Michael Tenner
BI OR DIE | Full Stack Power BI Engineer
Köln, Germany
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Michael is a passionate data analyst with a keen interest in transforming complex data into appealing and easily understandable visualizations.
With his extensive consulting experience across various industries, Michael understands the diverse challenges that companies face. He finds technically innovative solutions to adapt to different situations and deliver real business value.
His enthusiasm for knowledge sharing is highly evident in the community, where he enjoys sharing expertise with others and addressing new technical topics in realistic and illustrative use cases.
Area of Expertise
Topics
The many modes of Power BI
Exploring Data Access Modes in Power BI with Microsoft Fabric
Short description:
With Microsoft Fabric, you now have access to your data using the so-called Direct Lake, which could be the future of data storage for Power BI. However, will Import Mode remain the dominant force for storage mode in Power BI?
Detailed description:
Understanding the different data access modes in Power BI is crucial for optimizing performance and ensuring efficient data handling. This session will delve into the various modes available for storing and accessing data in Power BI, highlighting their use cases, benefits, and potential drawbacks.
The session will cover the following topics:
Why Care About Different Data Access Modes?
○ Understanding the importance of choosing the right mode for your data strategy.
○ How the choice of mode impacts performance, scalability, and usability.
Overview of Data Access Modes:
○ Direct Query
○ Dual Mode
○ Aggregations
○ Import Mode
○ Live Connection
○ Direct Lake (new in Microsoft Fabric)
Direct Lake: The Future of Data Storage?
○ Introduction to Direct Lake and its features.
○ Comparing Direct Lake with traditional Import Mode.
○ Use cases where Direct Lake excels.
Choosing the Right Mode for Your Use Case:
○ Different modes for different scenarios.
○ Best practices for selecting the appropriate data
access mode.
○ Real-world examples and case studies.
Potential Confusions and Clarifications:
○ Common misconceptions about data access modes.
○ Clarifying the benefits and limitations of each mode.
Used Tools and Techniques:
Power BI Desktop / Microsoft Fabric / Direct Lake / Direct Query / Dual Mode / Aggregations / Import Mode / Live Connection / Best Practices for Data Strategy
Start Your Data Journey with Power BI
You want to start working with Power BI, or you've already taken your first steps and want an itinerary to help navigate common pitfalls when starting out? Then you’re more than welcome to join!
The plan for our trip to a Power BI Report:
If you like traveling as much as I do, this use case will be perfect for you. We’ll build an end-to-end Power BI report based on data I’ve collected over the last five years of traveling around the world.
As with every good trip, we start with an idea of what we want to explore, see, and visit. In the case of building a report, this means: before starting our journey in Power BI, we’ll take a look at the source data and collect ideas about what we can do with it.
Time to book your ticket:
If you want to get the most out of this session, please make sure Power BI Desktop is installed on your machine! No paid licenses are needed — it’s free to get started.
The way to the airport:
Before we begin the real journey, we need to connect to the data. We’ll explore how and to which sources you can connect with Power BI — and then we’ll get started with our travel expenses data.
Check-in at the airport:
Before takeoff, we need to clean, enrich, and model our data. You’ll learn how to use Power Query to ensure the data is well-prepared for use in Power BI.
Security check and safety advice:
We’ll cover some good and best practices to make your journey into the world of data as smooth as possible. You’ll learn why the so-called Star Schema is like a golden passport in Power BI.
Takeoff:
Now we’re ready to build our first report pages! You’ll learn how to gain insights from travel data by combining different visuals and pages — comparing spending, flight prices, hotel costs, and more.
In-flight overview:
We’ll briefly fly over some topics we won’t dive into just yet — but which might become interesting later in your Power BI journey. Destinations like DAX are waiting to be discovered when you’re ready.
Landing at your destination:
Finally, we’ll explore how to share and publish your insights and reports with others.
I’d be delighted to help you get started with your very own Power BI journey!
