Category: Fabric Capacity

Fabric Administrator, Fabric Capacity, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service

Microsoft Fabric: Unlocking the Secrets to Mastering Shared Semantic Models – Part 1 – Core Concepts

Microsoft Fabric: Unlocking the Secrets to Mastering Shared Semantic Models - Part 1 - Core Concepts

Managing and optimising shared semantic models in Microsoft Fabric, with a focus on securing access, is essential in today’s data-driven world. These models are the backbone of an organisation’s analytics, providing consistent and scalable insights across teams. Whether you’re an experienced professional or just starting with Microsoft Fabric, understanding how to manage access to shared semantic models is key to delivering impactful insights.

This blog focuses on the core concepts that are vital for building a strong foundation. These concepts are pivotal for a correct and successful implementation of shared semantic models. Without a solid grasp of these basics, it can be challenging to navigate the complexities of advanced configurations or ensure secure and efficient use of semantic models within Microsoft Fabric.

I originally planned to cover this topic in one blog, but it turned out to be too much for a single post. Splitting it into two parts allows me to explain everything clearly without making it overwhelming. Here’s what the series covers:

By the end of this blog, you’ll understand the basics of managing and optimising secured access to shared semantic models in Microsoft Fabric.

If you prefer a video format, check out the tutorial on YouTube:

For those who enjoy reading the details, keep scrolling!

Requirements

Before diving into the implementation of shared semantic models in Microsoft Fabric, it’s important to understand the prerequisites. This process has specific licensing and role requirements, which are outlined below:

  • At least Power BI Pro license: This is the minimum required license because Workspace functionality is available only with a Pro or higher license. For large semantic models you will required Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) or a Fabric Capacity.
  • Microsoft Fabric Administrator role: Necessary for configuring semantic model discoverability in the Admin Portal.
  • At least Workspace Member role: Required to set permissions on the semantic models.
  • At least Workspace Contributor role: Needed to assign users and security groups to RLS (Row-Level Security) and/or OLS (Object-Level Security) roles.

Ensure that you have the proper licenses and roles assigned before starting the implementation to avoid any disruptions or limitations in managing shared semantic models.

Continue reading “Microsoft Fabric: Unlocking the Secrets to Mastering Shared Semantic Models – Part 1 – Core Concepts” →
Azure, Business Intelligence - BI, Fabric Administrator, Fabric Capacity, Logic Apps, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI

Microsoft Fabric: Resolving Capacity Admin Permission Issues in Automate Capacity Scaling with Azure LogicApps

Resolving Capacity Admin Permission Issues in Automate Capacity Scaling with Azure LogicApps

A while back, I published a blogpost explaining how to use Azure LogicApps to automate scaling Microsoft Fabric F capacities under the PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go) licensing option. Some of my followers reported an issue with their Capacity Admin settings when running the LogicApp solution. The issue was that their capacity admins disappeared after they had run the LogicApps to upscale or downscale the capacity. After some investigation, I found out what the problem was. At the same time, some of my other followers suggested a fix which involved hardcoding the admins into the solution. While this would work in some cases, it is not a practical solution in the long run, as the admin settings may evolve over time. This makes the solution hard to maintain and unreliable. Back then, I suggested using the APIs and an HTTP action in a new LogicApps solution. This blog is the continuation of the previous blog and a quick and easy fix that ensures the automation runs smoothly with minimal to no manual work or maintenance afterwards. I have also published a tutorial video on YouTube explaining the process from the beginning (which was already covered in my previous blog, so I do not explain it here again) which you can watch here:

A Reminder of the Previous Solution

I suggest you read my blog about automating Fabric capacity scaling with Azure LogicApps as it provides a step-by-step guide to implement the solution. But if you have already implemented, or you are just after the fix, jump to the next section. The following image shows how the original solution works:

Automate Scaling Microsoft Fabric F Capacities with Azure LogicApps
Automate Scaling Microsoft Fabric F Capacities with Azure LogicApps

Here is a quick explanation of how it works:

  1. The Trigger runs the workflow automatically every hour.
  2. The Read a Resource, which is an Azure Resource Manager operation, reveals information about a resource that, in our implementation, is a Microsoft Fabric Capacity.
  3. A condition to check the Status of the capacity. If the capacity is Paused (the condition is true), then do nothing. This is needed as this method only works when the capacity is Active.
  4. If the capacity is Active (the condition is false), then check the current time to see if it is between 2pm and 4pm. This is the timeframe for which we want to upscale the capacity.
  5. If the condition is True, then upscale the capacity to F8 using another ARM operation: Create or update a resource.
  6. If the condition is False, then set the capacity SKU to F2.

The solution works fine if you do not have any Capacity Admin settings either on Azure Portal or on Admin Portal on Microsoft Fabric. But in many cases, we indeed have capacity admins. Let’s see what the issue is.

