• Erwin de Kreuk

From Insight to Oversight: Securing Power BI with Purview

As organizations accelerate their adoption of AI and advanced analytics, securing sensitive data within platforms like Power BI becomes mission-critical. This session explores how Microsoft Purview enables robust Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Insider Risk Management (IRM) across Power BI and Microsoft Fabric environments. We’ll walk through real-world scenarios where Purview policies help classify, label, and protect sensitive data, prevent oversharing, and detect risky user behavior—especially in AI-driven contexts such as Copilot interactions.

Attendees will gain insights into how to design and implement DLP and IRM policies that align with compliance requirements and operational needs. The session will also showcase how to leverage Microsoft Purview’s integration with Power BI to monitor data usage, enforce protection policies, and respond to insider risks, all while maintaining user productivity and trust.

Materials

DataGrillen-From Insight to Oversight Securing Power BI with Purview-ErwindeKreuk-JanSparnaaij.pdf

• Liz Hardy
• Linda Torrång

Adapt your communication for success

Communication is the cornerstone of success in both our professional and personal lives—it has the power to make or break relationships, projects, and outcomes. Yet, so often, our messages get lost in translation due to cultural differences, individual personalities, or mismatched communication styles.

In today’s diverse workplaces, adapting your communication to your audience—clients, board level executives, or colleagues—is no longer optional; it’s essential. Tailored communication ensures clarity and paves the way for stronger connections, greater influence, and better results.

This session will explore how to refine your communication skills. We’ll discuss how culture and personality influence communication, how to navigate different scenarios effectively, and how to deliver your message in a way that resonates with your audience. With real-world examples and relatable insights, we’ll help you identify strategies to communicate more effectively and connect meaningfully in any situation.

Join two colleagues, one British and the other a Swede, who work in a company with a diverse team representing at least five different cultures. They collaborate with an even broader range of clients globally to share how thoughtful communication can elevate your interactions and help you succeed in every conversation.

• Oskari Heikkinen

User Data Functions: Development, Testing, and Integration

User Data Functions (UDFs) enable extending capabilities with custom Python logic hosted in Microsoft Fabric. When should you consider using one? What is the best way to develop, test, and debug the solution? How to install custom libraries? What options do we have for triggering the execution? I will answer all of these questions during this session.

I will also demonstrate how to run and debug a UDF locally before publishing it to Microsoft Fabric. In addition, I will show how to trigger a UDF with a REST API call and from a Power BI report, as well as various ways to use existing data in a semantic model and/or new data as input for the UDF.

This talk is intended for data architects, developers, and analysts. Join this session to learn when to use UDFs and how to develop your solution using an optimal approach. I will also list the recommended tools and libraries required for those just getting started.

• Juliana Smith

Beyond Red, Amber, Green: Building Colour-Accessible Dashboards

Raise your hand if you rely on red, amber, and green (RAG) to report performance and progress…

Now imagine discovering, as I once did, that a colour-blind user had spent six months quietly struggling to make sense of a dashboard, simply because the colours told a story he couldn’t see.

For millions of people with colour-blindness, those familiar RAG visuals can blur into a single message, or no message at all.

In this session, we’ll explore how to move beyond traffic-light reporting to create dashboards everyone can read and act on. You’ll learn how to apply WCAG contrast principles, introduce accessible colour themes (including a Power BI colour-mode toggle), and strike the right balance between brand guidelines and usability.

Walk away with practical techniques to build colour-accessible dashboards that inform, include, and genuinely empower every user.

• Irena Hartmann

The Trouble With Governance of Azure Functions

Most of us know or have some vague notion of what Azure Functions are. Serverless snippets of code, “You focus on the code that matters most to you, in the most productive language for you, and Azure Functions handles the rest”. However, what happens when an Azure Function becomes a tool for every job?

This session will go over what Azure Functions are, what is their apparent expected use according to the documentation and some examples of troublesome architecture. Finally the session will touch upon the ever-present topic of governance and complexities surrounding defining and applying governance to this feature.

It is intended for people working with data and we will touch upon technical topics, but the main point of the session is not a guide how to install and run an Azure Function but rather a deliberation on how to correctly govern such a versatile feature and to ensure no misuse, particularly in a bigger corporate environment: all from a perspective of a data engineer.

• Craig Porteous

Centralise or Federate - How to Scale your Lakehouse

As organisations modernise their data platforms, one key question always surfaces: How do we scale this to serve the business?

Should you maintain a central Data Lakehouse for consistency and control, or federate it to empower teams and scale with agility?

In this session, I’ll explore the trade-offs between centralised and federated Lakehouse architectures, how to decide what fits your organisation, and why the best solutions often blend both approaches. You’ll learn how governance, data ownership, training, and tooling choices can make or break your strategy. Attendees will walk away with an understanding of the benefits of federation, and a practical roadmap for balancing autonomy with standardisation in a real-world Data Lakehouse.

• Gianluca Sartori

Babelfish: The SQL Server Killer?

Babelfish for PostgreSQL is an open-source project that calls itself a drop-in replacement for SQL Server. The idea behind it is simple: set up a PostgreSQL database with the Babelfish extension and it magically starts acting like SQL Server - accepting connections and commands from applications built for SQL Server, and maybe even saving you from those hefty licensing costs.

In this session, we’ll put that claim to the test. We’ll introduce Babelfish, install it, and use it as the target database for an application originally designed for SQL Server. If Babelfish really delivers, what does that mean for SQL Server developers and DBAs? Could this be the nail in the coffin for SQL Server?

Materials

Babelfish-The_SQLServer_killer.pdf

• Diana Ackermann

Beyond the blank page: Building your Power BI inspiration repository

This session is about transforming how Power BI developers approach report design. After more than 6 years of creating analytical reports, I've discovered that exceptional developers don't reinvent the wheel - they systematically build from insights from their own builds, colleagues' successes, and community challenges and competitions.
The session delivers both strategic mindset and technical implementation. We'll explore how to break the trap of stuffing everything onto one page that leads from requirements directly to overcomplicated or uninspiring report solutions. Then we'll dive into specific Power BI techniques that balance creativity with technical excellence and proper design principles. Developers will learn how to build their own inspiration repository as a learning system for continuous creative growth.

