Philip Seamark
Microsoft Fabric CAT team
Wellington, New Zealand
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Phil Seamark works on the Microsoft Fabric CAT team and is an accomplished database and business intelligence (BI) professional. Phil has an in-depth knowledge of the Microsoft BI stack along with extensive knowledge of data warehouse (DW) methodologies and enterprise data modelling.
Phil has expert knowledge in all facets of BI/DW including planning architecture, project management, dimensional modelling, performance tuning, ETL design, development and optimisation, report and dashboard design as well as installation and administration.
Phil has written several books DAX and Data modelling and has also blogged extensively at dax.tips
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Visualize Without Limits: AI-Powered Custom Visuals for the No-Code Era
Creating custom visuals used to be slow and complex. In this session, see how modern AI tools and the Power BI Visuals SDK turn that challenge into a fast, approachable process. Learn step-by-step techniques to build, customise, and ship visuals—quickly and confidently
Transforming the Power BI Modeling Experience with MCP
Even the most skilled BI developers can be slowed by manual, repetitive steps. This session delivers a step‑change in productivity by combining the semantic modeling power of Power BI with the flexibility of MCP Servers.
Through real‑world examples, you’ll see how to automate model updates, streamline development workflows, and improve the overall modeling experience. You’ll leave with clear, actionable strategies to modernize your process — and the confidence to deliver results at pace.
By the end, you might just find yourself humming, “Money for nothing… I want my MCP…”
Taking Direct Lake to the Next Level
Learn how to design and optimise Power BI models using Direct Lake in Microsoft Fabric. This session covers advanced DAX techniques, storage‑mode strategies, and performance tips to help you build faster, more scalable solutions. Walk away with practical patterns you can apply immediately in your own projects.
Power BI Storage Modes: The Ultimate Showdown
Power BI offers three different storage modes for data: Direct Query, Import and Direct Lake. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on the scenario and the requirements. But which one is the best overall? How do they compare in terms of performance, scalability, flexibility and ease of use?
In this session, we will put the three storage modes to the test in a series of challenges inspired by the Olympic Pentathlon. We will use real-world data sets and scenarios to measure how each storage mode handles different aspects of data analysis and visualization. We will also share some best practices and tips on how to choose the right storage mode for your project.
By the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each storage mode, and you will be able to decide which one deserves the gold medal in your Power BI dashboard.
Load Testing Semantic Models with Fabric Notebooks
This session presents a practical walk-through of a real-world Power BI solution designed to support 20,000 users at Microsoft.
It explores how a notebook-driven method can streamline load testing—from capturing DAX queries and configuring row-level security (RLS), to stress-testing capacity under high concurrency, and finally analyzing test results.
Attendees will discover how these steps help establish benchmarks, optimize Power BI reports, and more accurately gauge capacity requirements, all within an easy-to-configure end-to-end process.
Chat with your Data through AI-powered Search and Analytics
AI is poised to revolutionize how work is done, and Power BI is constantly evolving to meet the needs and expectations of its users.
In this session, we’ll focus on how consumers of Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Power BI can drive more insights by asking Copilot questions about your data. Hear from the Power BI Product team about how to optimize asking Copilot questions with the Chat with your Data features in Copilot.
The session will also share perspectives into the future roadmap with a sneak peek or two that is sure to excite.
A Comprehensive Guide to Direct Lake for the Pro Data Modeller (Hands-On Lab)
Join us for an immersive, hands-on workshop designed specifically for Pro Data Modellers. This comprehensive session will guide you through all the critical elements needed to build, tune, and maintain a Direct Lake Model in Microsoft Fabric.
Throughout the workshop, you will delve into essential topics such as:
-Understanding the prerequisites for setting up your model.
-Exploring the anatomy of Parquet files and their role in data storage.
-Mastering transcoding and framing techniques to optimize data processing.
-Implementing SQL fallback strategies for enhanced reliability.
-Discovering new features and how they can benefit your projects.
-Ensuring robust security measures to protect your data.
-Fine-tuning performance to achieve optimal efficiency.
-Navigating the migration process with ease.
