Sorting can be used for defining an order direction for your Custom Visual. There are 3 different ways using which you or a user using your visual can sort your visual. They are as follows: Default Sorting: This is the easiest sorting option and gives users the ability to sort the visual by any field used in the visual. The following code needs to be added to the capabilities.json file.  “sorting”: { “default”: { } } After this the user will get the below sorting option: Implicit Sorting: Implicit Sorting can be used for pre-defining your sorting order in your capabilities.json file. Here, the user cannot manually change the sorting order. This can be done with the following code block where direction 1 is ascending and 2 is descending. Role is the data mapping name for which you would like to define your sorting. “sorting”: {         “implicit”: {             “clauses”: [                 {                     “role”: “category”,                     “direction”: 1                 }                 ]         }     } Custom Sorting: Custom sorting can be used for defining sorting in your visual.ts file and not in the capabilities.json file. Since you are defining your sorting order in your code, you can use various different logics to define your sorting(For example, you can define a formatting toggle option in the format pane that will sort the visual when turned on). A simple codeblock that can be used for sorting your datapoints in ascending order is as follows. sort((obj2, obj1) => { if (obj2.category< obj1.category)  return -1 else return 1; }); With so many options available, it is pretty easy create a visual just the way the user wants.

We can add various Visual Formatting Options while developing a Power BI Custom Visual. One of them is the Toggle feature which is useful for adding or removing particular abilities to your visual or perform any similar boolean operations. The json bit for the toggle option looks like this. By default when you add a toggle option, the option is available under a dropdown. To access the toggle option you will always have to click on the dropdown arrow. There is a neat little trick that can make you access the toggle button directly rather than clicking on the dropdown button every time. You only need to change the required toggle property name to “show”. Note: The object name for the toggle option needs to be changed to “show” in the visual.ts file as well. Your toggle option should look like this now!

Introduction: There are plenty of different custom visuals available outside of Power BI that can be used by anyone to develop some powerful visuals for free. These visuals can be downloaded from the Power BI AppSource marketplace and added in your reports. All of these visuals have also be approved by Microsoft. Steps to Download a Custom Visual: Following are the steps to download and use a Power BI Custom Visual in Power BI Desktop: Open the AppSource and select Power BI Visuals For this demonstration, I will be downloading the Dial Gauge which is a custom visual developed by CloudFronts Select on Get it now(You will have to log in with your Microsoft email id) . A pbiviz file will be downloaded. Open your Power BI Desktop and select on the ellipses in Visualizations. Click on import from file and open the pbiviz file you just downloaded. The visual should be visible with your other visuals now To get a little more familiar with the report, you can download the sample report available with the visual on AppSource. This will download a pbix report. The sample report would look something like this. I hope this blog helps you get started with Power BI Custom Visuals. Do check out our Custom Visual DialGauge as well!

Introduction: The Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a protocol that provides Secure communications. There are different versions of this protocol with the latest one being TLS 1.2. With all the crazy updates that Microsoft comes with, many of the programs, web services. etc. have enforced TLS 1.2 to be mandatory for communicating over the network. The previous versions of TLS are not supported in many of these programs and sooner or later they will deprecate for sure. Lucky for us, after the October 2018 update, Power BI Desktop now respects this need for TLS 1.2 and recognizes the Windows registry key in your System. You can enable or disable which version of TLS protocol is needed and Power BI will use that version accordingly. Steps to disable older TLS: Open your regedit by searching for ‘regedit’ in the search box of the taskbar Note: Changes in the regedit can cause serious changes in your system. Please take a backup of your regedit before proceeding and import the backup just in case your system starts to act funny. Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Client] and make the following changes [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Client] “Enabled”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Client] “DisabledByDefault”=dword:00000001 This will disable your Power BI from using your older version of TLS 1.0 by default Steps to update your TLS to 1.2 Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.2\Client] and make the following changes [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.2\Client] “Enabled”=dword:00000001 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 1.2\Client] “DisabledByDefault”=dword:00000000 This will enforce your applications to use the latest TLS Power BI Desktop will respect the registry keys specified on those pages, and only create connections using the right version of TLS. For further documentation on TLS, you can refer the microsoft document below https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/security/tls/tls-registry-settings

Problem: There is no in-built function in SSRS where we can count the number of Saturdays and Sundays between any two dates in SSRS. This is a needed function for scenarios where we only need to get a count of working days.’ Solution: Following is a formula that can be used for getting an accurate count of weekends. = (((DateDiff (DateInterval.Day, DateAdd(DateInterval.Day,7-WeekDay(Parameters!startDate.Value),Parameters!startDate.Value), DateAdd(DateInterval.Day,7-WeekDay(Parameters!endDate.Value),Parameters!endDate.Value).AddDays(1)) + 1)/ 7)*2) + iif(weekday(Parameters!endDate.Value)=7,1,0) + iif(weekday(Parameters!startDate.Value)=1,1,0) -1 Here instead of Parameters!startDate.Value and Parameters!endDate.Value, you can use any other Start Date or End Date.

