PASS Business Analytics Day–June 21 Atlanta, GA

The 2nd PASS Business Analytics Day event is coming up and this time the location will be in Atlanta, GA on Friday, June 21.

Once again there will be two tracks you can pick from, either Data Visualization focusing on Power BI and the other on Data Science.

There are two outstanding trainers setup featuring Patrick LeBlanc and Jen Underwood.

Get practical hands-on experience and guidance from the industry experts to increase your skillset and boost performance!

Register here –> http://bit.ly/passbadayjune21

Seating is limited, so sign up today!

Minneapolis Microsoft Data Amp Event–Listening Party Apr 19

Please join me and Paul Timmerman next month Wednesday, April 19 in Edina, MN for the Microsoft Data Amp Live Streaming Event.

I have reserved a room from 9:30AM to 12PM. The event will start at 10AM.

Seating is limited, so register soon before it fills up.

Register now –> http://bit.ly/mplsdataamp

There should hopefully be some swag available as well to those that attend!

Power BI Wide World Importers Demo Walk-Through

Last August at the MN Microsoft Power BI User Group I presented a walk-through of Power BI based on the new SQL Server 2016 sample database Wide World Importers.  I thought I had done a follow up post to share the content, but I believe I just posted this on the LinkedIn Group and possibly on Twitter and it might have been posted on the old user group site.

I apologize for not posting this on my blog as well for reference.  All of the files for the walk-through are available out on my OneDrive and this includes the presentation slides, Power BI sample files, instructions, logo, and DAX calculations. You can download the files individually or simply download the single zip file.

In this example I walk through the process of getting the data, building out the data model, and then performing the report development with the visualizations.

Here is a screenshot of what the final output looked like:

Sorry for the delay on posting this content and I hope you find it useful. If you like the example let me know and I can include some additional updates to this material and build it out a bit more.

Thanks and enjoy!

Analyzing Healthcare Open Data with Power BI

Back in December I presented the topic Analyzing Healthcare Open Data with Power BI at the PASS BA Marathon. I want to apologize for not posting this follow up post sooner, December was just a busy month with the holidays, vacations, and after that I just kept putting this off. Well no more, here is the follow up finally. In addition to this post I have also posted the Power BI example I prepared into the Data Stories Gallery.

Here is a screenshot of the demo that I presented which was based on the World Health Organization world wide expenditure data

The presentation material and a recording of the presentation is available on the PASS web site here – Analyzing Healthcare Open Data.

Just a heads up that during the presentation I lost my Internet wifi signal but it was only for a couple of minutes and I was able to get reconnected and resume the content from where I left off.

Here is a list of some of the Healthcare Open Data sites that I shared:

• https://www.data.gov/health
• https://www.healthdata.gov
• https://www.cms.gov/
• https://www.medicare.gov/
• http://www.who.int/en/
• https://datawarehouse.hrsa.gov/
• https://open.fda.gov/

I would have liked to have spent more time on reviewing some of the sites listed above to showcase some of the data that is freely available, but with the technical difficulty I had to skip over that to allow time for the Power BI demo that I had planned and to allow time for Q&A. In the demo I showed some of the new capabilities in Power BI that were released such as the dropdown slicer option, forecasting, clustering, R visuals, Top N filtering, and a few more.

I will plan on revising the content and doing an updated version that hopefully I can present for the PASS Business Analytics Virtual Group later this year. There were a bunch of great questions asked and I am appreciative for the feedback that was provided from all of the attendees. I am glad people were able to walk away with a few nuggets of information regarding Healthcare Open Data and Power BI capabilities.

PASS Business Analytics Virtual Group March 21 – Excel to Power BI

The next PASS Business Analytics Virtual Group meeting will be next week on Tuesday, March 21.  We welcome Avi Singh who is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, trainer, and author and he will be presenting on taking the leap from Excel to Power BI.

–> REGISTER NOW <–

March 21– Excel to Power BI: 5 lessons you need to Unlearn to unlock Analytical Superpowers

Session Abstract –

Are you struggling to make the transition from Excel to Power BI? As Avi Singh found out, through his own experience and that of hundreds of his students, there are key habits you need to UNLEARN before you can embrace the awesomeness of Power BI. Join us to learn what’s been holding you back.