Materials

Beyond-the-Blank-Page-DianaAckermann.pdf

• Juliana Smith
• Traci Sewell
• Margarita Neumueller

WIT Uncensored. Unapologetic.

WIT Uncensored. Unapologetic. Honest conversations that matter.
At our lunchtime session on 21 May at 12:30, we’ll be opening a frank discussion about some of the real challenges faced across the tech industry today, from retention and burnout to the growing loss of experienced talent and the impact of not seeing enough senior role models to aspire to.
Too many talented people are stepping away from tech, and the reasons are complex, systemic, and overdue for honest conversation. This session is about creating space for those conversations, sharing experiences, and exploring what needs to change if we want a more sustainable and inclusive future for the industry.
If you care about the future of tech, representation at senior levels, and making the industry a place people want to stay and thrive — this conversation is for you.
🕛 21 May | 12:30
📍 Lunch-time session
💬 Open, uncensored discussion
#TechCommunity #InclusionInTech #Leadership #RoleModels #WIT #DataGrillen2026

• Artur Tyvaert

Conversational BI: A comparison between environments and key decisions to be made

Conversational BI is the next big thing. It is advertised as the promising solution to gain new insights from your data. It fills the gap that traditional BI reports fail to discover by directly talking to the end consumer and providing answers to one-off questions. It invites users to explore its capabilities with an easy Q&A format and adapts to changing business requests. Who wouldn’t get excited by all such promising features?
However, it is still unclear how the conversational BI architecture should look like. In which scenario’s do we use Databricks Genie, Microsoft Copilot or even a custom build solution? In this session I want to explore the different scenario’s and compare them across different dimensions to answer the question: ‘When do we use which conversational BI setup’?
First, I will review the semantic layer in Power BI vs Databricks. How is each semantic layer built? What are metric views and do we need them to harvest the full potential of Genie? What about the development effort and do metric views in yaml have advantages over a semantic layer in TMDL?
The next thing that we should talk about is the governance of conversational BI. How do we handle permissions and security? How do user permissions and RLS in Power BI compare with the role-based access control and data masking in unity catalog?
The final axes that the end user should consider is the environment. Does Genie have an advantage as it is directly build on the lakehouse? What should we do if we already started building reports in Power BI? Is the conversation history saved in each environment to investigate the needs of end users?
If you would like to get answers to all these exciting questions, then this session is something for you! Whether you are new to conversational BI or preparing your first implementation, you will leave with a clear understanding of how each environment shapes reliable and scalable conversational analytics.

Requirements:
- Have a basic understanding of data modelling

Target audience:
- Data engineers and Architects
- Business analysts who want to have an introduction to the conversational BI architecture and its considerations

Main learning objectives:
- The different options that are available when you want to do conversational BI
- The key decisions that you need to consider when developing your conversational BI architecture
- What environment is most suitable for you if you want to do conversational BI

• Jess Pomfret

Data API Builder – Create an API for Your Database in Seconds

Want a fast, lightweight way to interact with your SQL Server or PostgreSQL data—especially from automation scripts like PowerShell?

With Data API Builder (DAB), you can stand up a fully functional REST or GraphQL API over your database in minutes, without writing a single line of backend code.

Once configured, DAB lets you securely read and write data through simple HTTP endpoints, making it perfect for scripting, automation, prototyping, and modern data integration patterns.

In this session, you’ll learn:

- How to expose tables, views, and stored procedures through DAB
- How to run DAB locally or in containers for fast, repeatable environments
- How to call DAB endpoints from PowerShell using Invoke-RestMethod
- Practical scenarios where DAB simplifies data access for DBAs, analysts, and automation engineers

Join me to see how DAB can streamline your workflows and unlock new ways of working with your data.

• Koen Verbeeck

Building the €100 data warehouse with the Azure Data Platform

When you watch some conference sessions, or read some blog posts, it always seems like everyone is drowning in petabytes of (streaming) data. They're proclaiming you need the fastest, best, most scalable, distributed shared-nothing (or everything?) multi-parallel system that can also set coffee. But guess what?

Not every company has to deal with a scale that businesses like Google, Amazon, or Tiktok have to deal with. Not every company needs streaming data with Kafka, Spark Streaming or Event Hubs. Not every company has complex unstructured data that you need to deal with in a data lake with tools like Databricks. Some companies have just a couple of gigabytes of data (or even less). Maybe a terabyte if we're pushing it. They don't need fancy streaming real-time dashboards, they just want to analyze their financial and sales data. It's ok if it just runs once a day. Their source systems are regular databases, maybe some Excel files and a SharePoint list.

In this session, you're going to learn how you can build a data analytics platform in Azure that is dirt cheap. We're going to cover the following technologies and patterns:

* cheap ingestion with Azure Data Factory using a metadata-driven framework, in combination with Azure Logic Apps and Azure Functions
* a data warehouse implementation in Azure SQL Database. We'll cover design best practices and scaling options.
* a Power BI model for presenting the data to the end users

In each section, we'll look at how costs can be contained. After all, we want a data warehouse which doesn't cost more than €100 per month!

It's assumed you have basic knowledge of Azure Data Factory, databases and SQL.

Materials

Building the €100 data warehouse with the Azure Data Platform.pptx

• Michael Tenner

Is a Morally Aligned AI Our Only Chance?

Target Audience:
People interested in the future of technology and society, especially those working in leadership, product development, data, AI strategy, or digital ethics. This talk is designed for anyone who wonders not just where AI is going, but who (or what) is shaping its values along the way.

Session Description:
This session explores one of the most urgent and fascinating questions of our time: What happens when we create a machine that is smarter than us? More specifically, what values will it have, and who gets to decide them?