The Problem

The issue arises when we add some capacity administrators; that are wiped after running the above solution in its current implementation. The following image shows the Capacity Admin settings on both portals:

Fabric Capacity Admins on Azure Portal and Fabric Admin Portal
Fabric Capacity Admins on Azure Portal and Fabric Admin Portal

The reason if that the Create or update a resource also updates the properties of the resource with the ones we define in LogicApps. Therefore, if we do not add any capacity admins, we literally empty the existing capacity admins. Let’s run the solution again to understand why this is happening. The following image shows my capacity admins are wiped out after running my LogicApp workflow:

Capacity Admins deleted after running LogicApps
Capacity Admins deleted after running LogicApps

The issue is also demonstrated in the tutorial video on YouTube:

Continue reading “Microsoft Fabric: Resolving Capacity Admin Permission Issues in Automate Capacity Scaling with Azure LogicApps” →
Azure, Fabric Administrator, Fabric Capacity, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI

Microsoft Fabric: Capacity Cost Management Part 3, Pause Capacity During Christmas with Azure Logic Apps

Microsoft Fabric: Capacity Cost Management Part 3, Pause Capacity During Christmas with Azure Logic Apps

In the first blog post of this series, I explained that we can Pause and Resume a Microsoft Fabric capacity from Azure Portal. In the second blog and its accompanying YouTube video, I showed you how to automate the Pause and Resume actions in Azure LogicApps so the capacity starts at 8:00 AM and stops at 4:00 PM. While I have already mentioned in those posts, it is worthwhile to mention again that these methods only make sense for PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go) capacities and NOT the Reservation capacities. While the method works fine, you may need more fine-tuning.

Managing operational costs becomes crucial for businesses leveraging Microsoft Fabric capacities when the holiday season approaches. This presents a unique challenge of maintaining efficiency while reducing unnecessary expenses, especially during Christmas when business operations might slow down or pause entirely.

In this post and video, I will extend the discussions from my previous blog and demonstrate how to optimise your Azure Logic Apps to manage Microsoft Fabric capacity during the Christmas holidays.

Extending the Logic Apps Workflow

Existing Setup Recap

In earlier discussions, we’ve explored using Azure Logic Apps to manage Fabric capacity effectively from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM on regular business days and pausing operations afterwards. This setup ensures that we’re not incurring costs when the capacity isn’t needed, particularly from 4:00 PM to 8:00 AM the next morning, and throughout the weekends. I encourage you to check out my previous post for more information. This is how the existing solution looks like in Azure LogicApps:

Automating Microsoft Fabric Capacity with Azure LogicApps
Automating Microsoft Fabric Capacity with Azure LogicApps

Incorporating Holiday Schedules

The key to extending this setup for the Christmas period lies in integrating specific holiday schedules into your existing workflows using Workflow Definition Language which is used in Azure Logic Apps and Microsoft Flow. The following expression determines if the current date (in New Zealand Standard Time) falls within the period from December 25th of the current year to January 2nd of the next year:

and(
    greaterOrEquals(
        int(
            formatDateTime(
                convertFromUtc(
                    utcNow(), 
                    'New Zealand Standard Time'
                ), 
                'yyyyMMdd'
            )
        ), 
        int(
   concat(
    formatDateTime(
     utcNow()
     , 'yyyy'
     )
    , '1225'
    )
   ) 
    ), 
    lessOrEquals(
        int(
            formatDateTime(
                convertFromUtc(
                    utcNow(), 
                    'New Zealand Standard Time'
                ), 
                'yyyyMMdd'
            )
        ), 
        int(
   concat(
    add(
     int(
      formatDateTime(
       utcNow()
       , 'yyyy'
       )
      )
     ,1
     )
    , '0102'
    )
   )
  )
)

The following section explains how the expression works.

Continue reading “Microsoft Fabric: Capacity Cost Management Part 3, Pause Capacity During Christmas with Azure Logic Apps” →
Copilot, Fabric Capacity, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI

Use Copilot in Power BI Desktop to Create Measures from Numeric Columns

I have been thinking about a mechanism to generate measures from numeric columns on Power BI data models. Of course, we can use Tabular Editor, but it requires some scripting, which is all right. However, the more advanced our requirements get, the more complex the C# script. In real-world development scenarios, it does not make sense to blindly create measures for all numeric columns, such as the key columns used to define relationships between tables, making C# scripting a bit more complex.

In this blog and accompanying YouTube video, I explain using Copilot within Power BI Desktop to create measures from numeric columns. This feature represents a significant advancement in Power BI’s capabilities as of April 2024, enabling data analysts and BI professionals to streamline parts of their data analysis tasks.

Prerequisites

As explained in a previous post here, we first need to enable Copilot on the Fabric Portal. Please note that Copilot in Power BI Desktop requires either Power BI Premium Capacity or AT LEAST an F64 Fabric Capacity. Unfortunately, Copilot is NOT available on PPU, Embedded capacities, Fabric capacities smaller than F64 and Fabric Trial (FT) capacities.

We also need to have the latest version of Power BI Desktop installed on our machine. With that, let’s begin.

YouTube Video

Here is the video on YouTube where I explain the same thing in less than 5 min. But if you are after more details, continue reading.

Introduction to Power BI and Copilot

As Power BI evolves, it incorporates more sophisticated AI-driven capabilities that simplify various aspects of data analytics. The integration of Copilot in Power BI Desktop enhances user interaction with data in many ways. Our focus on this blog is specifically using Copilot to create simple yet crucial measures based on numeric columns that previously required manual effort.

Use Copilot for Measure Creation

Using Copilot is straightforward and demonstrates impressive intelligence in its operational logic. The following steps explain how to do so:

Continue reading “Use Copilot in Power BI Desktop to Create Measures from Numeric Columns” →