Speaker Bio –

Avi Singh is a Power BI trainer and consultant based out of Seattle. He is a Microsoft MVP, co-author of the top-selling book “Power Pivot and Power BI: An Excel User’s Guide” and a regular speaker at conferences and user events. Avi has personally experienced the transformation and empowerment that Power BI can bring, going from an Excel user to building large-scale Power BI solutions. His mission now is to spread the word and share his knowledge about Power BI. You can follow him on his blog at www.avising.com or video blog at https://www.youtube.com/ModernExcel

–> REGISTER NOW <–

Also, we will be doing a random drawing after the webinar and giving away one $25 Amazon gift card to anyone that attends and fills out the survey!

PASS Business Analytics Marathon–March 29

The next PASS Business Analytics (BA) Marathon is coming up this month on March 29 and there is a great list of topics and speakers lined up. Register now and get the sessions on your calendars in preparation for the big event.

Register here – http://bit.ly/passbaspring2017

Here is the schedule:

• Compelling Visuals in Power BI

  • 29 Mar 2017 17:00 GMT – Prathy Kamasani

  In this demo-focused session, Prathy Kamasani will be using Airbnb dataset to walk through most of built-in and custom visualisations available in Power BI Desktop.Prathy will walk through how to use and format these visualisations to create compelling visualisations.We will also look at how we can use R visualisations in Power BI with minimal knowledge of R.

• Power BI Twitter Brand Awareness Dashboard

  • 29 Mar 2017 18:00 GMT – David Moss

  Just launched a media campaign, monitoring your brand awareness and you need to understand LIVE social media insights?David Moss Power BI Solutions Architect will show you how to summarise your live social media twitter streams in a single Power BI dashboard.Visualising and monitoring live Twitter trends and comments can assist to control social insights by addressing social interaction when and where it arises, help monitor positive & negative sentiments on your Twitter feed and drill down into specific tweets to reach out to your customers to manage & control your social brand awareness. Even find engagement opportunities and discover influencers and monitor @brand mentions and #hashtags.In this session you will learn about the Azure Power BI & Cortana Intelligence Suite architecture solution required for your Social Media Power BI dashboard.An exciting technical social media marketer’s brand awareness toolset.

• Hands-On Data Analysis With Power BI Desktop

  • 29 Mar 2017 19:00 GMT – Koen Verbeeck

  There are lots of flashy Power BI demos everywhere. But most of the time, you don’t see the internal mechanics. In this demo-heavy session, we’re going to build a Power BI demo from scratch. We’ll combine data from various sources, build a simple data model and start creating data visualizations. We’ll also take a quick look at the analytical capabilities of Power BI Desktop. After this session, you’ll have a good overview of the features Power BI Desktop has to offer and you can start your own data analytics journey.

• Storytelling with Infographics

  • 29 Mar 2017 20:00 GMT – Jen Underwood

  Visual storytelling and depiction of information has existed for hundreds of years in various forms and formats. In today’s era of unprecedented data volumes, variety and velocities, infographics can help us make sense of the ocean of data. Telling an effective story through infographics requires accurate data, planning, compelling design, and visualization choices. Please join me in this fun, visual eye candy session to learn the art of storytelling with infographics.

• Three Data Preparation Essentials for Predictive Modeling

  • 29 Mar 2017 21:00 GMT – Dean Abbott

  Every predictive modeler or analytics professional knows the importance of data preparation; experts place the time expended in this stage from 50% to even 90% of the time one spends building predictive models. It is time-consuming and daunting because there are so many ways data can be wrong. Yet there are many principles that are reused in nearly every data set.This session focuses on three essential steps in data preparation, taking into consideration the data itself and how algorithms sometimes dictate the kinds of data preparation we do. The principles apply not only to predictive models, but also to data visualization and dashboards. Examples from actual modeling projects will illustrate the principles.

 

Register here – http://bit.ly/passbaspring2017