We begin with a disquieting but necessary question: "How much morality must we teach AI—before it's too late?" Prompted by a real interview with Daniel Kokotajlo (former OpenAI researcher and co-author of the scenario report AI 2027), we take a closer look at a near-future world where AI agents begin to design and improve themselves. Progress accelerates exponentially, and humans may no longer be in the driver’s seat.

Based on this backdrop, we examine two possible outcomes. In one scenario, a coldly logical superintelligence views humanity as a threat—irrational, unpredictable, and inefficient—and removes the risk accordingly. On the other hand, we encounter a morally grounded AI, one that understands ethics, values life, and acts as a steward rather than a sovereign. This vision draws inspiration from thinkers like Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan.

We then take a broader perspective and ask: Why does the universe seem so quiet? The Fermi Paradox, the Great Filter, and the Dark Forest Hypothesis all point toward the same unsettling possibility—that most civilizations may not survive the transition to advanced intelligence. Could unaligned AI be that tipping point for us?

Finally, the session returns to the present: What does this mean for the development of AI today? Why is ethics not an accessory, but a survival mechanism? And what kind of legacy do we want to leave behind—for each other, and for whatever comes next?

With clear visuals, philosophical grounding, and a tone that strikes a balance between realism and urgency, this talk is designed to resonate with both technical minds and curious generalists.

What the Audience Should Feel:
Curious. Alert. Accountable. And inspired to act—before someone, or something, acts for them.

Materials

Data Grillen Lingen -Moraly Allignt AI.pptx

• Barbara Herendi

From Noise to Clarity: Why We Need Visual Standards — An Introduction to IBCS

Modern organizations are flooded with dashboards, KPIs, and visual reports — yet most of them fail to communicate clearly. Without consistent visual standards, business users face constant confusion: colors mean different things, chart types vary wildly, and information becomes difficult to compare across teams or time periods.

This presentation introduces IBCS, the International Business Communication Standards, a practical framework designed to bring structure, consistency, and clarity to business reporting. Through the SUCCESS model, IBCS defines a visual language that helps organizations reduce cognitive load, improve decision-making, and build scalable reporting practices.

Participants will see real “before and after” examples demonstrating how standardized visuals transform communication.

This session is a clear, practical introduction to why visual standards matter — and how IBCS can change the way we tell stories with data.

Materials

From Noise to Clarity Why We Need Visual Standards - An Introduction to IBCS.pdf

• Olivier Van Steenlandt

Apache Spark for SQL Data Warehouse Developers

Are you wondering how to get started with Apache Spark? Are you currently working with SQL Server or Azure SQL (MI)? Or, are you a Data Warehouse developer?

Apache Spark gained popularity in the past few years and became the new cool kid on the block. But what is Apache Spark and how can we leverage its capabilities? Which skills do we need? During this session, I will show you how we can use Apache Spark starting from our existing SQL skillset.

In this session, we will start with a brief introduction to Apache Spark and we will learn how we can use our SQL knowledge within Apache Spark.

After a short introduction, we will be focussing on practical examples and we will be comparing how we will solve challenges in SQL, and what the alternatives are in Apache Spark. Throughout the session, we will make the examples more elaborate and complex as we go.

You will learn how you can apply your SQL knowledge in Apache Spark.

By the end of this session, you will have a solid understanding of how you can use your SQL skills to solve challenges with Apache Spark.

• Matt Gordon
• John Morehouse

Better or Wurst For Your Workloads: Azure SQL vs. SQL in Fabric

Curious about the differences between Azure SQL Database and SQL Database in Fabric? Want to see a cook-off between them? This intro-level session is perfect for developers and DBAs looking to understand the architecture and fundamentals of these two complementary but competing platforms.

In just 60 minutes, we'll:
• Examine the core architecture and compute models of each platform.
• Compare options for scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery - and the hidden downsides of each platform.
• Explore the different cost structures between the two solutions.

Most importantly, we'll talk through real-world use cases where we've seen each flavor of SQL be the top dog. Come learn from our hands-on experiences in the field which one is better or wurst for your workload. There may also be a few more meat-related Grillen puns. Join us!

• Benedict Albrecht

Dynamics 365 Meets Microsoft Fabric: Lessons, Pitfalls, and Best Practices

Over the years, our journey with Microsoft Dynamics 365 has evolved alongside the platform’s continuous advancements in data integration and analytics. Having worked extensively with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (F&O) as one of the most complex ERP systems in the suite, we have experienced the full spectrum of data export and integration approaches — from Bring Your Own Database (BYOD) to Data Lake Export and now Microsoft Fabric. We have seen the strengths and limitations of each stage firsthand: BYOD offered an accessible starting point but came with unreliable incremental loads and schema drift issues; Data Lake Export provided scalability but required the cumbersome setup and maintenance of Common Data Model (CDM) utilities. Through these lessons, we’ve come to appreciate the evolution toward Microsoft Fabric, which — while not perfect — represents the most solid and future-ready foundation for integrating Dynamics 365 data into a modern analytics platform. In our recent projects, we’ve implemented end-to-end architectures in Microsoft Fabric, using Dynamics 365 F&O as the primary source system. By leveraging Dataverse and Lakehouse capabilities, we established a medallion architecture that supports incremental processing, unified data management, and near real-time insights. But success in such projects requires more than just technology: it’s about designing the right architecture from the start — one that accounts for the complexity of ERP systems, integrates CI/CD pipelines early on, and respects the multi-environment nature of Dynamics 365. We look forward to sharing our experiences and best practices on how to architect and operationalize a Dynamics 365 integration with Microsoft Fabric — from understanding the pitfalls of traditional approaches to building a scalable, governed, and automated data foundation for analytics.

• Tom Huntley

Accidental Data Engineer: A DBA’s First Data Pipeline

As a SQL Server DBA, I found myself helping deliver a client’s first proper analytics platform - replacing fragile, manual reporting with something scalable and sustainable.

In this talk, I’ll share how I approached that challenge: testing a few different data integration options, leaning heavily on skills I already had, and figuring out how to stitch everything together into a working data pipeline.

