Power BI for the Faint of Heart - Building an Interactive Report Step-by-Step!

You’ve heard about Power BI, and you’ve seen it, but you haven’t yet rolled up your sleeves and got your hands dirty. It looks like it is really easy, but sometimes it helps to have someone step you through it the first time to help you hit the ground running. We will grab various public data sources, join them together in a model and build an interactive pièce de ré·sis·tance on the visual design surface!

Graph Database in SQL Server and Azure - the good, bad and ugly

Graph Database are becoming much more popular in the Last few years. Microsoft did dip their toe in this space with, perhaps, a lack luster response. Since you have Microsoft SQL Server and/or Azure, lets see what Graph options you have and how they compare.

Setting up API endpoints on SQL Server in under an hour

You would think you would have to be a Web professional to create an Application Programing Interface, but it seem Microsoft has your back. Let's set it up and take it for a spin!

Data that can help you Sleep

We all have phones these days, and many of us have smart watches that track our steps. Personally, my favourite feature of these device is the sleep tracking. I started off with Fitbit and now I'm transitioning to the Apple Watch. Interestingly enough, when I wear BOTH wearable to bed, the numbers don't always align. Let's dig a little deeper there. Let's pull the data into a data lake and normalize the structure of the data and create a confusion matrix and see where the two products diverge in their sleep analysis.

Building an End to End Web Scraping Solution with Microsoft Fabric

Sometimes you need to source data from the internet, but there isn't an API to access partner, industry or public data available out on the web... and that's when you need to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

In this session we'll explore 3 different ways to scape web data with Fabric.

1st we'll use the "Easy" button and attempt to get Power BI to do the heavy lifting for us.

2nd we'll leverage Power Query Advanced Editor and explore the M code to allow us to surgically identify what data we need

3rd we'll take things to the next level with some Python libraries in Notebooks to solve some of the more difficult challenges.

We'll also drop this data to a Semantic Model backed by OneLake and visualize the results in a Power BI report.

This Session would be mostly demos and conversation with the audience.
Slides to support resources used and key points.

Let's explore 3 different level of difficulties encountered when attempting to use Power BI & Microsoft Fabric for web scraping.

You ARE Enough

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and inadequate. The constant buzz of new technologies, shifting priorities, and hype can create a sense of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. But let me say it again: You ARE enough!

Technical literacy is often seen as a barrier to success, but it doesn’t have to be. Embracing technology and being on the journey to learn new things is brave and courageous. It’s okay to not know everything, but showing up and doing your best is what counts.

We are surrounded by expectations that make us feel like we’re not enough. But the truth is that technical literacy is not a defining factor of who you are, and you’re worth more than your technical skills.

Managing these expectations in the hyper-connected world we live in can be challenging, but it’s important to remember that doing the best that you can is enough. You are enough.