50 Shades of Direct Lake

You've heard about the Direct Lake mode in Microsoft Fabric, and, as a Power BI professional, you are curious to learn what all the fuss is about and how you can leverage this groundbreaking feature in real-life scenarios. How does Direct Lake work under the hood? Is it a replacement for the Import and DirectQuery mode? When and why to use Direct Lake over Import mode? These are just some of the questions that we are going to address in this demo-packed session.

We will dive deep into Direct Lake's architecture, explain its core concepts, and put it in the ultimate 1:1 comparison with the Import mode! We'll examine various concepts and features that are exclusively relevant to Direct Lake, such as how to refresh the data in Direct Lake models, why some columns are hot and some others are not, and many more...
By the end of this session, you'll get not only a deep understanding of Direct Lake internals, but also learn in which scenarios to choose the "Direct Lake path".

A Day in a Microsoft Fabric!

So, you’ve heard about the “latest and greatest” Microsoft solution that will automagically solve all your data analytics and AI challenges? But, is it really like that? Should we all migrate to Fabric or should we stick with our current data solutions?

If you ask yourself any of these questions, then this workshop is for you! We’ll explain what Microsoft Fabric is, and what are the core components of this new offering. You’ll also learn about the underlying architecture, Fabric licensing options, and possible real-life use cases.

Once we’re done, you’ll get a better understanding of Microsoft Fabric and its various components and how it fits into your organizational data workloads. This is a high-level overview of Microsoft Fabric and not a deep dive into one specific component of the platform.

Meet VertiPaq - "Brain & Muscles" behind Power BI

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? What types of compression Power BI uses to optimize your data model? Learn this on practical examples, that will help you get the best out of your Power BI reports.

Fold on tight - Understanding Power BI Query folding in 20 minutes!

"Will that break a query folding?"..."Does your query fold?"...Maybe someone asked you those questions, but you were like: "Query...Whaaaat?!"

Or, maybe you've heard about query folding, but didn't know how to take advantage of it in real-life scenarios.

If you recognized yourself in (at least) one of the two situations specified above, then this session has your name written all over it! You will learn what is query folding, in which scenarios Power BI will apply it, and how you, as a Power BI developer, can benefit from understanding this concept.

Crash course on Data Visualization in Power BI!

You've connected to a data source and imported data into Power BI - now what? You need to display the information to users in the most effective way!

Is 40 million of revenue good or bad? Are your visuals equally accessible to anyone? How to display detailed data, or highlight important points?

In this session, we'll examine different ways of (mis)representing data in your visuals. You'll understand why context is the key, how to choose the appropriate visualization type for certain business scenarios, and how to configure and format visualizations to provide additional value to your Power BI reports.

Cracking the Power BI performance!

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more...

And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there!

That's why this session is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

And, I'll tell you a little secret: there are no slides in this session - from the beginning to the very end, we'll be only in Power BI Desktop!

Lessons learned from optimizing enterprise data models

You know that DirectQuery performance sucks - but, what should you do when DirectQuery is the ONLY available option?

You know that high cardinality increases data model size - but, what should you do when your users want to analyze numbers on a granularity level higher than day? How to reduce the data model size, while at the same time satisfying business requirements?

You know that by leveraging composite models, you can gain significant performance improvements - but why do you still have DirectQuery queries even when you target the data from the aggregated table in Import mode?

In this session, I'll share tips, tricks and workarounds learned and implemented in real-life scenarios on enterprise data models.

As you may assume, this session is not for rookies - I'll assume that you already have at least intermediate Power BI/Tabular model knowledge.

Power BI - From Toddler to Veteran in 8 Hours!

Have you ever dreamed of learning Power BI in one working day? Thought about grasping both core and more advanced concepts in the span of 8 hours?

Then this workshop is for you!

We'll start with the basics - learning how to clean and transform the data, explaining the difference between calculated columns and measures, and choosing the appropriate visualization types for our data story.

