Page2017 | Data Awareness Programme |

Anybody can use R visuals in Power BI

This post explains that anyone can get R visuals for their data with ggplot2.

Power BI is very famous for different types of visualizations right from out of the box visualizations, R visualizations and custom visualizations.

To generate R visuals, you need to write R codes on the editor window. It is possible when you have a basic knowledge of R packages. Microsoft makes this process easy and provided many R custom visuals which is like other visuals where you can drag and drop the fields on the respective axis.

R custom visuals doesn’t require R codes.

Another option that you can easily create R visuals using ggplot2 builder without writing much code.

Esquisse is a small add-in to R studio helps you to interactively explore your data by visualizing it with the ggplot2 package. It allows you to draw bar graphs, curves, scatter plots, histograms, then export the graph or retrieves the code generating the graph.

Refer the below URL,

https://github.com/dreamRs/esquisse

Follow the below steps to use this on your Power BI Desktop.

You need to have R studio installed on your machine

Install the devtools using below command.

install.packages(“devtools”)

Install the “dreamRs/esquisse” using below line of code

devtools::install_github(“dreamRs/esquisse”)

install.packages(“ggplot2”)

You need to perform the above steps in the R studio.

Once above steps are performed then you are good to go with Power BI Desktop.

You can take any dataset which you want to use it for R visuals. Try to have different columns like date, number string to experience all the visuals from ggplot2.

Add the R visual into the canvas area and it will open the editor below. To add a R script, you need to choose the fields from your dataset.

When you added the fields, you can see the R editor enabled to write codes.

Copy and paste the below line of code and click the run button.

esquisse:::esquisser()

It will open your browser and load the ggplot2 builder.

It will look like below.

First, you need to choose the dataset from the drop down of the data.frame list.

It will show all the columns as variables. You need to select all or whichever you want to use it for your visuals. Then finally choose the selected variables will be added.

On the Left top, you can see “auto”, you can click and see what are the visuals are supported as of now.

Next, you need to drag and drop the variables on respective sections. The sections are,

X Axis

Y Axis

Fill

Color

Size

Based on the data type you can choose different visuals. Sometimes few visual will not be enabled, if that is the case then your data is supported for those visuals.

To customize the visual, you can use the bottom bar options.

Label & Title

Plot Options

Data – Filter

Once you satisfied with the visual then you can copy the generated code and paste it on the R editor in Power Bi Desktop.

Before running the script, you need to comment on the previously added line of script and add the below line of code.

Library (ggplot2)

Then run the script.

It will generate the R visual on your report.

Thanks. Let me know if you have any doubts. Reach me on hari@yoursqlman.com.

ByHariharan Rajendran

DAX

DAX – RELATED & RELATEDTABLE

This post explains the concept of below DAX functions

RELATED
RELATEDTABLE

I need to explain the data modelling little bit before going to DAX functions. As you know, we need to create a relationship either manually or automatically to use the tables together to get the expected result.

We have 3 different relationships available.

One-to-One Relationship
One-to-Many Relationship
Many-to-Many Relationship

In the context, let us consider a one-to-many relationship. If you have CUSTOMER master and FACT tables then trying to create a relationship, then that would create a one-to-many relationship.

It means we have unique records on the customer table but multiple same values on the FACT table with reference to the connected columns.

If you want to create a new calculated column on the CUSTOMER table then you need to use RELATEDTABLE DAX function. On the other hand, when you want to create a calculated column on the FACT table then you need to use the RELATED function.

RELATEDTABLE:

Customer First Purchase = MINX(
RELATEDTABLE(‘Sale’),
‘Sale'[Invoice Date Key])

State = RELATED(‘City'[State Province])

ByHariharan Rajendran

Access 2010

[Solved] Microsoft Access: The ‘Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0’ provider is not registered on the local machine

This post helps you solve the below issue in Power BI.

Scenario: There will be an error when we connect with 32-bit Access Database from Power BI 64-bit desktop.

Error: “Microsoft Access: The ‘Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0’ provider is not registered on the local machine”.

Solution

To solve the above issue, follow the below steps.

Visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=13255
Download 64-bit version of the software.
Install on the machine where Power BI is installed.

Once completed the above steps, try to connect access DB from Power BI desktop. This time you will be able to connect without an issue.

Post your comments if you get any more issues in this scenario.

