This is episode 28 recorded on December 14th, 2017… where John & Jason talk about the new SQL Server Management Studio 17.4, a new open source SQL Server CLI, a change to Power BI Premium, and the December updates to Power BI Desktop.

iTunes ratings contest

We are actively trying to get our visibility up for the show and one way to accomplish that is through having ratings on iTunes. To that end, we are asking out listeners to take a moment and rate us on iTunes. Once we hit 10 reviews, hopefully before our Feburary 6th show, we are going to raffle off a $50 Amazon gift card to one of the people who rated us. You will need iTunes to be able to do it, but you can find our page here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bifocal-clarifying-business-intelligence/id1266308225 

News

• SSMS 17.4 is now available – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms
  • SQL Vulnerability Assessment tool
• Mssql-cli Preview. Open source, requires Python
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2017/12/12/try-mssql-cli-a-new-interactive-command-line-tool-for-sql-server/
• Power BI Premium now supports datasets up to 10 GB
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-power-bi-premium-support-for-larger-datasets/
• Power BI Desktop December Update
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-december-feature-summary/
    • Q&A in Designer for report creation. This is used at DESIGN time
    • Bookmarking now supports cross-highlighting states, more granularity about what the bookmark applies to
    • Adding descriptions to field names in the field properties pane
    • Scatter plot improvements
    • Higher density sampling for at/long on maps
    • Responsive slicers – Date, range and horizontal slicers. Works better for mobile too
    • Drill filters other visuals – about freakin’ time
    • Lots of new custom visuals
      • Card browser
      • Table heatmap
      • Data image
      • Power KPI matrix – scorecard like, but not a scorecard
      • Text filter – yes!
      • Chartaccent linechart/barchart
    • New connectors
      • Adobe Analytics
      • HD Insight interactive Query
      • Data.World
      • SAP BW
      • IBM Netezza now GA
  • Most of these are preview – need to be turned on

Upcoming events

• SharePointalooza\North American Collaboration Summit
  • March 2-3, 2018
• SharePointFest DC
  • March 26-30, 2018
• SharePoint Conference North America
  • May 21-23, 2018
  • Use discount code WHITE for $50 off

• Power BI Summit in Dublin – April 24-28 2018
  • Presented by PUG and Dynamic Communities

Related episodes:

Episode 24 – November’s Power BI Desktop update & more
Episode 15 – Microsoft Ignite 2017 Bonus Episode