Category: General Articles

Shared Datasets have been around for quite a while now. In June 2019, Microsoft announced a new feature called Shared and Certified Datasets with the mindset of supporting enterprise-grade BI within the Power BI ecosystem. In essence, the shared dataset feature allows organisations to have a single source of truth across the organisation serving many reports.

A Thin Report is a report that connects to an existing dataset on Power BI Service using the Connect Live connectivity mode. So, we basically have multiple reports connected to a single dataset. Now that we know what a thin report is, let’s see why it is best practice to follow this approach.

Prior to the Shared and Certified Datasets announcement, we used to create separate reports in Power BI Desktop and publish those reports into Power BI Service. This approach had many disadvantages, such as:

• Having many disparate islands of data instead of

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will auction a prime waterfront residential and commercial site on the edge of Singapore’s Marina Bay financial district amid surging property demand in the city-state.

The 12,245-square-meter plot at Marina Gardens Lane—overlooking the Marina Reservoir and the Strait of Singapore—can be developed into a residential condominium project with up to 790 apartment units and commercial space at the ground level, the URA said on Monday. The tender for the property will close in June 2023.

Based on the allowable gross floor area of 68,573 square meters, the site could attract bids between S$1.07 billion ($790 million) and S$1.15 billion, according to estimates by real estate broker OrangTee & Tie.

“We expect developers to show keen interest in the plot as it is

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

• Xtiles – Allows you to organize all of your ideas, projects, and to-do’s visually and in one place. Finally a single source of truth for both work and personal tasks. 
• Heyday – Heyday is an AI-powered memory assistant that helps you recall things you’ve seen online, so you won’t forget any of it. The program allows you to remember more with no extra effort on your part.
• Mindstamp – Increase viewer engagement and conversions on your videos with Mindstamp. This software allows you to

The previous post explained what Thin reports are, why we should care and how we can create them. This post focuses on a more specific topic, Report Level Measures. We discuss what report-level measures are, when and why we need them and how we create them.

If you are not sure what Thin Report means, I suggest you check out my previous blog post before reading this one.

What are report level measures?

Report level measures are the measures created by the report writers within a Thin Report. Hence, the report level measures are available within the hosting Thin Report only which means the report level measures are not written back to the underlying dataset and hence they are not available to any other reports.

Why and when do we need report level measures?

It is a common situation in real-world scenarios when the business requires a report urgently, but

Even before the official opening of the Baseball Winter Meetings in San Diego Sunday, one of the biggest prizes of the off-season jumped teams late Friday.

Jacob de Grom, who had spent his entire career with the New York Mets, signed a five-year, $185 million contract to pitch for the Texas Rangers. The pitcher had opted out of his Mets contract, leaving $32.5 million on the table.

The signing shakes up two divisions, weakening the Mets after a 101-win season in the National League East, and strengthening the Rangers, who earlier added manager Bruce Bochy, who won three World Series rings with San Francisco

It also loosens a logjam of top free-agent starters, with only

Marketing Podcast with Ann Handley

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Ann Handley. Ann is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author focused on helping businesses worldwide escape marketing mediocrity to ignite tangible results. Her work has appeared in Entrepreneur, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Chicago Public Radio, and the Financial Times. She’s the Principal at MarketingProfs and the author of Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content 2nd Edition.

Questions I ask Ann Handley:

• [2:30] Why did you feel called to write an updated version of your book?
• [6:26] What in the 8 years since your first book was released has changed the most about content?
• [13:33] How does somebody find their voice, and how do they use it well?
• [17:56] Would it be safe to say that if you are going to try to decide on a

As you may already know, Power BI is not a report-authoring tool only. Indeed, it is much more than that. Power BI is an all-around data platform supporting many aspects you’d expect from such a platform. You can ingest the data from various data sources, transform it, model it, visualise and share it with others. Read more about what Power BI is here.

One of the key aspects of users’ experience in Power BI is their ability to collaborate in creating and sharing content, making it an easy-to-use and convenient platform. But the convenience comes with a cost of having a lot of shared content in large organisations raising concerns about the content’s quality and trustworthiness. It would be hard, if not impossible, to identify the quality of the contents without a mechanism to identify the quality of the contents. Content endorsement is the answer to this.

In this series

Giant Biogene Holding, a China skincare products supplier that listed at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Nov. 4, has raised the equivalent of $10 million though the sale of 3.39 million over-allotment shares at HK$24.30, or approximately $3.11, each, the company said in a filing on Sunday.

The sale added to the HK$495.8 million Giant raised ahead of the start of public trading. Giant lost 7% and traded at HK$25 at Hong Kong Stock Exchange as of noon today, valuing the stake held by Giant co-founder and executive director Fan Daidi at the equivalent of $2 billion.

Fan, 56, is also the chief scientific officer and dean of the Institute of Biomedical Research of Northwest University in Xi’an. She holds a minority stake in Xi’an Triangle

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

• Vadoo – is a video hosting platform that helps brands and creators to engage and grow their audiences by uploading, recording, and sharing videos with just one click.
• Universe – is an immersive EdTech solution where educators and students can simulate a real classroom experience online. They can debate ideas freely with a 3D audio feature, maintain high attention levels with breakout rooms and custom-made quizzes, and drive engagement by rewarding students with points.
• Plask – is an AI tool that transforms videos of people into animated online characters in seconds. Just record yourself, drop the video into the platform and make the final edits to your animation. 

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you

Ever since the draw for the 2022 World Cup placed England and the United States in the same group, the respective head coaches, Gareth Southgate and Gregg Berhalter, have revealed a mutual respect and working relationship.

Though this won’t end when the two teams meet on the Friday after thanksgiving, on the pitch, between the players, it is likely to be a much less amiable affair than it might be on the touchline between the coaches.

There are players on both sides who won’t have time for niceties