Effective Requirement Gathering for Power Apps Development

Power Apps is Microsoft’s low-code application development platform that enables organizations to build custom business applications without requiring extensive traditional software engineering resources. It sits within the broader Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem alongside Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents, making it a natural choice for organizations already invested in Microsoft 365 and Azure… Read More

Essential Steps for Gathering Requirements to Build a Power App

Requirements gathering is the foundational phase of any successful Power Apps development project, establishing the understanding of business needs, user expectations, data structures, and functional requirements that every subsequent development decision depends upon. Building a Power App without thorough requirements gathering is the equivalent of constructing a building without architectural plans, and the consequences are… Read More

How to Use Rollup Columns in Dataverse for Power Apps

One of the most persistent challenges in building data-driven applications is the need to summarize information from related records and make that summary available in a parent record without requiring manual calculation or complex application logic. In a customer relationship management scenario, for example, knowing the total value of all opportunities associated with an account,… Read More

How to Use Power Apps Portals Entity Lists with Record-Level Security

Entity lists are a fundamental building block of Power Apps Portals, now known as Power Pages, that allow portal developers to display collections of Dataverse table records to authenticated and anonymous portal users through configurable list views that support filtering, sorting, pagination, and search without requiring custom code for basic scenarios. An entity list connects… Read More

Introduction to HDInsight Interactive Query for Big Data Analytics

The volume of data that modern organizations generate, collect, and need to analyze has grown to a scale that fundamentally changes what analytical tools must be capable of doing. Traditional database systems that served data warehousing needs adequately for decades begin to struggle when the data in question is measured in terabytes or petabytes, when… Read More

Essential Changes Every Power Platform Administrator Should Make Immediately

Power Platform administrators carry significant responsibility for the security, governance, and operational health of one of Microsoft’s most rapidly expanding enterprise technology ecosystems. As Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents become deeply embedded in business operations across organizations of every size, the decisions administrators make about configuration, governance, and policy have… Read More

Mastering Notification Automation with Power Automate: A Practical Guide

Power Automate is Microsoft’s cloud-based workflow automation platform that enables individuals and organizations to build automated processes connecting hundreds of applications and services without requiring extensive programming knowledge. Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, the platform was rebranded in 2019 as part of Microsoft’s broader Power Platform strategy that also includes Power BI, Power Apps, and… Read More

Comparing SSAS Tabular and SSAS Multidimensional: Understanding Business Logic Differences

SQL Server Analysis Services offers two fundamentally distinct modeling approaches that organizations must choose between when building analytical solutions, and that choice has far-reaching consequences for how business logic is implemented, maintained, and queried. The Tabular model and the Multidimensional model represent different philosophical approaches to organizing analytical data, each with its own strengths, limitations,… Read More

The Rare Phenomenon of a Full Moon on Halloween

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, a full moon occurring on Halloween is a rare event, happening roughly once every 19 years. When calculated using Greenwich Mean Time, this translates to about three or four times per century. And coincidentally, on October 31st, 2020 — the date I’m writing this — there was indeed a… Read More

Simple Ways to Instantly Enhance Your Power Apps Model-Driven Views

Model-driven views in Power Apps are structured list displays that show records from a Dataverse table in a grid format, allowing users to browse, filter, sort, and select records within a model-driven application. Unlike canvas app galleries where the developer controls every visual detail through explicit design, model-driven views are generated automatically from configuration rather… Read More

How to Maintain PivotTable Column Widths After Data Refresh in Excel 2013

Welcome back to our Excel at Excel series with Steve Hughes! In this article, Steve shares a valuable tip for business intelligence users: how to keep your PivotTable column widths consistent even after refreshing the data in Excel 2013. Troubleshooting PivotTable Column Resizing Issues in Excel Dashboards When creating dynamic dashboards in Excel, especially for… Read More

Do You Really Need a Star Schema in Your Data Warehouse?

A star schema is a dimensional modeling technique used in data warehousing where a central fact table containing measurable business events is surrounded by dimension tables that provide descriptive context for those measurements. The name comes from the visual appearance of the resulting entity-relationship diagram, where the fact table sits at the center and dimension… Read More

How to Clean and Optimize Your Client Address Database

A company’s customer database is one of its most valuable assets. However, inaccurate or duplicate client address data can cost your business thousands of dollars annually. In a recent webinar, Software Engineer Philip de la Cal demonstrated how to effectively de-duplicate and cleanse your address data using Task Factory’s USPS Address Verification feature. The Vital… Read More

Why Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Testing Are Crucial for Success

In today’s data-driven landscape, testing your data warehouse and Business Intelligence (BI) systems early and often is essential. Neglecting proper testing can lead to inaccurate results and sluggish system performance, which could force you to restart your BI project—wasting valuable time, resources, and money, while also risking poor business decisions and lost opportunities. Expert Perspectives… Read More

Comprehensive Guide to Exposure Data Audit for Personally Identifiable Information in SQL Server

As a Business Intelligence Architect or Developer, performing an Exposure Data Audit to identify Personally Identifiable Information (PII) within your SQL Server 2016 environment is essential. This process helps uncover potential data security risks and supports the implementation of robust, enterprise-grade security policies. Microsoft SQL Server 2016 represents a significant leap forward in database security… Read More