Power BI Challenge 7 - Wrap Up!

Hi All,

Trust you are keeping well.

Another challenge draws to a close and it was an epic effort by all those involved with the standard of reports being outstanding.

This week’s challenge scenario may have scared away a few participants as it wasn’t the easiest however there was still a vast array of entries on display all tackling the scenario in their own unique way providing an excellent learning opportunity for all Enterprise DNA members and associates.

No two developers are alike and its important that we appreciate our own strengths however having an appreciation and understanding of how others are tackling the problems is a real opportunity to accelerate and enhance your own arsenal.

Over the course of this challenge the forum thread has been a cauldron of excellent tips, tricks, recommendations, approaches, encouragement and feedback. I would highly recommend that you take the time out and just review the thread for this latest challenge so you can see for yourself. I can say without a doubt that just reviewing the thread for the challenge will provide you with some excellent takeaways and learning opportunities.

I can’t emphasise enough the importance of implementing the knowledge and material that you learn. We at Enterprise DNA believe that there is no better way than tackling problems as a way of embedding knowledge and upskilling.

We always aim to ensure that there is something in every challenge for everyone, whether you’re an expert or a newbie you will find that there is always an opportunity to learn. I would encourage you all to get involved, it doesn’t need to be an all singing and dancing entry but rather focus on the areas that you are trying to learn. Power Query, Dax, Modelling, Visualisations take your pick and focus on an area where you are trying to improve.

We really want to get as many as you involved as possible and as always there are some great prizes on offer. There is also a newcomer category courtesy of our own @Brianj an excellent initiative.

The challenges are all about you and helping you on your journey to becoming a world class Power BI professional therefor if there is anything on your mind around the challenges regarding feedback, improvements or anything else then we’d love to hear from you so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

The winner

I can honestly say it was a tough week to judge the difficulty of the challenge meant that the number of submissions was a little lower this week however the submissions were all done to very, very good standard.

The thought and effort that has gone behind every single entry this challenge was refreshing to see.

I wouldn’t say judging the challenges is an easy feat and I’m sure it’s not a task many of you envy. However while judging is never easy I can confidently say that while reviewing my sleeves seem to have got very heavy with the amount of takeaways for my own work.

A massive well done to all of you and a big thank you from Enterprise DNA for participating.

The winner this week was…….@BrianJ a truly epic entry that covered the brief and some. The approach taken to model the data was the key to his report and the some of the visualisations he was able to pull together as a result. I would definitely checkout his timeline visual which was awesome. In order to address the one-page brief there was some excellent use of an array tooltips techniques. A well-rounded report powered by a super model. Congratulations @Brianj an excellent entry and deserved winner. :blush:


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Brain was pushed all the way by @Greg,@alexbadiu who had some brilliant entries of their own.

@Greg report was meticulously put together and the user experience was brilliant, details such as hover on navigations and bounce on the buttons cant be ignored, there was also excellent use of narrative which just enhanced the flow of the report and provided a real edge.
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@alexbadiu was also a very well thought out design and approach not only from a visual sense of what’s on the page but the way he has envisioned his users to interact with the report. As with Brian’s report Alex used tooltips to great effect. The pareto analysis was also a great choice for centring his analysis.

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Challenge 7

There were elements in every single entry that I liked so a massive well done to all participants.

Feedback

I could sit here and write some general feedback however I want to call out the great write ups that have been accompanying the submissions. Seriously there have been some epic write ups across the board and I would highly suggest that you go away and read the thoughts and processes that went behind some of these excellent submissions. We always encourage participants to do a write up and share their thoughts, so I just want to call out the efforts of all involved.

If there is anything you can do over the weekend to enhance your Power BI training, then I would suggest you take some time out and just review the thread for this week’s challenge and read the writeups associated with entries. I can guarantee that you will be a better analyst for it.

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 or reach out to me personally on haroon.ali@enterprisedna.co

Ok that’s enough from me.

Keep your eyes peeled for challenge 8 its going to be epic and is covering a scenario that will come across the desk of many if not all analysts.

Speak Soon,

Haroon

Enterprise DNA

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Congrats @BrianJ … awesome! :clap: :clap: :clap:

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Congratulations @BrianJ and again thank you for showcasing your work and giving us the opportunity to learn from it. :+1: :+1:
Already tuned in for your video on a timeline visual :smile:

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Congratulations @BrianJ ! Well deserved win! Your report and the detailed explanations bring a lot of value to the whole PBI community. Hardly wait to see the video. :clap: :clap: :clap:

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Congrats @BrianJ - an outstanding report! And thanks for the great writeup.

Congratulations @BrianJ, Your report is awesome, thanks for the detailed explanation, I am already applying some techniques in my projects.

Congrats @BrianJ!!

Thanks to all of you for the kind words, congratulations and encouragement. I’m not going to lie and say it’s not a thrill to win, but that also comes with the absolute recognition that there is truly not a playing card’s width of difference between my report and @Greg’s, @alexbadiu’s, @MudassirAli’s, @kirank.gh’s, @datazoe’s, @JarrettM’s and a number of others .

As great as the videos, the forum and other training content on eDNA are, for me these challenges represent the best experience you can have as an eDNA member. In talking with people who have not been participating in the challenges, some of the reasons I hear are “I find the whole thing intimidating” or “I could never do what some of the people in the challenges are doing”.

