Steve Campbell
Co-Founder @ Analytic Endeavors, MVP
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Steve co-owns Analytic Endeavors, a consultancy founded by himself and Reid Havens. Working in the data platform and BI space, they deliver enterprise data solutions for clients across industries, including non-profit, education, and public sectors. Analytic Endeavors specialize in delivering streamlined data pipelines, scalable shared models, and actionable report solutions.
Steve has a background in data analytics and consulting and is a Microsoft data platform MVP. He has run global Microsoft data analytics consulting teams, specializing in deploying and implementing enterprise data solutions, self-service business intelligence, and data governance.
He is also the owner of Sunny BI, providing Power BI and Fabric training services to individuals and organizations who want to learn and leverage the power of data visualization and analytics.
Awards
Area of Expertise
Topics
The Power of Semantic Layers: Ensuring Reliable and Governed BI
Developers often create excellent reports, only to be asked for data exports to Excel.
Ultimately, users want only one thing: easy access to data that helps them do their job. While Power BI reports and dashboards are powerful, they can't answer every question. Users may need to create their own reports, build Excel pivots, or extract data for other processes.
These needs must be met securely and consistently, avoiding governance bypass, duplicated calculations, or compromised security.
Enter the Semantic Layer.
The semantic layer connects Power BI and Microsoft Fabric back-end systems to end users, offering secure, governed, and user-friendly data access. Certified semantic models means that the content meets the organisation's quality standards and can be regarded as reliable, authoritative, and ready for use across the organisation.
This session will cover:
1. What is a Semantic Model?
Define the semantic layer, its components, and its role in self-service BI.
2. The Certification Process
Explore the structured, repeatable steps required to certify semantic models. This introduces the certification process map and checklist - a list of best practices a model requires to pass to be certified.
3. Deep dive into the Certification Checklist
Learn some common best practices, optimization tips, security considerations, and practical advice for building robust semantic models.
Who Should Attend?
This session is for Data Analysts, Data Engineers, and BI Developers aiming to upgrade models to meet enterprise business and self service needs.
Led by Steve Campbell, a Microsoft MVP and co-owner of a Microsoft data consultancy. Steve previously led data analytics for large-scale EMEA platform implementations.
Key Takeaways
- Understand the Role of Semantic Models.
- Learn the Certification Process and a repeatable framework for ensuring your models meet organisational standards.
- Take away practical tips for optimisation, security, and best practices.
Design a Well-Architected Fabric Solution: A Medallion First Approach
Transform your data solutions with a streamlined Medallion Architecture using Microsoft Fabric. This session is tailored for professionals familiar with Power BI and basic dataflows, providing a step-by-step guide to implementing Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers for a scalable and maintainable pipeline.
Learn how to evolve an unstructured dataflow and semantic model into a comprehensive architecture. Familiarity with Python or SQL is a bonus but not required.
Part 1:
• Overview of Medallion Architecture: Gain a clear understanding of Warehouses and Lakehouses, their role within Microsoft Fabric, and how they enable Medallion Architecture.
• Understanding OneLake: Dive into OneLake and explore its foundational storage structure, including Delta tables and Parquet. Understand key features like columnar storage, Delta optimizations, and performance enhancements through simple, no-code explanations.
Part 2:
• Feature Showdown: Compare and contrast key tools in Microsoft Fabric, such as SQL vs. Spark, Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines, and Warehouses vs. Lakehouses, to determine the best fit for your scenarios.
• Well-Designed Architecture & Best Practices:
Learn about GIT integration, monitoring techniques, and actionable best practices for designing scalable and maintainable data architectures.
Audience:
• BI/SQL Professionals looking to broaden their knowledge of data engineering.
• Data Analysts seeking to deepen their understanding of data architecture.
• Aspiring Data Engineers aiming to master scalable data pipeline architectures.
Prerequisites:
Basic familiarity with Power BI and fundamental data engineering principles. Knowledge of Python or SQL is helpful but not mandatory.
Learning Goals:
1. Step-by-step guidance on converting unstructured dataflows into a robust Medallion Architecture.
2. Clear decision-making insights on tool selection and building well-designed architectures.
3. Practical strategies for scaling and maintaining pipelines with best practices in data engineering.
Demystifying Delta (Parquet): A No-code, No-jargon Introduction
This session will explain underlying storage of OneLake, Delta (and Parquet). Explaining what column store and Parquet is, and how Delta adds some amazing features on top of this.