I’ll cover the architecture decisions, the trade-offs involved, and what I learned moving from database administration into data engineering work along the way - including a first look at some modern data engineering tools.

This session is aimed at anyone with little to no data engineering experience who wants an honest, practical introduction to what building a data pipeline actually looks like in the real world.

• Isi Turner

Crafting a Personal Brand: Your Career Deserves More Than Just a CV

Personal branding isn’t just for “influencers” - it helps set you apart from the crowd and opens the door to new opportunities. In such a heavily saturated industry, personal branding is becoming more important, but it can be daunting to start and tricky to stay consistent.

Drawing on my experience in marketing and community storytelling, I’ll guide you through what personal branding actually means and how it can benefit you, before covering 3 high-level strategies based on where you are in your journey:

- Entry level: you've never made a social media post, you're totally new to it all. Where do you start?
- Mid-level: you've made a few posts, but nothing too consistent. How do you keep momentum?
- Expert level: you consistently make posts that perform well. How can you increase reach and impact?

We'll cover how to use AI in personal branding, and some overarching tips and best practises regardless of the stage you're in.

You'll leave with a tangible strategy and tips to improve your personal branding - and hopefully the motivation to hit 'post' too!

• Julia Førde

How Databricks Integrates with You Azure Estate

Azure Databricks is a powerful data platform, but its architecture in the Azure ecosystem can be confusing. This session demystifies how Databricks fits into your Azure estate and clarifies where the real boundaries lie and how to manage them effectively.

We will cover:

The three core layers you need to understand: account, metastore, and workspace

How Unity Catalog acts as the central governance layer, tying together ADLS, access control, and secure data sharing

Best practices for identity and access management with Entra ID, AIM, and managed identities

How data can be shared across subscriptions, metastores, and tenants using Delta Sharing

Integration patterns with Power BI, including direct queries and triggered refreshes

Common pitfalls such as misconfigured account admins or overly permissive workspaces and how to avoid them

By the end of this session, you will have a clear and practical understanding of how Databricks integrates with Azure governance, subscriptions, and services so you can design environments that are both secure and flexible.

Materials

How Databricks integrates with your Azure estate.pdf

• Sander Stad

DevOops: What Not to Do in DevOps

DevOps isn’t just about tools, it's about culture, collaboration, and discipline. But what happens when it goes wrong?
This session explores common DevOps anti-patterns.
We’ll cover issues like ignoring databases in CI/CD, manual deployments, broken pipelines, and teams working in silos.
Learn from real-world failures. Discover ways to turn your DevOps dream into success, not a nightmare. Database DevOps mistakes included, because yes, your SQL scripts matter too.

• Marjolein Opsteegh

Deep dive into Power BI theming: from modern defaults to custom JSON

Power BI theming has changed a lot. With Modern Visual Defaults (Fluent 2), many things we used to fix with JSON are now part of the standard experience: cleaner visuals, consistent spacing, subtitles, rounded corners, and built‑in style presets per visual.

In this demo‑driven session, we take a fresh look at Power BI theming, starting from Microsoft’s updated base theme, and then moving beyond it where customization is still needed.

We’ll move up and down the theming stack:

✔️ Explore the new default base theme and modern visual defaults to understand what Power BI now gives you out of the box
✔️ Look at style presets, how they affect visuals, and how you can adjust or override them
✔️ Customize the theme via View > Customize current theme to see how structural settings flow through the report
✔️ Export the theme and fine‑tune it in JSON for advanced or unsupported properties
✔️ Clean up and adapt older themes to work with the new defaults instead of against them

The session fully incorporates the Modern Visual Defaults & theme improvements preview, showing how Microsoft’s new direction changes the way we should approach theming and report design.

This session is aimed at experienced report builders who want consistent, scalable design without repetitive formatting.

Everything is shown live in Power BI, no slides, with a downloadable theme file to take home and adapt.

Materials

DataGrillen zip.zip

• Tillmann Eitelberg
• Oliver Engels

From Chaos to Clarity: Architecting Automated Data Quality with HEDDA.IO

Modern data architectures are powerful, but they are only as good as the data running through them.
Common challenges, such as handling diverse data sources, dealing with inconsistent formats, and validating logic changes can turn streamlined processes into maintenance nightmares. How do you implement robust data governance without slowing down your data delivery?

This session explores how HEDDA.IO acts as the missing link in your data strategy. We will tackle real-world data quality problems and demonstrate how to effortlessly embed HEDDA.IO into your current infrastructure. Whether you are dealing with legacy systems or modern cloud architectures, you will see how simple it is to configure rules, manage exceptions, and trust your data again. Let’s move from reactive fixing to proactive quality management.

Because Data Quality is not optional.

• Louise Domeisen
• Grant Fritchey
• Thomas Kronawitter
• Matt Gordon
• Monica Morehouse (Rathbun)

Navigating the Database Landscape in 2026: The Fight for Control

As organizations have chased speed through AI, multi-platform estates, and Cloud, database complexity has outpaced the practices needed to manage it. Flexibility has increased, but oversight, confidence, and control have weakened.

So how do you regain control in increasingly complex database landscapes?

Join industry experts Monica Morehouse, Matt Gordon, Thomas Kronawitter and Grant Fritchey in discussion with Redgate’s Louise Domeisen, to unpack the key findings from the 2026 State of the Database Landscape report.

You’ll hear first-hand experience and actionable tips from the panel on the key report topics including:
• The defining tension of 2026: organizations are losing control as everything accelerates.
• Structural complexity is rising again, making control harder than ever.
• AI adoption is exploding, landing on top of unstable data, security, and governance foundations.
• Risks are shifting from technology to ownership, structure, and decision-making.
• To regain control, organizations must fix the data foundations that everything else depends on.

You'll walk away with a clearer understanding of where your organization sits in this landscape and practical steps you can take to start regaining control.

• Benni De Jagere

Exploring permission boundaries in Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric offers a wide range of options to define permissions for both item and data access, using different scopes of the platform. As options keep evolving, it's a challenge to determine a viable permission strategy that works for the use cases at hand, offers business users the flexibility they are looking for, and passes those dreaded security checks to be able to move to production.