-Tackling advanced topics to elevate your modelling skills.
By the end of this workshop, you will have gained the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage a Direct Lake Model, ensuring your projects are both efficient and secure.
Analytics at the speed of Direct Lake
Join Patrick Leblanc and Phil Seamark for a deeper dive to discover what makes Direct Lake so fast. This session will cover important elements of monitoring and optimizing your Fabric data platform to unlock the full potential of Direct Lake, such as how to interpret Delta Analyzer logs and what to look out for if things slow down.
Creative Aggs
Aggregations are a technique that will speed up any sized Power BI Report. Come hear about Horizontal and Vertical Aggs, Filtered Aggs and more, such as shadow aggs.
DAX Tips, Tricks and Pitfalls
Join Marco and Phil as they take you through a series of quick-fire tips, tricks and fixes for common performance mistakes in Power BI. This will be a highly educational session with a few fun gems thrown in along the way.
Debug DAX like a PRO
Phil will walk you through the techniques used by the Power BI team when debugging and optimising DAX in large enterprise models. These equally apply for small and medium size models. Come away knowing how to identify and speed up slow running DAX calculations.
Microsoft Fabric Power BI DirectLake Deep Dive
Microsoft Fabric is here, and it fundamentally changes our data landscape. It introduces a Power BI like SaaS model for the data platform. You can now with a few clicks ingest data into the cloud by running pipelines, create a Lakehouse to make that data accessible and run Python, Spark, SQL and DAX on top of it. One of the most exciting new features that come with Fabric is DirectLake. DirectLake is a fast path to load the data from the data lake straight into the Power BI engine, immediately ready for analysis.
In this session we get you ready to decide if you should use DirectLake for your new project and what all the things you should know for your project.
First, we will do an introduction of Microsoft Fabric is, then we will get an overview of lakehouse and how the data is stored in parquet files under the covers. Then we will dive deep into DirectLake. How is this data being exposed to Power BI through Directlake and how this differs from DirectQuery or Import? How can we use RLS security to protect our data? Then we'll solve some traditional BI patterns like incremental refresh and transactions on top of data getting loaded into the Fabric lakehouse. Then we'll talk about how to get the best performance and show you all the steps to debug this.
At the end of this session, you are ready to tackle any new DirectLake session
Intro to Microsoft Fabric
In 2023, Microsoft officially announced one of the most significant changes to the reporting and analytics landscape with the launch of Microsoft Fabric.
Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one analytics solution for enterprises that covers everything from data movement to data science, Real-Time Analytics, and business intelligence. It offers a comprehensive suite of services, including data lake, data engineering, and data integration, all in one place.
This session provides an overview of Microsoft Fabric along with an end-to-end demo.
Optimising DAX fusion - Power BI
Ever wanted to make your busy matrix visuals in your Power BI reports to load faster? Especially over larger datasets under high concurrency.
Join Phil Seamark, who is a DAX/Data-Modelling specialist on Microsoft Fabric CAT help you understand why DAX fusion can be critical when it comes to optimising important Power BI reports for high performance. This advanced session covers the various types of DAX Fusion available today in Power BI and shares many techniques that take advantage of fusion to significantly speed up calculations that otherwise appear to follow best practices.
This session is valid for Direct Query, Import and Direct Lake models.
FABCON 2026 & SQLCON 2026 - SESSIONS Sessionize Event Upcoming
Data Saturday Chicago 2026 Sessionize Event Upcoming
Power BI Gebruikersdagen 2026 Sessionize Event Upcoming
SQL Konferenz 2026 Sessionize Event Upcoming
Power BI Next Step 2025 Sessionize Event
DATACON Seattle 2025 Sessionize Event
Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Sessionize Event
Digital Workplace Conference - New Zealand 2025 Sessionize Event
Data Saturday #49 - Denmark - 2025 Sessionize Event
Fabric February 2025 Sessionize Event
Difinity Conference - Fabric Tour ANZ 2024 Sessionize Event
European Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Sessionize Event
Philip Seamark
Microsoft Fabric CAT team
Wellington, New Zealand
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