Nikola Ilic

Data Mozart, Microsoft Data Platform MVP

Salzburg, Austria

I'm making music from the data! Power BI and SQL Server addict, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Pluralsight Author, blogger, speaker...Interested in everything related to data - always eager to extract valuable info from raw data in the most effective way. Multi-year experience working with (predominantly) Microsoft Data Platform (SQL Server, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, and Power BI). Father of 2 and true football (and Barca) fan!

Awards

Area of Expertise

Information & Communications Technology

Topics

Microsoft Business Intelligence
Microsoft Power BI
SQL Server
SSAS
Azure
Azure Synapse
Azure Synapse Analytics
Microsoft Power platform

Meet VertiPaq - "Brain & Muscles" behind Power BI

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? What types of compression Power BI uses to optimize your data model? Learn this on practical examples, that will help you get the best out of your Power BI reports.

Fold on tight - Understanding Power BI Query folding in 20 minutes!

"Will that break a query folding?"..."Does your query fold?"...Maybe someone asked you those questions, but you were like: "Query...Whaaaat?!"

Or, maybe you've heard about query folding, but didn't know how to take advantage of it in real-life scenarios.

If you recognized yourself in (at least) one of the two situations specified above, then this session has your name written all over it! You will learn what is query folding, in which scenarios Power BI will apply it, and how you, as a Power BI developer, can benefit from understanding this concept.

The Essential Guide to the new Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate Certification

Microsoft has released a new certification...the Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate. This certification is backed by one exam, DP-500 Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI. If you work in the space involving Data Analysis and Data Engineering, then this certification is for you.

In this session, Nikola Ilic and Andy Cutler will guide you on a tour of the Power BI and Azure Data Platform services and features you need to know when approaching the DP-500 exam.

We'll be looking at the relevant features and services in:
1. Power BI
2. Azure Synapse Analytics
3. Azure Purview
4. Data Lake Gen2
5. Power BI External Tools

After this session you'll understand which features and services in Power BI and the Azure Data Platform you need to know when approaching the DP-500 exam with confidence.

Power BI & Azure Synapse – What can I do and how much will it cost me?

By introducing Azure Synapse Analytics in late 2019, and making it recently GA, Microsoft created a whole new perspective when it comes to data treatment. Some core concepts, such as traditional data warehousing, came under more scrutiny, while various fresh approaches started to pop up after data nerds became aware of the new capabilities that Synapse brought to the table.
Not that Synapse made a strong impact on data ingestion, transformation, and storage options only – it also offered a whole new set of possibilities for data serving and visualization!
Therefore, in this workshop, we will try to explore how Power BI works in synergy with the new platform. What options we, Power BI developers, have when working with Synapse Analytics? In which data analytics scenarios, Synapse will play on the edge, helping you to achieve the (im)possible? When would you want to take advantage of the innovative solutions within Synapse, and when would you be better sticking with more conventional approaches? What are the best practices when using Power BI – Synapse combo, and which parameters should you evaluate before making a final decision on which path to take.
Once we’re done, I believe that you should get a better understanding of the “pros” and “cons” for each of the available options when it comes to integration between Power BI and Synapse.

Outline:
1. Introduction to Azure Synapse Analytics – understanding its core components and where does it fit in the overall picture
2. What Synapse Analytics brings to a table when it comes to Power BI
3. Using Synapse Analytics Dedicated SQL pool in conjunction with Power BI
4. Serverless SQL pool – best practices and analysis of multiple different scenarios and use-cases
5. Analysis over NoSQL data – leverage Synapse Analytics and Power BI to perform analytics over non-relational data sources (CosmosDB)

Prerequisites:
1. Power BI Desktop installed
2. Azure subscription (free Azure account is also fine)
3. Basic knowledge of data modeling
4. Basic knowledge of T-SQL (not necessary, but it would help)
5. SSMS or ADS installed (not necessary, but it would help)

Target audience:
• Power BI developers
• Data Analysts
• Data Engineers
• BI Analysts

Key takeaways
Attendees will get an overview of the Azure Synapse Analytics platform, and how it works in synergy with Power BI in multiple different scenarios. Participants will also understand how to deal with various use-cases from a Power BI perspective, and which solutions make sense in specific circumstances.