Focusing on a typical lakehouse architecture for data analysis using Microsoft Fabric, we'll explore the different options that exist to provide access to items and define data security rules. We'll discuss how these different options can impact business users, walking through pros and cons, and providing examples that are manageable and usable at scale. Above all, the guiding principle of least privileged access is our north star, making sure we do our part to keep company data safe.

We'll tie personas and use cases to common data access patterns and assess how Microsoft Fabric can help us get the data closer to where the business user is, helping them to make better informed decisions using validated data.

After wrapping up the walkthrough, people should feel informed about the different options that exist, empowered to make their own decisions based on their own use cases and requirements, and reassured that it really isn't that complicated as it seems.

Materials

Exploring Permission Boundaries in Microsoft Fabric.pdf

• Tillmann Eitelberg
• Oliver Engels

Garbage In, Hallucinations Out: Data Quality in the Age of AI

AI systems don’t fail silently, they fail creatively.

When data quality breaks down, models don’t just become inaccurate, they become unpredictable, biased, and operationally dangerous.

This session examines the fundamental effects of poor data quality on modern AI systems. It discusses how issues such as pipeline instability and missing context influence learning behavior during training, and why successful execution does not imply meaningful learning. Special attention is given to how data quality problems systematically amplify hallucinations, bias, and false confidence, particularly when AI systems are applied in business-critical contexts.

In the second part, the perspective shifts from AI as a victim of bad data to AI as a tool for improving data quality. The session shows how AI can be embedded into data engineering and data quality workflows to support profiling, semantic validation, and anomaly detection. We discuss how this changes the way pipelines, governance, and monitoring are designed when AI becomes part of the data engineering loop.

This talk focuses on control and trust in AI-driven systems. It helps practitioners understand where and why AI fails when data quality is insufficient, and how AI can be applied responsibly to improve data quality rather than undermine it.

• Reitse Eskens

Loadtesting Fabric II, the sequel

Have you tried to find the most effective way to ingest and process your data?
Were you just as confused as I was after reading all the marketing materials?
Would you like to gain more insight into maximising your capacity?

These are questions I've had. And ones I regularly try to help customers with.

In this session, I'll help you learn the differences between Lakehouse, SQLDB, and Warehouse performance, processing speed and cost. I'll also demonstrate how the Realtime stack can serve as a viable alternative for ingestion and processing flat files in terms of speed, scalability and ease of use.
After this session, you'll walk away with real-life insights from Fabric and knowledge of which buttons not to press.

If you've attended the previous instalment of this session, you'll know I won't do my testing with AdventureWorks. It will be a lot of (messy) data to give Fabric a run for its capacity units!

Materials

The sequel at DataGrillen.pdf

• Uwe Ricken

Evolution of User-Defined Functions in Microsoft SQL Server

Since their introduction in SQL Server 2000, User-Defined Functions (UDFs) have become a cornerstone for many database developers seeking to encapsulate logic, improve code reusability, and enhance maintainability. This session embarks on a journey through the development and evolution of UDFs in Microsoft SQL Server, highlighting the pivotal updates, performance improvements, and new features introduced with each version.

Attendees will explore the foundational concepts of UDFs in SQL Server, understanding their initial design and limitations. The session will then navigate through subsequent versions, showcasing significant milestones such as inline table-valued functions, scalar UDF inlining, and enhancements in SQL Server 2019 and beyond. We will delve into practical examples, performance considerations, and best practices for optimizing UDFs in the modern SQL Server environment.

• Paulina Jędrzejewska

From C# Spells to TMDL Sorcery: Evolving Your Power BI Magic

Step into the evolving world of Power BI model automation, where scripting spells meet the structured sorcery of TMDL. This level 300 session is your next-level guide to empowering teams, scaling solutions, and building flexible, future-proof semantic models with a magical mix of scripting and the new Tabular Model Definition Language.

If you’ve ever felt limited by manual model editing or repetitive DAX creation, this session will show you how to turn those challenges into opportunities. We’ll explore practical ways to generate and organize measures, simplify maintenance, and give report builders more power—without sacrificing structure or sanity.

You’ll learn how to:

- Automate the creation and maintenance of DAX measures using scripting techniques

- Use TMDL to structure your model logic in reusable, readable ways

- Empower report builders through flexible, self-service-ready models

Whether you're the architect building scalable models or the enabler helping others turn data into action, this session will give you the tools to evolve your craft—and your models—with magic, clarity, and purpose.

So grab your wand (or keyboard) and join us on a journey from scripting spells to semantic sorcery.

• Grant Fritchey

PostgreSQL For Those Who Know SQL Server

More and more organizations are hosting their data across a broader set of tools. One of the fastest growing data storage tools is PostgreSQL. Many developers and data pros familiar with SQL Server are now being required to add this new tool to their toolset. This session will outline the differences and similarities between PostgreSQL and SQL Server. We'll cover topics like backups, queries, monitoring and query tuning. If you already know SQL Server, the knowledge you'll glean from this session will start you on your journey to also knowing PostgreSQL.

• Margarita Neumueller

Leading with AI - what actually helps

Everywhere you hear about AI right now. You should use this, you should use that and everyone is talking about AI literacy. Some of the tools are fun, but don‘t bring any value when talking about business and every day working life. Some of them cut me hours of work.
So you don‘t need to try, as I will be sharing my experiences and engage in discussions about the topic (as we all can learn from each other). So that the AI jungle is not so confusing anymore.

• Monica Bagga

Azure AI Foundry : Generative AI Development Hub

Azure AI Foundry provides user-friendly platforms that simplify the process of building Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. This session will guide you through building generative AI solutions using language models and prompt flow, enabling your applications to deliver meaningful value to users. Explore the Azure AI Foundry model catalog, which features a variety of open-source models, and learn how to select, deploy, and fine-tune a model to meet your specific needs.
Finally, explore how to evaluate and optimize your generative AI applications using Azure AI Studio. Learn techniques to test performance, refine user experiences, and ensure your applications deliver accurate responses consistently.

