Power BI is an extremely powerful data and visualization tool. It is a really easy to use BI tool. But beyond the easy to use interface that you see, there are a lot of hidden features that PowerBI has.
1. Usage Metric
On the PowerBI web, there is a really cool feature to monitor how often the dashboard or report is viewed. You can find this features by opening up a Dashboard or a Report, then clicking the button called Usage Metrics.
2. Quick Measures
In order to use Measures in PowerBI, one had to know how to use DAX, which isn’t something really common despite being really Powerful. Starting from April 2017, PowerBI Desktop has quick measures to easily perform complex calculations. It performs set of DAX commands for you behind the scenes, then represent the result for you to use in your report. The best part is that you can see the DAX command being executed and increase the knowledge of DAX
To enable this preview feature, select File > Options and Settings > Options > Preview Features, then select the checkbox beside Quick measures. You’ll need to restart Power BI Desktop after you make the selection.
To use it, right-click on a field in the fields in PowerBI Desktop and select quick measure from the menu that appears.
To create a Quick measure, right-click on a field (any field) in the Fields well in Power BI Desktop and select Quick measure from the menu that appears.
3. Row Level Security
Row level security can restrict the data access for the given user. You can define role and rules with this. To do this, do the following steps
- Select Modelling Tab
- Select Manage Roles
- Select Create
- Give a name for the Role
- Select a table to which you want to apply the DAX rule
- Enter a DAX impression which should return a Boolean true or false. For Example User[email] = Johndoe@gmail.com
- Select Save
After you have created the role you can test it clicking the view as roles button next to manage roles. If you like to know more about Power BI, check out our another blog on the usage of Power BI.