Die Dritte Visual Ranking Weltmeisterschaft
Interaktiver Gamification-Ansatz zur Vermittlung von Know-how rund um verschiedene Visualisierungen – von einfach bis sehr speziell.
Die Teilnehmenden bewerten Visualisierungen selbstständig in einer digitalen Abstimmung, anstatt Good Practices lediglich frontal präsentiert zu bekommen. Durch diese aktive Einbeziehung entsteht eine lebendige Diskussion mit immer neuen Erkenntnissen und Perspektiven. Abschließend wird gemeinsam ein individuelles Ranking erstellt – und dabei ganz praktisch gezeigt, wie effektiv Wissensvermittlung durch persönliches Erleben sein kann.
The Art of Demonstration and the Power of Communication
Communicating technical capabilities means more than explaining how a tool works—it involves demonstrating why it matters to the people who use it. In this session, we’ll focus on how to present Power BI and Microsoft Fabric solutions so that both decision-makers and end-users clearly see their value and feel empowered to take action. Whether it’s making informed strategic decisions or confidently integrating new solutions into daily operations, the key lies in connecting technical features to tangible benefits for your organization’s processes.
You’ll learn how to adapt your communication to different audiences, taking cultural contexts, personality styles, and organizational roles into account. We’ll use a pyramid presentation approach—starting with a high-level overview that underscores the business value, then narrowing down into more detailed, technical insights as needed. Throughout the process, we’ll highlight the importance of interactivity, cultural awareness, and relevant real-world examples that resonate with global teams.
Key Takeaways:
Value-Driven Communication: Frame technical concepts in terms of their impact on decision-making and operational processes.
Audience Adaptation: Utilize the four-color personality model and cultural considerations to connect with decision-makers, analysts, and end-users alike.
Pyramid Presentation Structure: Start with overarching strategic benefits and drill down into details, ensuring each audience member understands why and how solutions matter.
Interactivity & Empowerment: Learn techniques to engage stakeholders, encouraging them not just to understand, but to apply insights and foster adoption.
Real-World Context: Experience how Power BI and Fabric demonstrations can directly translate into improved processes, efficiency, and measurable outcomes.
Multi-Language Reporting in the Age of AI
Multi-language use cases in data present a challenge for many organizations, often tied to the master data of a company for their products, processes, or customers.
Using just one language (e.g., English) is often the easy approach and reduces effort. However, to make data and reports more accessible, it can be necessary in some cases to implement translations.
The session will address and demonstrate the following topics:
- Decision points for choosing a single-language vs. multi-language approach for a Power BI report.
- Describing the capabilities and limitations of the built-in translation features of the tabular model.
- Showcasing a Power BI report where field parameters are used to control the language (and/or row-level security).
- Using notebooks in combination with a REST API to DeepL to enhance existing dimensions with relevant translations.
- Combining business glossaries and AI translations, with human oversight when needed.
- Summarizing the pros and cons of different scenarios and providing the main decision points.
Minimum Viable Data - the Collaborative Future of Data Management
Quality comes with a price.
Relevant data comes with a price.
New tools like Microsoft Fabric change the cost structure for data storage and processing, while tools like Copilot help us build solutions faster than ever. However, achieving perfect data quality remains elusive.
The Minimal Viable Data (MVD) approach is a starting point to address typical issues faced by organizations striving to become more data-driven.
Minimum Viable Data refers to the well-known concept of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It describes the data that is sufficient to make informed decisions. Usually, perfect data quality is not expected, but rather an adequate quality that is good enough.
The concept considers that local data, even if customized with Excel, often fulfills this requirement better than centrally provided data with objectively "good quality".
However there are still lots of reasons to replace local shadow IT and complex Excel with Self-Service Data Management for End-Users in Microsoft Fabric.
Key messages of the session:
- What is Minimal Viable Data, and why should we consider this concept?
- How does this fit into data strategy approaches like data mesh?
- Why Microsoft Fabric is a game changer for this concept? (and will be even more in the future)
- Showcasing a use case with the pitfalls and opportunities the approach offers, including self-service Lakehouses in Fabric
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