Next, we'll discuss some data modeling topics, talk about different storage mode types in Power BI, and some advanced visualization techniques (who said: bookmarks and Tooltip pages?)

As we're now Power BI "adults", we are ready to grasp advanced data modeling solutions, such as dataflows and hybrid tables. We'll also cover various key concepts in Power BI, like Composite Models, Query folding, and cardinality. We'll also raise our visualization game by introducing conditional formatting tricks and designing our reports with accessibility in focus.

We'll wrap it up by explaining Power BI internals - what is VertiPaq and how it makes your reports blazing fast! You'll then learn how to optimize the performance of Power BI reports, but also understand basics related to Power BI administration and governance.

Once we're done, you'll walk away with a comprehensive set of skills required to build efficient and scalable Power BI solutions.

Cracking Power BI Performance Tuning in a day!

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more...

And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there!

That's why this workshop is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

Public Speaking - How to win the crowd?

Feeling nervous. Having jitters. My hands are sweating. Oh, my God, in 5 minutes, I will present to the public for the first time in my life...

Do you also have a similar feeling? Or, maybe you are considering becoming a speaker, but not sure if that's for you. Then, join me for a lightning session to hear my lessons learned - and I promise to give you a few (hopefully) useful pieces of advice!

Unpack VertiPaq - Understanding "Brain & Muscles" behind Power BI

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? So powerful, that it performs complex calculations over millions of rows in a blink of an eye.

In this session, we will dig deep to discover what is under the hood of Power BI, how your data is being stored, compressed, queried, and finally, brought back to your report. We will also cover some core concepts that affect Power BI performance, such as Aggregations, Materialization, and Relationships.

After the session, you will get a better understanding of the hard work happening in the background and appreciate the importance of creating an optimal data model in order to get maximum performance from the Power BI engine.

Finally, you will see a real-life demo showing how the Power BI data model was reduced by 90%!

Power BI Performance - 7 Deadly Sins!

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more...

And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there!

That's why this session is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

Fold on tight - what is a Query folding and why should I care?

"Will that break a query folding?"..."Does your query fold?"...Maybe someone asked you those questions, but you were like: "Query...Whaaaat?!"

Or, maybe you've heard about query folding, but didn't know how to take advantage of it in real-life scenarios.

If you recognized yourself in (at least) one of the two situations specified above, then this session has your name written all over it! You will learn what is a query folding, in which scenarios Power BI will apply it, and how you, as a Power BI developer, can benefit from understanding this concept.

From XL to S - Reduce your Power BI model size by 90%!

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? So powerful, that it performs complex calculations over millions of rows in a blink of an eye.

In this session, we will dig deep to discover what is “under the hood” of Power BI, how your data is being stored, compressed, queried, and finally, brought back to your report. After the session, you will get a better understanding of the hard work happening in the background and appreciate the importance of creating an optimal data model in order to get maximum performance from the Power BI engine.

Finally, you will see a real use-case demo showing how the Power BI data model was reduced by 90%!

Breaking (in)visible walls - how helping others may help your personal growth!

What do you do if you were a woman from a non-developed country, without equal rights for education?

What do you do if you were a woman whose parents decided what your career path is going to be?

What do you do if you're earning 300$/month and can't afford paid training to change your career?

You apply for the free Power BI Bootcamp!

Does something like this even exist?! Yes, of course! I've just run one with the helping hand of other fellow community members.

In this session, I want to share lessons learned from running this Bootcamp - not just how it changed the lives of these wonderful human beings (hopefully for the better), who didn't have a proper chance to achieve their professional goals, but also how this helped me in personal growth and to redefine the point of view based on living in a well-developed country.

After this session, you'll get nothing in terms of tech knowledge, but you will walk away with a good feeling in your soul, and understand why helping others also helps YOU in breaking many (in)visible walls!

Chef's big book of Power BI recipes

Do you remember those books that teach you how to prepare delicious meals with the ingredients you have at your disposal? I'm sure we all have at least one on our shelves.