Crash course on Data Visualization in Power BI!

You've connected to a data source and imported data into Power BI - now what? You need to display the information to users in the most effective way!

Is 40 million of revenue good or bad? Are your visuals equally accessible to anyone? How to display detailed data, or highlight important points?

In this session, we'll examine different ways of (mis)representing data in your visuals. You'll understand why context is the key, how to choose the appropriate visualization type for certain business scenarios, and how to configure and format visualizations to provide additional value to your Power BI reports.

Cracking the Power BI performance!

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more...

And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there!

That's why this session is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

And, I'll tell you a little secret: there are no slides in this session - from the beginning to the very end, we'll be only in Power BI Desktop!

Azure Enterprise Data Analytics in a Day

The Azure Enterprise Data Analytics in a Day session is designed around multiple Microsoft Data Platform technologies including Power BI, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Microsoft Purview. This training day covers areas of integration between these data platform services and how to work with and optimise the services to provide enterprise-level data analytics.

Lessons learned from optimizing enterprise data models

You know that DirectQuery performance sucks - but, what should you do when DirectQuery is the ONLY available option?

You know that high cardinality increases data model size - but, what should you do when your users want to analyze numbers on a granularity level higher than day? How to reduce the data model size, while at the same time satisfying business requirements?

You know that by leveraging composite models, you can gain significant performance improvements - but why do you still have DirectQuery queries even when you target the data from the aggregated table in Import mode?

In this session, I'll share tips, tricks and workarounds learned and implemented in real-life scenarios on enterprise data models.

As you may assume, this session is not for rookies - I'll assume that you already have at least intermediate Power BI/Tabular model knowledge.

I can do it for you, Sir - a whirlwind tour on Power BI external tools!

How many times did you have this feeling that Power BI Desktop is "maybe not the right tool for the job"? Even though you *can* do something, you must have thought: There has to be a better way!

And, this session will introduce you to "better ways" of doing many things in Power BI!

Creating multiple measures in batch, troubleshooting poor-performing DAX queries, analyzing the size of the data model...are just a few common Power BI tasks that can't be performed in the Power BI Desktop. Let alone taking advantage of the features such as Calculation groups, Object-level security, and partitioning.

That's where external tools come to the rescue! I'll show you how to leverage various tools and extensions to enhance your Power BI development to the max!

Power BI - From Toddler to Veteran in 8 Hours!

Have you ever dreamed of learning Power BI in one working day? Thought about grasping both core and more advanced concepts in the span of 8 hours?

Then this workshop is for you!

We'll start with the basics - learning how to clean and transform the data, explaining the difference between calculated columns and measures, and choosing the appropriate visualization types for our data story.

Next, we'll discuss some data modeling topics, talk about different storage mode types in Power BI, and some advanced visualization techniques (who said: bookmarks and Tooltip pages?)

As we're now Power BI "adults", we are ready to grasp advanced data modeling solutions, such as dataflows and hybrid tables. We'll also cover various key concepts in Power BI, like Composite Models, Query folding, and cardinality. We'll also raise our visualization game by introducing conditional formatting tricks and designing our reports with accessibility in focus.

We'll wrap it up by explaining Power BI internals - what is VertiPaq and how it makes your reports blazing fast! You'll then learn how to optimize the performance of Power BI reports, but also understand basics related to Power BI administration and governance.

Once we're done, you'll walk away with a comprehensive set of skills required to build efficient and scalable Power BI solutions.

Cracking Power BI Performance Tuning in a day!

Congratulations! You've built your shiny fancy Power BI report and your charts look terrific. But, your data refresh takes forever...Or, your report is utterly slow when interacting with visuals...You switch to DirectQuery mode to make things better, just to discover that the report performance sucks even more...

And, if you feel lost, I don't blame you - I've also been there!

That's why this workshop is for you: we will examine potential bottlenecks in your Power BI report - starting with defining the best practices for data model size optimization, understanding the importance of query folding feature, all the way to identifying culprits for your slow report rendering. We will wrap it up with learning when and why (not) to use DirectQuery mode, and how to apply improvements on the data source side to make things faster in the Power BI.