To address the second point first, we all started somewhere and most of us remember exactly what that felt like. When I first started as eDNA member, I would wrap all my arithmetic operations in CALCULATE(), because hey, they were “calculations” and I wanted them them to “calculate” (true – you can find some of these on the forum, but please don’t… :laughing:). I can absolutely guarantee that nobody was looking at my early DAX and saying “you know who’s going to be good at future data challenges? - that guy.”

You know who else could not do what I did on this challenge – me from 4 months ago. I just conducted a number of Power BI training sessions at work this week, centered around a report I developed in late May (right before Challenge 1 began). At the time, I thought the report was pretty good, but looking at it this week was a cringey experience. Based on all the things I’ve learned from the other participants in these challenges (you can find a partial list of these things in my initial writeup on this challenge), there is literally not one thing on that report I wouldn’t change - each element has a better, faster, cooler or more attractive version that I’ve learned from someone in these challenges.

Finally, none of us who love these challenges want them to be a small, exclusive club. The whole community environment is better and more fun when lots of people, with a diversity of experience, ideas and approaches get involved. @sam.mckay’ s vision is that each challenge will have hundreds of participants, and I certainly hope that comes to pass.

So, if you’re holding back thinking that you’re submission won’t be great - don’t. It may not be great initially, but I guarantee you’ll be warmly welcomed, you’ll receive some terrific, constructive feedback, you’ll have a lot of fun and within a few challenges you will be completely amazed by how much better you’ve gotten, regardless of where you started.

So, a final thanks to @sam.mckay, @haroonali1000, the @enterprisedna team, the expert team, and all of you who make this community a really special place. I feel honored to be a part of it, and to have the chance to give back even a fraction of what I’ve received.

See you in Challenge #8

  • Brian
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Well said @BrianJ … I agree wholeheartedly (sp?) … there was no way I could begin to compare my reports now versus my reports back 6 months ago; the “challenge” of the challenges gives me the incentive to push myself to learn new things, as I know the (external) competition will, so I compete with myself to “up-my-game” by participating. Again, congratulations. On to C8!
Greg

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To be honest, I didn’t know what bookmarks are in power bi. I saw the challenge winning report by @DianaB in challenge #3 and saw other creative works by other participants and I decided to dive in. Learning bookmarks was painful experience at first but I learned and applied those in challenge #4.

Winning is not a primary motive and those who are not participating as they think they wouldn’t be able to produce reports like others, they are missing out on a very very big learning opportunity. What I have learnt by participating in these challenges is that these are not only polishing my Power Bi skills but my analytical skills and I have noticed this huge difference at workplace.

My advise is that anyone who wants to take their skills to the next level should join these challenges as soon as possible.

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I think everybody can participate, I started learning faster when I start doing the challenges. You have to think what you want to practice, choose one or two or five things you want to learn, it could be Dax formulas, report design, datasets design, power query, visualization, colors, etc. It doesn’t matter, as long as you learn something, you will be surprise how much you have fun and learn at the same time. Sometimes I cannot participate because I am busy, and I know as soon as I start doing the challenge I get hooked and I forget about doing dinner and answering emails. It’s not about winning, it’s about learning and getting reviews from experts like Sam it’s really a big help. :smiley:

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Very well said @BrianJ, I am not good in visualizations and colors but I took a new course from @sam.mckay of “Data visualizations tips” and I got some great ideas that you guys used in the show cases. I am ready to start from the next challenge and to learn something new :slight_smile:

Kind Regards,
Hafiz

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Congrats @BrianJ !! well deserved win :clap: :clap: :clap:

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@hafizsultan,

That’s the area I have been focusing the most on improving as well lately. If you haven’t seen it yet, this video provides some great resources for ideas on visualizations and color themes.

https://forum.enterprisedna.co/t/3-ways-to-discover-inspiration-for-your-report-designs-in-power-bi-through/10960

I also really like @JarrettM’s approach to building color themes, and used that in this challenge:

https://forum.enterprisedna.co/t/how-to-select-colour-theme-for-your-power-bi-reports/10969

You’ve been doing awesome work in the forum lately. Can’t wait to see how you apply those skills in the next challenge.

  • Brian
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@BrianJ,

This is really great. Thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

Kind Regards,
Hafiz

Well done Haroon on the write up

Congrats @BrianJ, a deserved gold medal finish on the challenge.

Totally agree with the sentiment around the challenges being an incredible learning experience. This is exactly why as part of our certification now you have to get involved in at least 3 challenge rounds. Hopefully this will boost involvement going forward also.

I still want to see more participants each round. So open to any and all ideas around this. We certainly need to avoid being seen a just a space for experts to showcase skills (even though this is a big part of it as well). It’s about the learning, collaboration and challenge one self that is the most important part of it.

We’ll keep striving for this.

Appreciate all your involvement.

Sam

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Well done and congratulations!

Congratulations @BrianJ. And thanks for the inspiring words.
See you in #8

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Great job, @BrianJ! Sorry to have missed the last few challenges, hope to catch another one soon.

@ChadD,

Thanks! Look forward to having you back in the Challenge mix.

  • Brian