What makes a chef's book so important: it includes information on the best seasonings for different types of dishes and cuisines, as well as which flavor combinations work well together, and why. It also offers explanations of what certain ingredients taste like, which can be helpful if you’re working with a new ingredient.

This session follows that same pattern - based on real-life scenarios, by sticking with the "challenge -> solution" approach, I'll show you how to "cook" and "serve" efficient Power BI "meals".

How to set the proper storage mode for the tables? How to create tooltip pages for your report? Why bookmarks can be an easy win over report consumers? How to design your reports for accessibility?

These are just some of the challenges that all of us are facing frequently - and where the chef's book provides the best recipes!

Level up your Power BI game with Field parameters!

Game changer! How many times you’ve heard this when a new feature hit the Power BI ecosystem? But, not all of these features lived up to these high expectations. Field parameters don’t belong to that group, as they truly changed the way we’re building our Power BI solutions.

In this demo-packed session, you’ll learn what are Field parameters, in which scenarios they’ll become your “best friend”, and how to solve some of the most common challenges related to Field parameters implementation (who said, selected value of the field parameter and conditional formatting).

Power BI "X Files" - 5 things they "forgot" to tell you!

Have you heard about DAX fusion? Do you know how it works? What about two types of caches in Power BI? Does that ring a bell? You want to load the data into the table, without rebuilding hierarchies and relationships - do you know how to do it? Your experienced colleague told you about the query folding, but do you really know WHY it matters? What if I tell you that there is a hidden little property in TOM that can help you make astonishing savings in the data model memory size?

If you're eager to go above and beyond basics and understand more than what's written in Power BI books and guides, then this session is for you! You'll learn about 5 secret sauces of Power BI professionals, that may help you level up your Power BI expertise.

This session is NOT beginner-friendly, as I'll assume that you are already familiar with the foundational concepts and techniques in Power BI and tabular modeling in general.

It's just a SQL - Crash course on Fabric Warehouse for T-SQL ninjas!

Are you a seasoned T-SQL developer, used to solving each and every challenge by writing plain old SQL? But, now you need to leverage data coming from semi-structured or unstructured sources?

What if I tell you that you can get your mission accomplished by writing your favorite T-SQL syntax?

In this session, you will learn what is a Warehouse within Microsoft Fabric, how it works behind the scenes, how it compares to a traditional data warehouse, and how you can preserve your "T-SQL Ninja" status even when dealing with the data coming from CSV, Parquet, or Delta files. You'll also understand the difference between the Warehouse and Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric, and how to leverage T-SQL language to get the best of both worlds, by combining the data from Warehouse and Lakehouse!

This session WILL NOT teach you how to write SQL - I assume you are already familiar with the T-SQL basics, and that you are now eager to apply your T-SQL skills in a different environment!

A Whirlwind Tour on Microsoft Fabric!

So, you’ve heard about the “latest and greatest” Microsoft solution that will automagically solve all your data analytics and AI challenges? But, is it really like that? Should we all migrate to Fabric or should we stick with our current data solutions?

If you ask yourself any of these questions, then this session is for you! We’ll explain what Microsoft Fabric is, and what are the core components of this new offering. You’ll also learn about the underlying architecture, Fabric licensing options, and possible real-life use cases.

Once we’re done, you’ll get a better understanding of Microsoft Fabric and its various components and how it fits into your organizational data workloads. This is a high-level overview of Microsoft Fabric and not a deep dive into one specific component of the platform.

Mastering Analytics Engineering with Microsoft Fabric (DP-600 Certification)

So, you’ve heard about the “fanciest and coolest” role in the data space, called Analytics Engineer, and you are dreaming of becoming one? Have you also heard about Microsoft’s latest and greatest SaaS solution, called Microsoft Fabric, which brings together experiences such as Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, and Power BI onto a shared SaaS foundation? How about getting your skills proofed and certified as a Microsoft Fabric Analytics Engineer?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then this workshop is for you!