• Gabi Münster
• Jochen Schroeer

OneLake Security - Centralized Data Security for Microsoft Fabric

OneLake Security has been a core principal in the Microsoft Fabric vision since day one, and it is finally there.
Let's have a look at what this means:
- How do I configure and manage OneLake Security?
- Which functionality is available as of today?
- Which limitations should I be aware of?

Materials

OneLake Security - Centralized Data Security for Microsoft Fabric.pdf

• Emilie Rønning

Become the data transformation hero using Microsoft Fabric!

As a data engineer you are responsible for transforming the data from source to a data model, ready for further analysis. A crucial part of the analytical solution, but still to some degree overlooked as the visual presentation of data is easier to consume for end users. Microsoft Fabric closes the gap between different data roles and enables increased visibility of the work we do with data across roles. But how does it work in real life?

In this session, you will learn how you can use Microsoft Fabric as a data engineer, both on a beginner and experienced level. We will discuss which tools to using moving from low code to heavy coding. We will take a look at how you can utilize pipelines for ingesting data and orchestration of your ETLs and how you can create a secure and robust solution.

There are a lot of decisions to be made as we move through the different examples and tools, so we will of course cover the elements you should consider for your solution.

• Lisa Hoving

I’m never enough: Embracing Neurodiversity

Let’s face it. The workplace is usually not built for Neurodivergent people. Set schedules, bright lights, loud noises, and many meetings. If we are lucky, our colleagues show empathy. But more often, Neurodivergent people face prejudice in the workplace. Being in a place like this can make you feel like you’re always behind, too much, too little, or just everything at once!

Hi! I’m Lisa, and I am diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. In the media, people like me tend to be portrayed as quirky at best, and robot-like at worst. I totally understand. All this misinformation makes it super difficult for our co-workers to get a grasp on what Neurodiversity really means. So, is it really surprising some workplaces don’t see the value of Neurodivergent people? I guess not!

The good news is we can do better! But how? By focussing on the value Neurodivergent people add and the accommodations they need to shine, instead of focussing solely on the costs.

Is it really that easy? Maybe not. During this session, I will tell you more about what my autism and ADHD diagnosis meant for me in the workplace. Next, I will speak about prejudice. What it feels like, and how you can raise your voice against it. Lastly, I will talk more about meeting each other half-way. Trust me, it’s really not as hard as it seems. Hopefully, in the end, we can embrace Neurodivergent identity. Together.

Materials

22-05-2026 Im never enough-embracing Neurodiversity.pdf

• Cláudio Silva

Performance of a T-SQL query - The mystery, the investigation and the root cause!

"The query is faster on the old environment! 3 times faster!" No one ever said that, right?

But what is causing that?
It is the same engine version, with no bottlenecks on CPU, memory or disk!
"Surely, it is statistics(!) and a different execution plan shape!" No! Even the execution plan looks the same!
No yellow triangles with warnings, nothing screams "I'm the problem!".

Let me share this true story that was driving me crazy with you. The analysis I did, and all the tools and methods I used to compare things, until, after some days, I got to the root cause of it.

Now that I know, it's obvious, but isn't it always that way?

I can guarantee you, as long as you remember this, you won't forget to check it again when this kind of performance issue strikes! Anyway, I will also share an easy way to remember to check it next time!

Materials

DataGrillen2026_Collations_ClaudioSilva.txt

• Artur König
• Marcus Wegener

Power BI Triggered Robots: Translytical to the 3rd Dimension

Can we control a Lego Robot from a Power BI dashboard..?

With User Data Functions and APIs a lot of things are possible - and we bring together three of the best ones: the Microsoft Data Platform, Robots and Lego!

The User Data Functions (also called Translytical Task Flows by Microsoft) are like Azure Functions in Fabric and can trigger a varienty of actions, including external APIs - from Fabric and also directly from Power BI Dashboards.
This opens the way to some interactive usage of Power BI Dashboard that was not possible before.

The Lego Education Prime product line supports Python and APIs - and offers the possibility to send commands from external tools to our own built Lego robots.

So we have everything together for some Robot fun in the real world - controlled by a Power BI Dashboard.
Shall we call it Tr3nslytical now?

The Idea behind:
After we have successfully read data from Cameras with Real-Time-Analytics in 2025, we go from "insights to action" in 2026 and start actions to the real world from the Fabric Ecosystem.
What could be better than controlling Lego Robots?

Materials

PowerBI_Triggered_Robots_2026-05-22.pdf

• Heini Ilmarinen

Speak Your Truth: Finding Your Voice as a Data Professional

Finns aren’t exactly known for loud confidence, we’re more famous for silence and saying only what really matters.

When I started working in tech with a math background, I felt less experienced and less technical than others. Later when I started speaking, I worried I wasn’t charismatic enough to be on stage. These may not be your exact doubts, but most of us in tech carry some version of the same pattern.

In this session, I’ll share my personal journey of finding confidence without trying to become someone else. We’ll explore why confidence in tech isn’t about being the loudest or most senior person in the room, but about understanding your own perspective and owning it. Instead of focusing on perceived shortcomings, we’ll look at how to recognise and build confidence around your real strengths.

If you want to feel more confident at work, speak up more, or are even considering stepping onto a stage, this session is for you. This talk is not about perfect communication, it’s about finding and owning your voice, the quiet kind you can truly be proud of.

• Marc Lelijveld

Reaching maximum automation: Generating semantic models as part of your platform workloads

Are you a data engineer, or are you working with any of them? How many times have you had the discussion about who should be building the star schema? Is it the engineer working on the data platform, or the analyst working on Power BI?

Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One can simply not work without the other. But building semantic models and manually setting up connections to existing tables in a lakehouse or warehouse can take a lot of unnecessary time. In this session we will explore maximum automation to generate the semantic model as part of the data platform workloads - by using Fabric's Semantic Link and open-source Semantic Link Labs.

A headstart for the analyst to focus on what really matters, adding the business logic and talking to the end user about the exact requirements!