Public Speaking - How to win the crowd?

Feeling nervous. Having jitters. My hands are sweating. Oh, my God, in 5 minutes, I will present to the public for the first time in my life...

Do you also have a similar feeling? Or, maybe you are considering becoming a speaker, but not sure if that's for you. Then, join me for a lightning session to hear my lessons learned - and I promise to give you a few (hopefully) useful pieces of advice!

200 million rows = 18 MBs: The art of (im)possible!

Question for seasoned data professionals: how much memory is needed to accommodate 200 million rows in Power BI? 2 GBs...1 GB... 500 MBs... Not even close!

What if I tell you that you can fit them in only 18 MBs?! Yes, you saw it well - 18 MBs. And that without sacrificing report performance!

Extraordinary tasks request extraordinary solutions - this session will show you the innovative way of storing data in Power BI, taking the best from both worlds of VertiPaq engine and Direct Query mode.

Power BI & Synapse - The Art of (im)possible!

By introducing Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft created a whole new perspective when it comes to data treatment. Some core concepts, such as traditional data warehousing, came under more scrutiny, while various fresh approaches started to pop up after data nerds became aware of the new capabilities that Synapse brought to the table.

Not that Synapse made a strong impact on data ingestion, transformation, and storage options only – it also offered a whole new set of possibilities for data serving and visualization!

During the session, we will try to explore how Power BI works in synergy with the new platform. What options we, Power BI developers, have when working with Synapse? In which data analytics scenarios, Synapse will play on the edge, helping you to achieve the (im)possible? When would you want to take advantage of the innovative solutions within Synapse, and when would you be better sticking with more conventional approaches? What are the best practices when using Power BI – Synapse combo, and which parameters should you evaluate before making a final decision on which path to take.

Once we’re done, I believe that you should get a better understanding of the “pros” and “cons” for each of the available options when it comes to integration between Power BI and Synapse.

Unpack VertiPaq - Understanding "Brain & Muscles" behind Power BI

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? So powerful, that it performs complex calculations over millions of rows in a blink of an eye.

In this session, we will dig deep to discover what is under the hood of Power BI, how your data is being stored, compressed, queried, and finally, brought back to your report. We will also cover some core concepts that affect Power BI performance, such as Aggregations, Materialization, and Relationships.

After the session, you will get a better understanding of the hard work happening in the background and appreciate the importance of creating an optimal data model in order to get maximum performance from the Power BI engine.

Finally, you will see a real-life demo showing how the Power BI data model was reduced by 90%!

Power BI Performance - 7 Deadly Sins!

It's just a SQL - Crash course on Synapse Serverless for T-SQL ninjas!

Are you a seasoned T-SQL developer, used to solve each and every challenge by writing plain old SQL? But, now you need to leverage data coming from semi-structured or unstructured sources?

What if I tell you that you can get your mission accomplished by writing your favorite T-SQL syntax?

In this session, you will learn what is a Serverless SQL pool within Azure Synapse Analytics, how it works behind the scenes, and how can you preserve your "T-SQL Ninja" status even when dealing with the data coming from CSV and Parquet files, or from NoSQL database.

How to destroy your Power BI model with Auto date/time

Choosing an easier path is not always a wise solution. In this session full of demos, you will learn why using Auto Date/Time in Power BI is a shortcut to hell and how to prepare your data model to perform time intelligence calculations in Power BI in a proper way

High 5 - Simple tricks that will make you a Power BI hero!

Simple tricks are almost always the most effective. Impress your users with some cool non-standard solutions, using these 5 neat techniques: from taking buttons to the next level with dynamic formatting, through creating animated tooltips or using basic DAX calculations to enhance regular Power BI experience, this session full of demos will walk you through simple, yet powerful solutions to different real-life scenarios which can be applied in your day-to-day Power BI development.

Fold on tight - what is a Query folding and why should I care?

"Will that break a query folding?"..."Does your query fold?"...Maybe someone asked you those questions, but you were like: "Query...Whaaaat?!"

