I stumbled across a small MDX performance tuning trick when using SSRS reports (or any other client tool where you can edit the MDX). When you create the MDX query using the designer, it will append some cell properties at the end of the query. Basically it’s just metadata about the cells of the result […]
Dynamic Security in Power BI
UPDATE: the feature has changed since its introduction. For more information, see the update at the bottom of the post. In case you haven’t noticed, Power BI added a new feature in preview mode: row level security (RLS). This blog post describes how you can use this feature to implement dynamic security. In other words, the […]
Power BI Service error: “This visual has unrecognized fields”
UPDATE: IT SEEMS THE BUG HAS NOW BEEN FIXED. THREE HOORAYS FOR THE POWER BI TEAM! Recently I stumbled across a quite annoying error in the Power BI service. I uploaded two working reports from Power BI Desktop to the cloud service. Each report connects to its own cube and both cubes are in the […]
Loading Data into Clustered Columnstore Index with SSIS
I’m using a clustered columnstore index (CCI) on one of my fact tables at a client. The row size is between 8 and 9 million rows and I was wondering how I could load data efficiently in this CCI using SSIS. I stumbled upon this MSDN blog post: SQL Server 2016 SSIS Data Flow Buffer […]
Overview of Published Articles – 2016Q1
Here is an overview of the articles I published in the first quarter of 2016. R Services series: SQL Server 2016 R Services: Executing R code in SQL Server SQL Server 2016 R Services: Display R plots in Reporting Services SSIS & AlwaysEncrypted: Reading Always Encrypted Data with SQL Server Integration Services 2016 Writing Always Encrypted […]
SSIS Trick: Adding Multiple Packages to a Project
A little SSIS trick today. Sometimes you start a new Integration Services project and you want to add some existing packages to this project. So you can right-click the SSIS Packages node and choose Add Existing Package. In the dialog, you choose the File System. All you now have to do is choose the package […]
SQLSaturday Belgium: slidedeck
The very first SQLSaturday in Belgium is over and it was a great event. I saw some interesting sessions, especially the one on refreshing data in Power BI was very interesting. There was a nice turnout and the event was well organized. I look forward to the second edition! You can find my slides of […]
Nested Display Folders in SSAS
Recently it was announced that Power BI would now support the SSAS display folders in “exploration mode”. Exploration mode is a fancy term for a live connection to an SSAS cube or model. Anyway, great news, as it drastically improved usability of Power BI Desktop when browsing cubes. On the same day, I also found […]
Reblog: MDS – A Database Error Has Occurred
I recently came across the following error message when I tried to look at the batches in the Integration Management section of MDS: 515: A database error has occurred. Please contact your system administrator Too bad I am the system administrator on that machine… Anyway, after some searching it came out the MDS stored procedure […]
Webinar – SQL Server BI Best Practices
I’ll be giving a webinar for MSSQLTips.com on Thursday March 10, 2016. The title is SQL Server BI Best Practices and its abstract goes like this: Join us for this webcast to learn about best practices for SSIS, SSRS and SSAS. Our presenter, Koen Verbeeck has several years of experience working with the SQL Server Business […]