Power BI Challenge 6 - Wrap Up

[EnterpriseDNA]

Hello to all my fellow Power BI enthusiasts, I trust you are all keeping well.

Where to begin, its been a busy couple of weeks with lots going on at Enterprise DNA and in general with a second peak and lock down becoming more and more likely.

One thing however that is consistent at the minute is the Enterprise DNA challenge and it didn’t fail to deliver there were some epic entries. The idea sharing, collaboration, encouragement, feedback and willingness to help each other is brilliant to see and truly resonates with what we at Enterprise believe is the best way to learn and develop.

The standard of work from everyone was amazing and its great to see how past challenges and lessons learnt are being carried forward from challenge to challenge.

The challenge this week was a little different to previous weeks as the sheer size of the model and number of dimensions for many would have been new ground. The challenges are based on scenarios and projects that members of the Enterprise DNA have worked on first-hand so that we can mimic industry.

When learning a new software, language, technology for many following tutorials is a great way to learn and understand the basics however implementing the learnt material into practice can be a little more difficult. The challenges are designed to allow you to experience how you apply the material in industry.

The challenges are selected to help demonstrate the capabilities of Power BI and how flexible you can be with it's use. There are many elements to the challenge, and we encourage you to extract and focus on activities that you are particularly struggling with be that power query, DAX, design etc.

I also want to take a moment to mention the new beginner category and initiative inspired by Brian Julius who has kindly offered a choice of rewards for any entrant that has been using Power BI for less than a year for full terms see the post below. But seriously we want more of you to get stuck in so any of you sat on the fence don’t be shy come and get stuck in.

We are exploring opening a number of categories for the upcoming challenges so be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

We are always looking to improve and are keen to listen to any feedback or thoughts you may have. So feel free to either post a comment in the forum or reach out to me.

The Winner

Hmmmmm where to start, “awesome”, “amazing”, “Didn’t know Power BI was capable of that” were just some of the remarks going through my head as I reviewed this week’s submissions.

For me its always a great learning exercise just reviewing the submissions the number of ideas I take away for my work is immense.

Judging the entries is never easy and as a developer I understand the time and effort that go into these challenges.

So firstly to all those who have submitted members, non-members, newcomers a massive well done and a thank you for participating.

I think this challenge would rank as more difficult than previous challenges just based on the size of the model and the number of dimensions. So a massive well done to everyone who participated.

The winner this week was… Mudassir Syed Rashid Ali, an amazing effort all round. A truly stunning report that showcased the immense possibilities within Power BI. The level of effort and time that went into this report is clear to see. The vision to tell a story is apparent teamed with some excellent analysis. The Enterprise team were super impressed by the submission. “I have seen contractual reports that wouldn’t come near this submission” high praise indeed. So well done Mudassir I know you haven’t been apart of the community for too long but in the last few weeks some outstanding work and this week a winner. Hopefully we can see more of you in the forum in the coming weeks.

There were also some highly commended efforts from Alex Badiu, Diana Bello, Mohammed Ali all reports had some solid analysis and creative designs to match.

I also want to give a shout out to Brian Julius for presenting us with yet another learning opportunity some fantastic analysis and incorporation of R.

I didn’t consider my submission for the competition but it was an excellent report and the fact that I was getting on board with these challenges should hopefully encourage you that this is something that we truly see value in. Hopefully a video on how I went about my work will be available soon. Keep an eye out.

Non-Member

We have opened the challenge to non-members and there were several stellar efforts by participants who are yet to join the community. The winner for the non-member category is Ben Rabai Amal an excellent effort. Well done.

I’m going to save of announcing the winner of the newcomer category to give everyone who wants to be considered the opportunity to let me know. Please could you post if you want to be considered for this category into the post below.

Some excellent submissions all round a massive well done to everyone participating.

Feedback

This was an enormous data set with a lot going on that was taken from someone who has worked closely with Enterprise DNA in the past and has had several years experience in working in the insurance industry.

I thought you all did an excellent job in establishing the relationships between the tables which at first isn’t as obvious as it first seems. This is typical of industry where you can have many dimensions and even the possibility of snowflake schema.

I think when looking at models we can sometimes become a little overwhelmed by the size of them when there is so much going on and I can’t reiterate enough how important it is that you follow a methodology regardless of the size and shape of data.

For me this boils down something which we at Enterprise DNA can’t emphasise enough and that is the four pillars of development.

1. Loading and transforming data
2. Data modelling
3. DAX calculations
4. Report and visualizations

If you embed this into your work and ensure that for each piece of development, you do these four stages I am confident that regardless of the data set you will be well on your way to producing valuable insights and reports.

We are covering some awesome and transferable scenarios in these challenges. 6 weeks in and we have covered several different industries and types of reports with hopefully more to come.

Conclusion

It’s been fun reviewing the submissions and I hope there was something to take away for everyone involved.

Truly appreciate the effort you guys are putting into this.

The challenge is all about you and enhancing your capabilities. if you have any ideas, concerns, issues or anything else you want to discuss then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If there is an idea or scenario that you would like to see posted then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Feel free to email powerbichallenge@enterprisedna.co for any queries.

Ok that’s enough from me.

Keep your eyes peeled for challenge 7 which will be released soon.

Sam