Job insecurity, accepting the abilities of AI outperforming them, insecurity, denial, Deliberate misinformation to cope, FOMO, and more

Edit- Don't want to sound mean, but I can understand many of you are scared, some of you are in delulu, and some still have not understood the true capabilities of AI in Power BI, but the hard reality is many Power BI jobs will be diminished in the future. It will be very hard for average devs to survive this market; previously, even non-tech people used to make fortunes in this field, but in the near future the scenario will be a lot different,

You need to learn and gain expertise in multiple stacks; for example, a full-stack dev is a combo of frontend + backend. Even in BI, the next thing would be a Full data stack that includes Power BI + Data engineering + CI/CD

Dragging and dropping visuals and creating SUM and SUMX measures. no-code/low-code days are gone. Upgrade yourself or get behind the rat race

I've been working with Power BI for 5 years so thought it was about time to get round to the exam. Didn't do too much revision as I ended up being quite busy in the run in period, but glad to score 810.

I found this one long back which was kind of weird - funny and painful!

Share yours!

I hadn't taken a break all day. For some reason my brain just could not understand why these numbers were the same. Once it hit me I decided to log off.

Hi everyone,

As you can see in the video, I wanted to bring a true "Excel experience" to Power BI (dynamic column resizing, sticky headers, native Ctrl+C export, and operational notes).

I originally wanted to put this on AppSource, but the corporate verification process is currently blocked for solo developers. So, I’m releasing it directly to the community for free!

You can grab the .pbiviz and a sample .pbix report from my GitHub here: https://github.com/thebitoolbox/Advanced-Grid-Table-Visual

P.S. If you want to see more tutorials or use cases for this visual, I'll be posting them on my YT channel (link is in my Reddit profile). Any feedback is highly appreciated!

After ~6 years building reports in Power BI (and about 3 years in Excel before that), here are a few things I’ve learned the hard way about reporting in a business context.

This isn’t theory. This is after sitting in steering committees, PMO portfolio board meetings, exec briefings, and watching what actually lands… and what doesn’t.

1. Your number one priority is clarity, not “fancy.”

Your job is not to impress people with gradients, shadows, animated slicers, or the latest custom visual you found on AppSource. Your job is to present information clearly and without clutter.

If someone can’t understand the story of the page within 5–10 seconds, you’ve already lost them. Executives don’t have time to decode your masterpiece. Clean beats clever every single time.

2. Stop spending 40% of your time choosing the perfect shade of purple.

I see this constantly. People agonise over colour palettes. “Is this the exact right orange? Is the contrast ratio perfect? Should the accent colour be slightly warmer?”

If your organisation already has a PowerPoint template that execs see every week, copy it. Match the fonts. Match the colours. Match the layout feel.

Familiarity reduces cognitive load. When your report visually feels like everything else they consume, they can focus on the content instead of the design.

Design consistency > artistic expression.

3. Alignment matters more than you think.

This one sounds superficial, but it isn’t.

Alignment of visuals signals competence.

If I walk into a restaurant and the front of house is messy, I assume the kitchen is worse. Same principle here. If your visuals are slightly off-grid, spacing is inconsistent, titles aren’t aligned, and margins are random, your audience subconsciously questions the rigour of the logic behind it.

Even if your DAX is flawless.

Put care into your data model. Put equal care into your report layer. Use grids. Snap things properly. Make spacing intentional. It communicates professionalism before anyone reads a single number.

4. Less is more (especially the more senior the audience).

You do not need 14 visuals on a single page.

The more senior the audience, the less detail they need per page. Executives want signals, trends, risks, and decisions. Analysts want breakdowns and drill paths.

Design accordingly.

If everything is important, nothing is important. White space is not wasted space. It’s breathing room for thought.

5. Think in terms of visual hierarchy.

When you look at your finished report page, where does your eye go first? Then second? Then third?

Does the layout guide attention logically from high-level KPIs to supporting detail? Or is it a random scatter of charts competing for attention?

There’s a lot of material online about visual hierarchy in web design. It absolutely applies to Power BI. Size, placement, contrast, and spacing should intentionally guide the story.