We’ll explain the role of the Analytics Engineer in plain English, without buzzwords and hype. Then, I’ll teach you how to leverage Microsoft Fabric as a unified analytics platform, with its various components, to excel in your Analytics Engineer role and design robust and efficient data solutions for different personas within your organization.

By the time we’re done, you’ll gain a thorough understanding of Microsoft Fabric and its core components, and how it fits into your organizational data workloads. Additionally, since we will cover Microsoft Fabric specifically from the Analytics Engineer’s perspective, you should feel more confident in taking the latest certification exam related to Microsoft Fabric: DP-600 Implementing Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Fabric.

High-level Agenda Overview
1. Overview of different roles in the data and analytics space
2. What is Microsoft Fabric and why do Analytics Engineers need it
3. Understanding Parquet and Delta file formats
4. Fabric Lakehouse or Fabric Warehouse: which one is (not) for me?
5. Preparing and serving data in Microsoft Fabric
6. Microsoft Fabric for Power BI professionals
7. End to End solution Demo
8. Managing Analytics Development Lifecycle in Fabric
9. Summary and quiz

Detailed Agenda of the day
1. Understanding different roles in the data and analytics space (focus on explaining the Analytics Engineer role and its tasks)
• Difference between Analytics Engineer and Data Engineer/Data Scientist/Data Analyst
• Main Analytics Engineer tasks and responsibilities

2. What is Microsoft Fabric and why do Analytics Engineers need it?
• High-level overview of Microsoft Fabric
• Terminology and user interface
• Microsoft Fabric core components and architecture (storage vs different compute engines)

3. Understanding Parquet and Delta file formats
• Explain details of Parquet/Delta format, as the core storage format options in Fabric.

4. Fabric Lakehouse or Fabric Warehouse: which one is (not) for me?
• Examining use cases for both Lakehouse and Warehouse
• Feature overview/comparison

5. Prepare and serve data in Microsoft Fabric
• Creating objects in a Lakehouse
• Creating objects in a Warehouse
• Understanding file partitioning for better performance
• Moving data between different Microsoft Fabric items (using pipelines, dataflows or notebooks)
• Transforming data by implementing data cleaning techniques
• Designing Star schema in lakehouse and warehouse
• Understanding various data modeling concepts and techniques (I.e. aggregations, denormalization, etc.)
• Performance tuning for Microsoft Fabric workloads
• Querying data with SQL (both Lakehouse and Warehouse)

6. Microsoft Fabric for Power BI professionals (focus on Direct Lake mode)
• Designing and building semantic models (choosing the proper storage mode)
• Optimizing Enterprise-scale semantic models (Performance troubleshooting, leveraging external tools, etc.)
• Exploring and analyzing data (descriptive analytics, data profiling...)

7. End to End solution
a. Demo and potentially lab on building an end-to-end analytic solution using pipelines/notebooks/dataflows for data integration, Lakehouse/Warehouse for storing the data, and Power BI with Direct Lake mode to serve the data

8. Managing Analytics Development Lifecycle in Fabric
• Implementing version control
• Managing PBI Desktop Project (pbip) files
• Understanding deployment solutions (deployment pipelines)
• Using XMLA endpoint for managing and deploying semantic models

9. Summary and quiz
• Provide an interactive way for participants to engage and check what they’ve learned during the workshop

A Hitchhikers Guide to Mastering Fabric Analytics Engineering Certificate (DP-600)

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a certified Fabric Analytics Engineer? Wondering which skills should you master to successfully complete the exam? If you answered YES to both of these questions, then this session is for you!

We will kick it off by examining the role of the Analytics Engineer in the Microsoft Fabric realm. Then, I'll provide you with a high-level overview of the skills measured in this exam, focusing on specific topics that might be more important. I'll also share a few tips and tricks for solving some common challenges, and we'll wrap it up by talking about preparation strategies and resources.

While 60 minutes is obviously not enough to get you ready to pass the exam, you'll definitely get a better understanding of what to expect and how to plan and prepare to successfully master the Fabric Analytics Engineer certificate.