Or, maybe you've heard about query folding, but didn't know how to take advantage of it in real-life scenarios.

If you recognized yourself in (at least) one of the two situations specified above, then this session has your name written all over it! You will learn what is a query folding, in which scenarios Power BI will apply it, and how you, as a Power BI developer, can benefit from understanding this concept.

From XL to S - Reduce your Power BI model size by 90%!

Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? So powerful, that it performs complex calculations over millions of rows in a blink of an eye.

In this session, we will dig deep to discover what is “under the hood” of Power BI, how your data is being stored, compressed, queried, and finally, brought back to your report. After the session, you will get a better understanding of the hard work happening in the background and appreciate the importance of creating an optimal data model in order to get maximum performance from the Power BI engine.

Finally, you will see a real use-case demo showing how the Power BI data model was reduced by 90%!

Magnificient 7 - Simple Tricks to boost your Power BI Development

Simple tricks are almost always most effective. Impress your users with some cool visualizations, using these 7 neat techniques: from taking buttons to the next level, through creating animated tooltips or using basic DAX calculations to enhance regular Power BI experience, this session will walk you through solutions to different use-case scenarios which can be applied in your day-to-day Power BI development.

Breaking (in)visible walls - how helping others may help your personal growth!

What do you do if you were a woman from a non-developed country, without equal rights for education?

What do you do if you were a woman whose parents decided what your career path is going to be?

What do you do if you're earning 300$/month and can't afford paid training to change your career?

You apply for the free Power BI Bootcamp!

Does something like this even exist?! Yes, of course! I've just run one with the helping hand of other fellow community members.

In this session, I want to share lessons learned from running this Bootcamp - not just how it changed the lives of these wonderful human beings (hopefully for the better), who didn't have a proper chance to achieve their professional goals, but also how this helped me in personal growth and to redefine the point of view based on living in a well-developed country.

After this session, you'll get nothing in terms of tech knowledge, but you will walk away with a good feeling in your soul, and understand why helping others also helps YOU in breaking many (in)visible walls!

Chef's big book of Synapse Analytics recipes

Do you remember those books that teach you how to prepare delicious meals with the ingredients you have at your disposal? I'm sure we all have at least one on our shelves.

What makes a chef's book so important: it includes information on the best seasonings for different types of dishes and cuisines, as well as which flavor combinations work well together, and why. It also offers explanations of what certain ingredients taste like, which can be helpful if you’re working with a new ingredient.

This session follows that same pattern - based on real-life scenarios, by sticking with the "challenge -> solution" approach, I'll show you how to "cook" and "serve" efficient Azure Synapse Analytics "meals".

How to set the proper table distribution option in the Dedicated SQL pool? How to directly query the data stored in the Azure Data Lake, by writing plain old T-SQL code? Why Parquet format is a more "nutritive" ingredient than CSV? How to visualize the data from the Spark notebooks directly in Synapse?

These are just some of the challenges that all of us are facing frequently - and where the chef's book provides the best recipes!

Chef's big book of Power BI recipes

Do you remember those books that teach you how to prepare delicious meals with the ingredients you have at your disposal? I'm sure we all have at least one on our shelves.

What makes a chef's book so important: it includes information on the best seasonings for different types of dishes and cuisines, as well as which flavor combinations work well together, and why. It also offers explanations of what certain ingredients taste like, which can be helpful if you’re working with a new ingredient.

This session follows that same pattern - based on real-life scenarios, by sticking with the "challenge -> solution" approach, I'll show you how to "cook" and "serve" efficient Power BI "meals".

How to set the proper storage mode for the tables? How to create tooltip pages for your report? Why bookmarks can be an easy win over report consumers? How to design your reports for accessibility?

These are just some of the challenges that all of us are facing frequently - and where the chef's book provides the best recipes!

Data(s)mart - Supercharge your Power BI data model(ing)!

Datasets, Dataflows...and now - Datamarts!

What are datamarts? How do they fit into a big Power BI data model(ing) picture? What's the difference between dataflows and datamarts, and when to use each of them? How different "Power BI personas" may leverage this feature to enhance business reporting solutions?