ByHariharan Rajendran

Tooltips

Don’t use boring default tooltips in Power BI

Power BI recently announced a new feature to customize the tooltips. This post explains the steps to create a customized tooltip to improve your analytics.

As you know, tooltips are an important feature of every business intelligence project. It helps end user to understand the values when they mouse hover on any visuals on the report.

Traditionally, it will give us the very minimal version of the information. Microsoft has extended this feature to create analytics even on mouse over. Yes, can create a simple report and can integrate that report on your visuals. It means, when end user mouse hover on the visuals, it will show your customized tooltip report.

It is a preview feature now, so you need to enable this feature on Options->Preview Features

Follow the below steps

Create a new page on your Power BI Report
Go to Format option of the page and expand the Page Size option. There you can set the type as “Tooltip”
Set the Page view as “Actual Size”
You can see the small canvas area where you can create a simple report with different visuals.
Go to Main report page where you want to integrate the customized tooltip. Make sure that you enabled the preview feature.
Choose the visual and go to Format option and you could see an option called “Tooltip”. Extend the option.
Under Page option, choose the created tooltip page. That’s it.
Mouse hover the visual and you could see the customized tooltip.

Screenshots.

ByHariharan Rajendran

CData SharePoint SSIS Components

I had a requirement to extract the data from SharePoint (only Metadata) and I was looking for a task to handle this in SSIS.

Then I found a simple 3^rd party plugin to fulfil my requirement. In this post, I am explaining how to use the CData SSIS components.

You can download the component from https://www.cdata.com/drivers/sharepoint/ssis/.

The above link will take you directly to the download page. You need to buy this tool to use it on your production packages. If you want to test, then you can go with a trial version.

Download and install where you installed the SQL Server Data tools.

Once you installed then you can start creating an SSIS package using CData SharePoint Source and Destination tasks.

You need to create a connection manager to speak with on your SharePoint server either on-premises or online.

Right click on the connection manager section and choose “CDATA_SHAREPOINT”.

You need to enter your SharePoint site URL and credentials.

Once everything is done then drag and drop the “CData SharePoint Source” task. Point the created Connection manager. Under Table or View, you can choose any of the resources from SharePoint.

Check the columns and ensure everything is working. Then you can map the output to the destination tasks.

ByHariharan Rajendran

SharePoint

Extract Data from SharePoint List using SSIS

Microsoft released a new task called “OData Source” which helps us to connect to online SharePoint and extract the lists.

Follow the below steps to configure and extract the data.

Make sure to use the latest version of SQL Server Data Tools to work with SQL Server integration Projects.
Use the Data Flow Task
You can see “OData Source” task. Drag and drop into the data flow canvas.
This OData Source task required a connection manager. Click New on the OData Connection Manager.
You need to pass the below information to successfully connect with SharePoint Online.
1. Service document location – https://<yoursharepointsitename>/_vti_bin/listdata.svc
2. Authentication Type: Microsoft Online Services
3. UserName: Your email address to connect SharePoint Online
4. Password: your password.
Test the connection.
On the OData Source Editor, Choose the SharePoint list on the collection section.
Check the columns and use any destination where you want to store the data.

Screenshots.

ByHariharan Rajendran

Extract Data from SharePoint excel using SSIS

There is no direct way of extracting the SharePoint Excel data to SQL Server using SSIS. However, we can process multiple steps to achieve the result.

This post explains that how we can download the excel files from SharePoint and store it in a local drive and then process the stored excel from SSIS.

To download the files easily, we can use the tool called “SSIS Integration Toolkit for Microsoft SharePoint”.

Follow the below steps.

Visit – https://www.kingswaysoft.com/products/ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-sharepoint/download
Download 64 bit of Toolkit
Install it on your system where you have installed the SQL Server Data Tools
Create a new SQL Server Integration Projects
Drag and Drop the data flow task into the control flow
You could see “SharePoint Source” and “SharePoint Destination” tools under Common folder.
Before Drag and drop the “SharePoint Source” task, you should create a SharePoint connection Manager.
Configure SharePoint Connection Manager for SharePoint on-premises or online.
Test the connection once.
Drag and drop the “SharePoint Source”. Point the created SharePoint connection and Choose the source list as “Documents” or the library where you have stored the excel files.
Configure the Download Destination.
Once excel files are downloaded then you can use that excel files to process further using excel source tasks.