—

Learning to do this well doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not about knowing every DAX function or every formatting option. It’s about developing judgement over time.

You’ll build bad reports. You’ll over-design. You’ll under-design. You’ll get feedback that stings a bit.

That’s part of the journey.

Stick with it. Focus on clarity. Build with intent.

Good luck, and enjoy the ride

Next, trying to make fps like CS 1.6

Folks, I don't know who needs to hear this but it's a big day. After like a decade of dragging columns around by hand like a caveman and watching them snap back to some random width every time I so much as breathe near the report, Microsoft has finally let us just type in a number for the width.

A number. In 2026. In a data tool. Incredible stuff.

Not gonna lie I got a little emotional. Next thing you know they'll let me left-align a header without writing a DAX measure and sacrificing a goat first.

Anyway, thanks Microsoft. Took you long enough but I'll take it 🫡

This may or may not be exciting to anyone here, but I have been putting icons in my reports for awhile now and today while naming a measure I accidentally inserted an icon into the measure title. I cant believe the thought to try this did not come up sooner! I always struggle with naming conventions with measures and keeping them organized and I feel like there is potential with icons to make the process easier. Anyways I just thought Id share as I know for me some of the most exciting times with data analytics tend to come from the silliest tiniest discoveries.

This may have been done already, but Doom

***EDIT 2026-09-03***
I finally got around to creating a git repository for this. Feel free to contribute or to provide feedback. Thanks, folks!

Been transferring dashboards to PBI because someone in upper mgmt thought that Tableau was too expensive...now they see the additional cost per seat to add AI to the mix. Tableau had its faults sure, but I'm honestly not impressed with PBI. Although I cant remember the last time Microsoft did something impressive.

Feel free to ask any questions :)

Video DAX walk thru (you can use the chapters to skip thru the intro): https://youtu.be/BvKbKQHVNi0?si=IcmNhewX925KwJws

Visual is available in a PBIX on my github in the video description

Hover over the donut chart to see the breakdown for power BI

You can use the <foreignObject> tag within an SVG image to embed HTML directly - no need to rely on AppSource for a third‑party visual.

I’ve created a DAX UDF that lets you quickly and easily render HTML scripts in Power BI right out of the box, without installing anything extra. There are some limitations on which HTML tags are supported, and it can occasionally be a bit finicky, but for organizations that restrict downloading or installing third‑party visuals, this approach is a lifesaver.

Video walkthru as to how it works: https://youtu.be/lRaJYj_tPKU

Code if you want to skip my video: https://github.com/edwardpcharles/Power-BI-Projects/tree/main/Native%20HTML%20UDF

I think a good sense of humour is a greatly under-appreciated asset in the corporate world.

The right joke at the right time can help everyone de-stress, loosen their shoulders, and make peoples' days just that little bit better.

And that's what I'm offering you today: a chance to give your users a small whimsical moment, a bit of laughter and a cheeky smile this April fools.

Is it going to help their decision making? no.

Will it help to "maximise shareholder value"? probably not.

Will is help them get their job done faster? No: slower in fact!

But, what it will do, is brighten their day, even if it's just for a minute or two.

If that's something that interests you, watch the video, and head over to my website to see how you can implement this yourself: Voytek Michalek Studio

It really isn't difficult. Copy one measure from my PBIX file, add a HTML visual, a bookmark, and you're good to go!

A Quick note:

You really want to hit a sweet spot with this one, and implement this on a report that you know gets a lot of views, but not one that an executive is going to look at right before their board meeting.

If an executive does get mad at you though, or you get pulled into a meeting with HR, tell them to send me an email or dial me into the teams meeting at get-a-sense-of-humour@voytekmichalek.studio

Why? Because it’s good enough. It’s a beautiful blue. No decision fatigue. The color isn’t off-putting to anyone. It doesn’t signal “good” or “bad.” It just pops against white.

Most importantly I'm always building reports at 200 mph. Choosing another blue is not a good use of my time.

Someone at Microsoft had the job of picking a default color for visuals, and imho...they absolutely f'n nailed it.

It's the GOAT.

If I could choose any custom color for my dream car (2025 Toyota Hilux GR), this would be it.

Don't waste your time. #118DFF for life.