Duncan Boyne
The Power BI Kinda Guy
Norwich, United Kingdom
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With a background across ERP systems including Epicor ERP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Infor Visual, and Sage 200, Duncan brings a deep understanding of how data flows through businesses. He focuses on reporting that reflects real operational processes, not just what looks good in a dashboard.
He works across Power BI, Dataverse, Power Apps, and Power Automate, with a particular interest in report design, semantic models, governance, and building systems that scale.
Outside of client work, Duncan runs the Norfolk Power Platform User Group and is the founder of the East of England Power Platform Summit, creating spaces for people at all levels to learn, connect, and grow.
Outside of tech, he’s a dad of two, usually being outnumbered at home by kids and a dog. When he does get a bit of time, it’s spent gaming, reading, getting lost in manga, or listening to music that most people would describe as “a bit aggressive.”
Area of Expertise
Topics
Design Before DAX: Wireframing Better Power BI Dashboards
“Can you build us a management dashboard?”
Most Power BI projects start exactly like this, with a vague request and the expectation that the developer will somehow turn it into something insightful, beautiful, and easy to use.
Too often we jump straight into Power BI and start dragging visuals onto a canvas. The result is dashboards that look cluttered, inconsistent, and difficult to scale.
This session takes a different approach: design first, build later.
Starting with a typical stakeholder request, we will walk through the process of designing a Power BI dashboard from scratch using wireframes. Together we’ll decide what belongs on the page, how information should be prioritised, and how layout, colour, and typography influence the way users read data.
Along the way we’ll explore questions that good report designers ask before opening Power BI:
Why are we using these colours?
Is the design accessible and readable for all users?
How will this layout scale when more pages or reports are added?
How do we turn stakeholder requests into a structured visual plan?
By the end of the session we will have produced a complete dashboard wireframe and a repeatable design approach that can be applied to any Power BI reporting project.
What You’ll Learn
How to translate stakeholder requests into structured dashboard wireframes
How to design layouts that prioritise clarity and usability
How colour, typography, and spacing affect data interpretation
How to design reports that scale across multiple dashboards and teams
Key Takeaways
A repeatable wireframing process for Power BI report design
Practical design principles you can apply before opening Power BI
Techniques for creating dashboards that are clearer, more accessible, and easier to scale
Dashboard in a Day? Nah. Let’s Do One in 45 Minutes. A live, end-to-end Power BI build
A live, end-to-end Power BI build
This is a demo-first session. No slide decks full of theory. No pre-built models. No “imagine if” examples.
The only slides you’ll see at the start are my face and a highlight reel of things I’m unreasonably proud of—purely for credibility, ego maintenance, and to prove I’ve broken Power BI in enough ways to know what actually matters. Then we switch straight into Power BI and build a real dashboard from scratch in 45 minutes.
We’ll start with raw, messy data and finish with something you’d genuinely feel comfortable putting in front of stakeholders.
Along the way, you’ll see:
How to decide what not to build (the fastest win in Power BI)
A practical approach to modelling without overengineering
The small number of measures that usually drive the most value
Layout and visual choices that prioritise clarity over decoration
How to keep momentum when time, scope, and attention are limited
This session is about decision-making under constraint—the same constraint most of us work under every day.
You’ll leave with a repeatable approach you can use when “Dashboard in a Day” simply isn’t realistic.
When Native Visuals Aren’t Enough: Advanced Visual Architecture in Power BI
Designing Production-Grade Custom Visuals in Power BI with Deneb
As Power BI practitioners mature, many eventually hit the same wall: native visuals are powerful, but they impose structural limits. Layering complex KPIs, building precise layouts, or controlling visual behaviour beyond the format pane often requires compromise.
This session explores how to move beyond those constraints by designing production-grade custom visuals using Deneb and the Vega-Lite grammar of graphics.
Rather than focusing on basic syntax, we will examine:
How to think in layers, marks, and encodings
When in-visual transformations outperform DAX measures
Structuring maintainable and reusable visual specifications
Handling dynamic scaling, conditional logic, and controlled interactivity
Avoiding common performance and maintainability pitfalls
Through real-world examples, we will rebuild complex reporting scenarios that native visuals struggle to represent cleanly — such as layered KPI cards, dynamic bullet charts, and composite visuals that would otherwise require multiple visuals stitched together.
This session is aimed at experienced report creators, data architects, and consultants who already understand Power BI modelling and DAX, and want to take control of the visual layer itself.
Attendees will leave with a clear framework for deciding when Deneb is appropriate, how to architect custom visuals responsibly, and how to elevate their reporting craft beyond default components.
Is Your Data Ready for AI or a Risk to Your Business?
AI is rapidly becoming part of modern business strategy. From copilots to predictive analytics, organisations are being told the same thing: adopt AI or fall behind.
But there is a critical question many businesses haven’t answered yet.
Is your data actually ready for AI?
In this session, we explore how Power BI can be used as a strategic lens to assess AI readiness across an organisation. Using a real Power BI report built with anonymised data, we will demonstrate how leaders can quickly evaluate the health of their data estate, from data quality and governance to platform maturity and operational risk.
Rather than focusing on building reports, this session shows how analytics can surface the issues that often sit beneath the surface: fragmented data sources, inconsistent standards, security gaps, and hidden operational dependencies.
For technology leaders, this provides something extremely valuable. A clear, visual understanding of where your organisation is prepared for AI and where the foundations still need work.
If your data is ready, you gain confidence that AI initiatives can move forward.
If it isn’t, you gain something even more useful: a clear roadmap of what needs fixing first.
Because the biggest risk in adopting AI isn’t the technology.
It’s the data you build it on.
Experts Live UK 2026 Sessionize Event Upcoming
East of England Power Platform Summit Sessionize Event Upcoming
D365 & Power Platform User Group North East User group Sessionize Event
Global Power Platform Bootcamp | Austrian Power Platform Enthusiasts Edition Sessionize Event
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