Simple Talk Editor in Career

From anthropology to analytics: how to build a data career with no prior experience (10 tips from a Microsoft MVP)

No computer science degree, no clear plan - just deliberate moves and the right communities. Here's what Kristyna Ferris learned...

12 June 2026 10 min read

An image showing Power BI running on a laptop.

John Kerski in PowerBI

Never ship a broken semantic model again: how to build automated tests in Power BI with user-defined functions

Learn how to test Power BI semantic models using User-Defined Functions and PQL.Assert. Catch errors early and automate testing with...

02 June 2026 13 min read

Joydip Kanjilal in AI

Why AI-driven workflows are important (and how to implement them)

AI-driven workflow automation and orchestration help businesses improve efficiency, automate complex processes, and make real-time decisions. Learn how they work,...

22 May 2026 10 min read

John Kerski in AI

How DataOps principles help to reduce GenAI risk and improve data quality

Learn how DataOps principles improve trust, quality, and governance when using GenAI in data solutions. Tips for for Git, testing,...

08 May 2026 10 min read

John Kerski in Data Analytics

Power BI TMDL View: Benefits, Security Risks & Best Practices

Explore the benefits and hidden risks of Power BI’s TMDL View. Learn how to safely use TMDL scripts with expert...

11 August 2025 9 min read

Koen Verbeeck in General Analytics

Scripting Dimension Tables with dbt Macros: Type 1 and Type 2 SCD Patterns for Data Warehouses

Building dimension tables with dbt macros - Type 1 (overwriting changes) and Type 2 (preserving history with effective dates) slowly...

16 July 2025 10 min read

John Kerski in Data Analytics

13 Things I wish I knew about Power Query (when I first started)

When I first started with Power Query, it was in Excel, through the Power Pivot feature. I was amazed at...

03 July 2025 11 min read

Gogula Aryalingam in Data Analytics

Unlocking Infor CloudSuite data: Making the most of it with Stream Pipelines

In my experiences building end-to-end analytics solutions, I often need to connect to a variety of different systems to bring...

01 July 2025 17 min read

Dennes Torres in Microsoft Fabric

Query Lineage in Fabric Lakehouses

I already wrote about query performance analysis in lakehouses, but one secret was left behind: The capability to track the...

02 May 2025 7 min read

Koen Verbeeck in General Analytics

Loading a Date Dimension in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse with dbt Macros: Complete Tutorial with Generated Calendar Table

Building a date dimension table in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse using dbt macros - generating date rows with dbt's sequence utilities,...

23 April 2025 8 min read

Dennes Torres in Microsoft Fabric

Query Performance Analysis in Lakehouses

You may have already discovered the 4 special views the lakehouse has in the queryinsights schema to track query performance....

09 April 2025 4 min read

Dennes Torres in Microsoft Fabric

Fabric Database: Advanced Vector Search Features

A few weeks ago, I delivered some sessions about vector search in Fabric Databases and Azure SQL. Let’s talk about...

02 April 2025 6 min read

Dennes Torres in Microsoft Fabric

Fabric: Query a SQL Endpoint from a Notebook

Let’s analyse why we would like to query an SQL Endpoint. Once we understand why, we can dig into how...

26 March 2025 5 min read

Dennes Torres in Other

How Shortcuts affect Lakehouse’s Maintenance

I wrote about lakehouse maintenance before, about multiple lakehouse maintenances, published videos about this subject and provided sample code about...

05 March 2025 3 min read

Dennes Torres in Other

Fabric Databases Connection Secrets

Fabric Database was a great announcement during Ignite Conference. The announcement spread all around, a great new feature. This feature...

19 February 2025 4 min read

Dennes Torres in Other

Analysing Kusto Query Performance In Fabric

We already discovered how to investigate Kusto query history. Let’s discover how to analyse query performance considering the information on...

06 February 2025 6 min read

Dennes Torres in Other

SQL Endpoint Secrets you need to know

Recently I had a severe problem with SQL endpoints and I was required to build a quick workaround for this....

29 January 2025 5 min read

Koen Verbeeck in General Analytics

Loading Models from Source Data with dbt

The data transformation tool dbt (data build tool) has become more and more popular over the past years. It focuses...

20 January 2025 8 min read

Dennes Torres in Other

Fabric Copy Job: What’s new in it

At first sight, the new Copy Job may seem only one more redundancy: Why do we need this? We have...

15 January 2025 2 min read

Microsoft Fabric

Dennes Torres in Microsoft Fabric

High Concurrency Data Pipelines in Fabric

Data Pipelines can orchestrate many activities, creating a flow for data ingestion. One of these activities is the notebook execution...

08 January 2025 2 min read