These are some of the key questions we're going to answer in this session, targeting experienced data modelers and proven Power BI report authors. This session is not for beginners, as we'll assume that you're already familiar with the basic data modeling concepts (who said: Star-schema), general data warehousing concepts (namely: ETL), and other existing Power BI data artifacts (datasets and dataflows).

After this session, you should get a better understanding of the place that datamarts fill in the Power BI data modeling landscape, and feel more comfortable using datamarts in your solutions.

Level up your Power BI game with Field parameters!

Game changer! How many times you’ve heard this when a new feature hit the Power BI ecosystem? But, not all of these features lived up to these high expectations. Field parameters don’t belong to that group, as they truly changed the way we’re building our Power BI solutions.

In this demo-packed session, you’ll learn what are Field parameters, in which scenarios they’ll become your “best friend”, and how to solve some of the most common challenges related to Field parameters implementation (who said, selected value of the field parameter and conditional formatting).

A Day in the life of an Azure Enterprise Data Analyst!

Have you ever wondered how it feels to wear the shoes of an Azure Enterprise Data Analyst for one day? Yeah, it's full of fun, challenges and solving various kinds of (data) problems.

In this workshop, we'll provide you with all the skills and tools necessary to thrive in this "hot" position that becomes more and more in demand every single day!

We'll be examining ins and outs of the following tools and platforms:

1. Power BI
2. Azure Synapse Analytics
3. Microsoft Purview
4. Azure Data Lake Gen2
5. Power BI External Tools

...and discussing the following techniques/concepts (to name just a few):

* Querying files in ADLS using Synapse Serverless SQL pool
* Table partitioning in Azure Synapse Analytics
* Query performance tuning in Azure Synapse Analytics
* Integration between Microsoft Purview and Power BI
* Performance troubleshooting in Power BI
* Advanced data visualization with Power BI

After this workshop, you'll feel more confident taking over responsibilities for building robust and scalable enterprise data solutions using the Microsoft data platform.

Prerequisites
* Intermediate knowledge of Power BI (ideally, PL-300 Power BI Data Analyst certification completed)
* Foundational knowledge of relational databases and SQL language
* Foundational knowledge of cloud technologies
* No prior experience with Microsoft Purview is needed

Goals
1. Gaining the most in-demand data skills currently on the market
2. Understanding various components of the Microsoft Data Platform solutions in an enterprise environment and how they work in synergy
3. Gaining foundational skills to successfully complete the DP-500 (Azure Enterprise Data Analyst) certification

Power BI "X Files" - 5 things they "forgot" to tell you!

Have you heard about DAX fusion? Do you know how it works? What about two types of caches in Power BI? Does that ring a bell? You want to load the data into the table, without rebuilding hierarchies and relationships - do you know how to do it? Your experienced colleague told you about the query folding, but do you really know WHY it matters? What if I tell you that there is a hidden little property in TOM that can help you make astonishing savings in the data model memory size?

If you're eager to go above and beyond basics and understand more than what's written in Power BI books and guides, then this session is for you! You'll learn about 5 secret sauces of Power BI professionals, that may help you level up your Power BI expertise.

This session is NOT beginner-friendly, as I'll assume that you are already familiar with the foundational concepts and techniques in Power BI and tabular modeling in general.

It's just a SQL - Crash course on Fabric Warehouse for T-SQL ninjas!

Are you a seasoned T-SQL developer, used to solving each and every challenge by writing plain old SQL? But, now you need to leverage data coming from semi-structured or unstructured sources?

What if I tell you that you can get your mission accomplished by writing your favorite T-SQL syntax?

In this session, you will learn what is a Warehouse within Microsoft Fabric, how it works behind the scenes, how it compares to a traditional data warehouse, and how you can preserve your "T-SQL Ninja" status even when dealing with the data coming from CSV, Parquet, or Delta files. You'll also understand the difference between the Warehouse and Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric, and how to leverage T-SQL language to get the best of both worlds, by combining the data from Warehouse and Lakehouse!

This session WILL NOT teach you how to write SQL - I assume you are already familiar with the T-SQL basics, and that you are now eager to apply your T-SQL skills in a different environment!