I’m going to go through one of my favorite innovations in Power BI from the past year. I’m talking about is external tools in Power BI Desktop. External tools have expanded the capabilities of Power BI immensely, as they integrate with the reporting features and data modeling.
You simply install and/or register the applications, and then you’ll see them on the External Tools ribbon, where you can access them easily. If these tools are new to you, I’ll guide you on how to work your way through the external tools and use them for an efficient and seamless experience.
First, I’ll share with you this tutorial made by one of the Enterprise DNA experts, Brian Julius, about structuring your External Tools menu effectively. In this tutorial, you’ll see the different applications that Brian have loaded that provide extended functionality.
Watch the full video tutorial below and see how Brian installs and adds some of these tools into Power BI Desktop.
One of the first external tools is the Tabular Editor. It has gone through some updates and the most recent one is the version 3. I’ll show you, through this next tutorial by Brian, on how amazing this tool is.
Brian got to try the preview version of Tabular Editor 3 in December 2020 and get into the beta program. He’s been using it every day now for the past few months and it has really revolutionized the way that he uses Power BI.
In this tutorial, Brian walks you through the basic features of the Tabular Editor Power BI version 3 (TE3) and shows you how it is going to change the way you use Power BI.
There are many external tools that have been recently developed and one of them is the Practice Dataset. This is one of the best Power BI external tools that Steven McGuire, from the Enterprise DNA forum, and Brian put together to help you with your structured practice.
In this tutorial, Brian talks about how this tool was built and how to download and install it. This tool creates a constantly updated 3-year dataset for structured DAX and PQ/M practice and to assist forum volunteers in formulating and testing solutions. Here’s the full video tutorial below.
Key Take Away
There are still so much more external tools to explore, and we are just scratching the surface here. These tools enable Power BI Desktop to have more capabilities, providing a lot of expanded functionality.
In this short post, I have shown you how to implement a number of different strategies and resources to maximize the power of the External Tools menu in Power BI. Check out the links below for more related content to better understand the usage of these tools.
All the best!
Sam
***** Related Links *****
What Is DAX Studio In Power BI Desktop
Use Tabular Editor To Create Calculation Groups In Power BI
5 Strategies To Enhance Your Power BI DAX Skills
***** Related Course Modules*****
Best Practices & Feature Reviews
Advanced Data Transformations & Modeling
***** Related Support Forum Posts *****
New External Tool to Create Practice Datasets
Analyst Hub External Tool For Power BI Desktop
Calling A Local File From The External Tools Menu
For more external tools to review see here…..
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