Jessica M. Moss

Power BI ( https://powerbi.microsoft.com ) is Microsoft’s tool that provides fast analysis and reporting to developers and business users.  Microsoft releases features on a monthly basis to this tool, so this post may be out of date before it’s even published!  One of the more recent releases includes the ability to create and publish custom visualizations for use by others. Power BI Visuals Gallery The Power BI Visuals Gallery is where you can publish, search, and download custom visuals for use in Power BI Desktop and the Power BI website.  People in the community and Microsoft have published visualizations that enhance the dashboard experience and still interact with the other visualizations as though they came from out-of-the-box! (On a side note, do we need to stop saying out-of-the-box now that everything is cloud-first…)  The types of visuals run the gamit from charts, graphs, animations, and slicers. Searching for a Custom Visual To start, go to the Power BI Visuals Galle

Last week the SQL PASS organization held the annual PASS Summit in Seattle, Washington.  The PASS Summit is a week-long conference that brings thousands of SQL Server, Business Intelligence, and Business Analyst professionals together to learn all about best practices in use today and about new features coming in the next version.  I was able to attend by volunteering to help with PASS and by the good graces of my company and had an amazing week!  Many thanks go to all of the organizers, speakers, volunteers, and sponsors who put on another great event. The conference has two full-day preconference sessions on Monday and Tuesday which can be purchased in addition to the conference.  These trainings are amazing and definitely worth your while if you want more training.  I ended up flying out on Tuesday to start with the main conference on Wednesday.  On Tuesday, I explored Seattle a bit, and even visited the space needle (my first time in all my years visiting Seattle!).  I chec