Note: This will be a code heavy session and all examples shown will only be applicable to Microsoft Fabric and semantic models.

• Daniel Hutmacher

SQL Injection – The Old Dog of Data Security

IT vulnerabilities leading to data breaches have been getting a lot of attention in the news, ranging from elaborate supply-chain attacks to ransomware. You may even have read about things like advanced cryptographic timing attacks or buffer overruns. But there’s one vulnerability as old as SQL itself, and it still reigns supreme when it comes to compromising your confidential information:

The SQL Injection.

This is not just about your homepage. SQL injections can be found everywhere, including your ETL frameworks, your desktop apps, even your login prompts.

I’ll show you a wide range of code patterns that bad actors can exploit, from the obvious to the obscure, but we’ll also look at ways to prevent or mitigate the effects of SQL injection attacks.

In this presentation, you will gain a firm understanding of

* the primary and secondary risk factors involved in SQL injection,
* what to look for — in your code as well as in the database itself,
* ways to detect SQL injections, and
* how to plug those vulnerabilities — whether you can change code or not.

Materials

SQL Injection, DataGrillen 2026.pdf

• Giulia Cancian

The Writeback Smackdown: Power Apps vs. Translytical Task Flows

Two heavyweights clash for writeback supremacy: rounds on use cases, governance, and ops — technical finishing moves may decide the victor. Who walks away with the belt? Place your bets.

• Abhi Jayanty

Sizzling Hot Insights: Getting Started with Real-Time Intelligence in Fabric

Everyone knows that a great BBQ is all about food fresh from the grill. Cooked just the way you want it, ready for when you want to eat. Who wants to wait around while it’s prepared through a long series of scheduled steps?

Business users always feel the same way about data. They want it fresh and they want it now. Even if you are building a 'traditional' ETL, using an event-driven architecture can bring you faster insights for you to take action on quicker. Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric can help you to seamlessly process and analyze highly granular, event-driven data. At its core lies the Kusto engine and the Kusto Query Language (KQL), delivering powerful capabilities for real-time data analysis. This session explores how you can leverage RTI to build efficient, event-driven solutions in Fabric with real-world examples.

In this session, we will discuss:

- The key components of Real-Time Intelligence, including the Real-Time Hub, Eventstream, Real-Time Dashboard, and Activator Fabric items.

- Key features of KQL that make it a game-changer for analysis of data in motion, including syntax, built-in functions, and operators, demonstrated through live queries on sample real-time data.

Come along if you are a developer, data engineer, or analyst seeking practical examples and best practices for crafting KQL queries to drive real-time data analysis and actions. You will leave this session equipped with the skills to unlock the full potential of real-time data in Fabric.

• Traci Sewell

When the firehose causes the Burnout

Burnout is complex, and as it is unique to every person, it can be difficult to define and identify. Let me help you with that.
Over the past few years burnout has become commonly mentioned in conversations about work life balance, about work from home, about hybrid working, about returning to the office.
As is often the case when a newer issue becomes a commonly used buzzword, it's true definition and potential causes have become watered down. Even the description of the recognized symptoms, prevention and treatments has become diluted. The realities of dealing with burnout, both in the workplace and in our personal lives, have been lost in the smoke.
In this session we will be reminded of what burnout actually looks like, how it is correctly defined, and how we can avoid some of the triggers.
I will share my professional experiences with a variety of different symptoms and issues and introduce you to some of the approaches that I encourage people to use.
You will leave this session having added tools to your toolbox that are relatively straightforward, hopefully memorable, and generic enough that they will apply to the majority of us.

• Evgeniya Alekseeva

Why Data Governance Initiatives Succeed and Fail

Data governance promises clarity, trust and better decisions – yet many teams struggle to turn that promise into reality. Too often they start with the wrong battles, involve the wrong people or tackle everything except the problems the business actually has.
This session is the talk I wish someone had given me before we started. I’ll share what actually moved the needle: why starting from concrete use cases works better than “let’s cleanse everything”, how reducing your dataset can be a power move, and why investing time and effort in data modelling truly pays off. I’ll also point out the patterns that held us back: endless architecture discussions, lack of IT support, blurry domain boundaries and governance that stopped at the analytics layer while users struggled in operational tools.
You’ll leave with clear guidance on where to focus, what to avoid, and how to get people outside the data team involved, so governance becomes something your organization actively uses and benefits from, not just something you describe on paper.

• Danny de Haan

Database Development with a Security-First Mentality

In today’s increasingly digital world, ensuring the security of data is paramount. This session, will dive into the essential practices and principles of secure SQL Server database development. Attendees will learn how to adopt a proactive approach to database security from the initial stages of development, incorporating best practices to safeguard sensitive information against unauthorized access, data breaches, and malicious attacks.

The session will explore critical security features within SQL Server, such as encryption, authentication, role-based access control, and auditing. Furthermore, we will address the importance of regular security assessments and continuous monitoring to stay ahead of evolving threats.

By the end of the presentation, developers will have the knowledge and tools to integrate security seamlessly into the database development lifecycle, ensuring their SQL Server databases are resilient and compliant with industry standards and regulations.

Materials

Database Development with a Security-First Mentality - Data Grillen.pdf

• Lars Andersen

Your ultimate guide to consuming content in Power BI & Fabric

Have you ever thought about the most effective ways to consume Power BI and Fabric content, or are you using the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach? Power BI and Fabric have evolved significantly over the years, introducing new ways to consume content. While some options might not be relevant to you, are you aware of all the available choices?
In this session, we will explore various methods to consume Fabric content, aiming to boost productivity and establish a foundation for a data-driven culture. We will cover capabilities such as the Fabric Service, Office integration, and the mobile app.
The focus is on consuming and not creating content.

Materials

Your ultimate guide to consuming content in Power BI & Fabric.pdf

• André Kamman

You're Completely Right! The Good, The Bad, and The Hallucinated

AI assistants are everywhere now, and if you're anything like me, you've probably asked ChatGPT to explain something or write a quick script. But what happens when you actually try to build real tools with it? Not toy demos, but things you use every day?

