers.

This feature eliminates the need to write complex M code and provides an intuitive way to combine first and last names, saving time in the data transformation process.

2. Efficiently Remove Unused Columns

Next, Angelica demonstrates how to efficiently remove unnecessary columns from your data model, which can improve performance and make your report easier to navigate:

• Instead of manually selecting and deleting columns, use the Choose Columns option from the Home ribbon.
• This tool allows you to quickly uncheck columns that you don't need for your report, reducing clutter in your model.
• Once you've selected the columns to remove, click OK, and the columns are deleted in a flash.

Angelica points out that this method is faster and provides more control over your data model compared to manually deleting columns.

3. Turn Off Automatic Aggregation for Date Columns

Another common issue Angelica addresses is Power BI's automatic aggregation of date columns. By default, Power BI aggregates numerical columns, but this behavior may not be suitable for date columns like day numbers or weekday numbers:

• Select the column (e.g., "Year" or "Month") that you do not want to aggregate.
• In the Column Tools tab, change the summarization option from Sum to Don't Summarize.
• For bulk changes across multiple columns, use the Model View and multi-select columns to change the summarization type for all selected columns at once.

This feature helps prevent unnecessary aggregations in your report, ensuring that your date-related data is treated accurately.

Additional Tips for Organizing Measures

To help streamline your report development process further, Angelica explains how to better organize your measures:

• Measures can be grouped into a Measures Folder or a Measures Table to make them easier to find and manage.
• Creating a separate measures table can help you maintain a clean and organized data model, especially when dealing with multiple fact tables or complex calculations.

This organization method enhances the clarity of your Power BI model and speeds up navigation during report development.

Conclusion

Angelica wraps up the video by emphasizing the importance of leveraging Power BI's built-in features to save time. By using tools like Column from Examples, Choose Columns, and adjusting aggregation settings, users can make their report development process much faster and more efficient. These tips are just a start, and Angelica encourages users to explore other time-saving techniques as they become more familiar with Power BI.

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