Claim OwnershipBIFocal - Clarifying Business Intelligence
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For the past several years, Business Intelligence has been the #1 top ranked IT priority for CIOs and business leaders according to Gartner. It is a very exciting time to be in the BI space, with massive investments from Microsoft in their 2016 wave of products specifically focused on this area. Not only are there major product releases on the horizon, specifically SharePoint & SQL 2016, but Power BI continues to release updates, new features, and content packs on a very regular basis.
Microsoft MVPs John White & Jason Himmelstein will attempt to keep you up to date on all of the latest and greatest BI changes every month. They will give some interesting tips & tricks, show fun features, bring on relevant guests, answer your questions, cover the News, and generally have a great time with this exciting topic.
Microsoft MVPs John White & Jason Himmelstein will attempt to keep you up to date on all of the latest and greatest BI changes every month. They will give some interesting tips & tricks, show fun features, bring on relevant guests, answer your questions, cover the News, and generally have a great time with this exciting topic.
321 Episodes
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This is episode 321 recorded on March 3rd, 2026, where John and Jason break down the Microsoft Fabric February 2026 Feature Summary — including expanded workspace identity limits, notebook and Dataflow Gen2 improvements, new Data Factory capabilities, and enhancements across Real-Time Intelligence and the Fabric VS Code tooling.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 320 recorded on March 3rd, 2026, where John and Jason break down the Power BI February 2026 Feature Summary — including new DAX functions, improvements to Copilot prompts and Power BI apps, multiple-value clipboard support for slicers, and updates to visuals and error diagnostics in Power BI Desktop.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 319 recorded on February 6th, 2026, where John and Jason break down the Microsoft Fabric January 2026 Feature Summary — including the Osmos acquisition for AI-ready data engineering, Git branch improvements and Python SDK support for the Fabric API, expanded OneLake security, and new Real-Time Intelligence enhancements.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 318 recorded on February 6th, 2026, where John and Jason break down the Power BI January 2026 Feature Update — covering the key report, model, and service changes, what’s actually impactful, and how it fits into the broader Microsoft Fabric roadmap.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 317 recorded on January 21st, 2026, where John & Jason talk about news that came out in January 2026 for Power BI & Microsoft Fabric in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and some interesting articles on the Fabric Blog.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 316 recorded on December 19th, 2025, where John & Jason talk about their predictions about 2024 & how they aged into 2025 and make their predictions for 2026 for Power BI & Microsoft Fabric.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 315 recorded on December 16th, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the Fabric November 2025 Feature Summary part 3 including updates to Data Warehouse, Real-Time Intelligence, and Data Factory.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 314 recorded on December 15th, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the Fabric November 2025 Feature Summary part 2 including updates to Data Engineering & Data Science.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 313 recorded on December 12th, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the Fabric November 2025 Feature Summary part 1 including updates to Fabric Platform, OneLake, and Databases.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
Episode 312 - Power BI November 2025 Feature Summary by John White & Jason Himmelstein
This is episode 311 recorded on November 25th, 2025, where John & Jason talk with Stephanie Bruno, Data Platform MVP & Data Witch, about the news coming out of Microsoft Ignite.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 310 recorded on November 21st, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the Power BI & Fabric Feature Summaries from October 2025 in preparation for the big news releases from Ignite in November.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 309 recorded on September 22nd, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the Power BI September 2025 Feature Summary including Standalone Copilot to default-on, Enhanced DAX Time Intelligence in Preview, Editing semantic models in the Power BI Service including create new is now Generally Available , TMDL view is now Generally Available, and more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 308 recorded on September 22nd, 2025, where John & Jason finish talking about the Microsoft Fabric September 2025 Feature Summary including the DataFlows Gen 2 Engine Overhaul and all that it entails, Connectivity updates, and Mirroring changes.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 307 recorded on September 19th, 2025, where John & Jason continue talking about the Microsoft Fabric September 2025 Feature Summary including the Data Agent improvements, Merge Transact SQL in Data Warehouse, new Real-Time Intelligence Features, and much more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 306 recorded on September 19th, 2025, where John & Jason talk about the first half of the Microsoft Fabric September 2025 Feature Summary including the Fabric Multitasking UI Upgrade, Variable Libraries going GA, User Data Functions Going GA with Major Enhancements, the ability to query mirrored databases in spark notebooks, and much more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 305 recorded on September 9th, 2025, where John & Jason drive across Missouri after the North America Collaboration Summit and discuss OneLake Security and other data topics in the news today.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 304 recorded on September 4th, 2025, where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric August 2025 Feature Summary including a new Flat list view in Deployment pipelines, Bursting controls for Data Engineering workloads, new test capabilities for User Data Functions, the ability to server real-time predictions with ML model endpoints, several updates to Data Warehouse, Database tree in edit tile and AzMon data sources for RTI, the ability to use Python Notebooks to read/write to Fabric SQL Databases, Auto table creation on destination in copy job in Data Factory, and much, much more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 303 recorded on August 21st, 2025, where John & Jason talk to Mike Carlo from Power BI Tips.com about Power BI & Microsoft Fabric, how his company is doing Workloads in Fabric, a debate about Lakehouses vs Warehouses, the Power Designer & Entelexos tools, and other fun topics.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
This is episode 302 recorded on August 20th, 2025, where John & Jason talk the Power BI August 2025 Feature Summary including Copilot in Embedded Reports for SharePoint Online, edit your data model in the Power BI service, TMDL view enhancements, Semantic Model refresh templates with Fabric Data pipelines, and more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
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Podcasts are a medium to deepen your knowledge in a variety of fields, and the BIFocal podcast is a great resource for anyone interested in business intelligence. It explores topics related to data analysis, strategy, and effective decision-making. The insights shared can be crucial for businesses looking to enhance their operations and leverage data. For actionable insights, consider partnering with companies like https://www.reportsimple.com.au/ who specialize in data analytics and business intelligence services. They can help your company extract meaningful insights from raw data, ultimately leading to better business decisions and increased operational efficiency.
the powerapps licence changes are an absolute shocker re sql connector becoming premium. shame Microsoft!
awesome show!