This session requires no prior coding knowledge or tech-savvy background. It will use simple language, relatable examples, and visual aids to explain the core concepts. All covering terminology at an introductory level so you won’t get left behind.
Key Takeaways:
- A clear understanding of Delta tables and its role in software development and cloud infrastructure.
- No-code, no-jargon explanations that make complex concepts accessible to everyone.
- Increased confidence in discussing and exploring Microsoft Fabric in various contexts
DAX fundamentals: what is filter context?
This session aims to demystify the concept of filter context, illustrating how it interacts with other contexts such as row context. We will explore how DAX processes and modifies filter context through various functions and expressions, demonstrating with how it influences the behavior of measures.
This will be a theoretical session, looking to understand the specific theory and how filter context works under the surface.
Attendees will learn how to effectively manipulate filter context to build more intuitive and responsive data models. The session is designed for intermediate users looking to deepen their understanding of DAX and enhance their skills.
Upgrading Enterprise Power BI Architecture
If you're a citizen developer, business user, or rising data star that hasn't worked on large deployments, it can be difficult to understand what a well architected Power BI solution should look like.
This course is designed for users who want to learn to enhance Power BI models for enterprise deployment, creating sharing strategies, and ensure correct security. In this course, you will learn valuable tools to upgrade your semantic models to enterprise-grade solutions and take your organization's data analytics to the next level.
First, the session will review how to architect models for enterprise. It will look at configuring tables, columns, hierarchies, and measures using tools such as Tabular Editor.
Next, we’ll look at the deployment of Power BI models and how to manage the content effectively. It covers version control, DevOps, and build and deployment pipelines. We’ll cover all terminology at a introductory level so you won’t get left behind. You will learn publication options, how to configure datasets, set refreshes and monitor semantic models, plus what Fabric means for Power BI.
Then we’ll cover different sharing strategies for sharing distributing content and how to collaborate with workspaces and compare different sharing techniques. You will learn how about role-based access control (RBAC), row-level security (RLS), and security labels. We’ll learn some common data leak pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Participants should have a basic understanding of Power BI and data modeling concepts, including tables, relationships, and measures. Prior experience with Tabular Editor and DevOps is not required, but it may be helpful.
Designing Efficient Architectures: Best Practices for Governance, Security, and Sharing Policies
Drawing on real-world projects and expertise gained through collaboration with Microsoft, this session will be delivered by the owner of Sunny BI consulting, and a previous Data Analytics lead a leading consultancy firm. These are real tools used to deploy robust architectures in large companies across Europe.
As we journey through designing strategy to implementing policies, we will delve into the creation of process maps and establishing roles and responsibilities through the RACI model. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the Optimized Architectures Document, which serves as a blueprint for optimizing content delivery infrastructure. Architecture will highlight asset certification and endorsement. On top, we'll see how Fabric architectures contribute and what needs to be included.
Walk away equipped with a toolkit of proven methodologies and real-world-tested frameworks. Armed with these insights, you'll be poised to not only design but also implement effective and secure content delivery architectures within your organization.
The session is for those who are responsible for, or involved in, rolling out, governing, or designing Power BI architecture, or interested in expanding their knowledge of Power BI Governance.
Power BI Bookmarks Tips, Tricks and Best Practices
In this session, we will look at best practices on creating your PBIX file, assigning visual metadata and creating bookmarks and templates.
This session will not cover data visualization, storytelling, DAX or performance. Rather, it will focus on creating a well-designed PBIX file and applying bookmarks. This will allow you to easily maintain and make changes to reports in the future or hand off a report to another developer with ease.
Introduction to Version Control, GIT, and Power BI Developer mode
This session will guide you through the basics of version control, ensuring you understand its significance for efficient Power BI project management. We will introduce you to GIT, a widely used version control system, without delving into intricate code or overly technical jargon.
In just one hour, you will gain a genuine grasp of how it all works.
Key Topics Covered:
- Demystifying Version Control: We'll explain version control in plain language, emphasizing why it's pivotal for successful Power BI projects.
- An Introduction to GIT: Get a straightforward overview of GIT, without getting bogged down in technical details. Discover why it's so popular and beneficial.
- The Power of Power BI Developer Mode: Understand how the new Power BI Developer Mode simplifies development and collaboration, without diving into intricate coding.
- Version Control in Power BI: Not all users need GIT, so understand the options for all projects and different methods available.
- Practical Tips for Success: We'll share practical insights and straightforward tips for effectively using version control in Power BI.
Suitable for any data analyst, a Power BI developer, BI enthusiast, or anyone looking to understand enterprise features.
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