Issue: If you are trying to preview a FetchXML report in SSRS and you are a facing an issue due to a Sign-In Failure, then the reason for that most probable is due to the reason that you are trying to connect to CRM v9. When we try to connect to a v9 environment using report authoring extensions, the connection fails without any proper error and loops back to organization selection screen or login screen. If you would try to preview the same report in a v8.x environment then you would be able to preview it successfully. Reason: The main reason for this issue is that v9 only uses Transport Layer Security(TLS) 1.2 and TLS 1.0 & 1.1 connections whereas the previous CRM versions still support all TLS connections. Solution: The first solution would be to update your Business Intelligence Development Studio(BIDS) to the latest version. Please use the link below:  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56973 The second solution is to make a few changes in your regedit For systems running on .NET Framework 3.5 on x64-based systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v2.0.50727 Create a DWORD key Name: SchUseStrongCrypto Value: 1 For systems running on .NET Framework 4.5 or later on x64-based systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\ v4.0.30319 Create a DWORD key Name: SchUseStrongCrypto Value: 1 Restart your PC Note: Please take a backup of your regedit before editing it. Regedit used incorrectly can cause serious problems in your operating system. For x32-based systems do not add the \Wow6432Node in the HKEY paths mentioned. Your Report should preview fine now!

Issue: In SSRS if we are using an aggregate function in a group at the Tablix level, then you may realize that the simple row numbering function does not give a current sequential ranking. Using the function RowNumber(Nothing) gives something like this. Using RowNumber(“GroupName”) would also give an incorrect row numbering and look something like this. This is because RowNumber does not actually give the row count. Rather it counts the incidences of the data in the group and returns that value. Solution: We can use the “RunningValue” function in SSRS. The format for the expression would be. =RunningValue(<Grouped field>,CountDistinct,”<DataSet>”) Eg: =RunningValue(Fields!Name.Value,CountDistinct,”Accounts”) This would return something like this.   This should fix your issue!

Introduction: If we need to look up for any value from AX then we do it by using a Find Block in Scribe Insight Eg: BasicHttpBinding_ItemService_find Every Find block has 2 components and they are, Query Criteria – Used for specifying the Table Name, Field Name and the Fields Value for finding the record Return Value – Used to fetch the needed value back If for any reason either of the component is missing, then you cannot lookup in AX and search the required value back. Consider the following Scenario where we have a SalesOrderService Find block with only the Query Criteria component but without the Return Value component. Following are the steps to resolve the issue. Steps: Go to your AX Web Service Connection and click on Edit Click on change connection Proceed further by clicking OK and then click on your connection and click on Edit Select the Configuration Tab on top Select the Find Block under Method that is not showing the required Return Value. Here that would be the BasicHttpBinding_SalesOrderService_find Method. Make sure that the value of QueryCriteria_CriteriaElement and ReturnValue_SalesTable both are 1. Note: If you want to look up with additional parameters then increase the QueryCriteria value. Validate your Web Service Connection and restart your DTS Your issue should be resolved and the Return Values should be visible Conclusion Now you should successfully be able to look up and find a value from any of the Return Values in the Sales Order successfully.

Introduction: In this blog we will explore some of the new features added to Power BI. Power BI has upgraded its Q&A Experience in its latest April release. It has simplified and simultaneously improved the natural language recognition process which is one of Power BI’s most powerful tools for Query Processing! Some of Q&A Explorers cool new Features: You can now add a simple image, shape or button which on being click can launch a Q&A Explorer! You just need to toggle the Q&A option on under Action for the particular image/shape/button. Adding a Q&A button can look something like this. On clicking on this newly created Q&A Explorer a dialog appears where the user can ask questions to generate dynamic visuals. To learn more about this feature you can view my previous blog on Natural Language Processing over here. You can add suggested questions which will show on the left side of the dialog when a user clicks on the Q&A button. When you click on Save and close these newly added Suggested Questions will get saved to this specific Q&A button. The Q&A Explorer can also return whole reports now when you search specific keywords. You can do this by going to a particular report and turning it’s Q&A Feature on in Page Information. Searching these keywords in the Q&A Explorer will return this particular report. Optionally, if you have page level filters then you can set Require single selection On for a particular filter. This filter will then be shown in the Dialog while searching for the queried report. Conclusion: These are some of the latest features added to Power BI’s arsenal. Q&A Explorer is an underused tool but if used correctly it can improve your interactive experience with your reports tremendously.

Introduction: Microsoft released a PDF cheat sheet of which machine learning algorithms can be used on Azure Machine Learning Studio. This Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Algorithm Cheat Sheet helps you choose the right machine learning algorithm for your predictive analytics solutions from the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning library of algorithms. The algorithms have been grouped in 5 different groups. These groups are: Regression: For predicting values. For Example when predicting a stocks price. Anomaly detection: For finding unusual data points. For example, any highly unusual credit card spending patterns which deviates from the normal credit card spending patterns. Clustering: The data points have no labels associated with them. Instead, the goal of an unsupervised learning algorithm is to organize the data in some way or to describe its structure. For example, discovering companies with similar marketing strategies. Two-class classification: When there are only two choices, it’s called two-class or binomial classification. For example distinguishing between a Cat or Dog. Multi-class classification: For predicting three or more categories. For Example predicting the winner of a Race. To read the cheat sheet, read the path and algorithm labels on the chart as “For <path label>, use <algorithm>.” For example, “For speed, use two class logistic regression.” Sometimes more than one branch applies. In this case it is better to create scored models with both the algorithm and compare both of their accuracy to decide which algorithm is the better fit. Even a beginner can easily use the cheat sheet provided to select which algorithm is apt for creating their predictive solution. There are some generalizations and oversimplifications, but it points you in a safe direction. It also means that there are lots of algorithms not listed here but these many algorithms are more than enough to give you a good head start in the ML world.