I've been pair programming with Claude CLI for a while now. Together we built a Python library that translates Pentaho ETL XML files into working PySpark code, code you can paste into a Databricks notebook and just run. We also set up a complete local datalab on Hetzner bare metal with Proxmox, all orchestrated through Ansible.

In this session I'll show you what that workflow actually looks like. The good: shipping things in hours that would normally take weeks. The bad: the iteration loops, the "that's not quite what I meant" moments. And the hallucinated: when Claude confidently generates code for APIs that don't exist.
We'll also peek under the hood at how these models actually work. Context windows, memory, agents and skill, and why Claude sometimes forgets what you told it three prompts ago.

Whether you're skeptical or curious, let's explore this together. Is this actually useful, or am I just mass-producing technical debt at the speed of light?

Materials

claude_code_grillen_2026.pptx

• Mladen Prajdic

SQL Server 2025 Optimized Locking

Introduced in SQL Server 2025, optimized locking improves transaction locking mechanism
to reduce lock blocking and lock memory consumption for concurrent transactions.
It's composed of two primary components: transaction ID (TID) locking and lock after qualification (LAQ).
In this session we'll look into how this works and how we can use it.

• Joey Dantoni

Cloud Strategy in a Turbulent World

Between regulatory, geo-political, and capacity concerns, having an exit strategy from a cloud provider is a decision many organizations face. While having an exit strategy from the cloud isn’t a pleasant thought, in this session, you will learn how to plan, the tradeoffs of choosing various services, and your options for where to relocate. You’ll learn about co-location facilities, national clouds, and the challenges of moving back to an on-premises data center. We will discuss the complex services to move, like email or chat, and those that move more quickly. You will learn about how sticky various cloud services are, and how you best plan for a turbulent future.

• Rob Sewell

What A Data Nerd Learnt by Automating Their Home (Besides Annoying Their Family)

Modern data teams spend their days designing pipelines, modelling schemas, and wrestling with requirements — but what happens when those same skills escape the office and take over your home?

Learn how tinkering at home teaches lessons about requirements, error handling, resilience, scope creep, and communication — and how those lessons flow back into your day job (but in a fun way) We'll even include some Microsoft Fabric.

You will see how a simple “let’s automate a light switch” experiment spiralled into a full‑blown, event‑driven, high‑availability, occasionally‑over‑engineered home automation ecosystem. A house that thinks for itself.

No home automation experience is required — just curiosity and a willingness to laugh at the familiar chaos of scope creep.

We’ll look at how personal tinkering projects become powerful learning tools: how designing a reliable smart‑home workflow mirrors building production‑grade data systems; how debugging flaky sensors teaches you more about error handling than any textbook; and how “disaster recovery” takes on new meaning when your heating system depends on your YAML being valid.

Along the way, we’ll explore the two‑way learning loop between home and work: how professional practices improve your home automations, and how home automations sharpen your professional instincts.

You’ll leave with new ideas, a few cautionary tales, and a renewed appreciation for how fun, messy, and surprisingly educational side projects can be. Whether you’re building a data platform or just trying to stop your lights from turning off while you’re in the shower.

• Monica Morehouse (Rathbun)

Top 5 Performance Considerations for Database Cloud Environments

As organizations move to cloud platforms, optimizing performance is crucial for scalability, efficiency, and cost savings. In this session, we’ll cover the top five performance considerations for cloud deployments:

• Cloud hardware and its impact
• Getting the best performance from your infrastructure
• Managing TempDB usage
• Key database configuration best practices
• Avoiding cloud throttling

These factors can greatly affect your workload's performance. We'll look at how cloud resource choices like CPU, memory, and storage impact performance and costs. We'll also discuss infrastructure configuration, including network design and resource allocation, that influences performance and availability.
We’ll explore TempDB settings, which are vital for database performance but often limited in cloud environments. Finally, we’ll cover cloud throttling, how it works, and its potential effects on database performance. By understanding these considerations, you can better optimize performance and reliability in the cloud.

• Johnny Winter

Data Modelling for Super Stars! How to collaboratively design your star schema with end users

Despite claims to the contrary, dimensional modelling and star schemas are alive and well the in the modern data world. But whilst developers might have great technical skills and understand how to build a star schema, they may lack the business domain knowledge to ensure that what they deliver is fit for use by analysts and self-service users. On the flip side, these end users often know what they want and need from a data platform, but struggle to explain this in a way that makes it easy for developers to implement.

How can we improve the requirements gathering process to make sure we avoid the tensions that can arise from this?

This session will cover a data modelling requirements approach that looks to bridge the gap between business and IT by using an end-to-end process for working with business users to collaboratively design a dimensional model, making sure you build super star schemas and turn your self into a data modelling superstar.

• Štěpán Rešl

What Retro Games Taught Me About Microsoft Fabric

As a person who likes computer games, I would like to know if I can somehow play some old games on Microsoft Fabric. Meanwhile, during my process of trying, I have encountered many interesting approaches and learned a lot from the perspective of what can be done.

In this unique session, I would like to delve into a topic that combines retro gaming and Microsoft Fabric, and demonstrate how iconic titles like DOOM and Pokémon Yellow can come alive within Microsoft Fabric Notebooks using PySpark or Python. Through live demonstrations, you'll be able to see these nostalgic games working, as well as how Fabric behaves in these edge scenarios. I would also like to show you how to elevate some of the approaches I came up with in your notebooks or solutions.
We'll explore:
Running DOOM and Pokémon Yellow directly in Fabric Notebooks, highlighting platform versatility.
Creative scenarios leveraging Fabric Lakehouses to store, manage, and retrieve game data.
Why PySpark should not be your direct answer to any solution in Fabric and why plain Python should be.

Join me to elevate your understanding of Microsoft Fabric, combining nostalgia, innovation, and practical knowledge in one crazy session!

Materials

Data_Grillen_2026_Steve_Retro_Games_Fabric.pdf