Jun 21

Jun 21 The Impact Factor of Power BI External Tools

Kurt Buhler

Governance/Administration

IN THIS ARTICLE

When discussing external tools, we often reflect upon their need from a development point-of-view. Most users making their own datasets from Excel files don’t use or need external tools; there are likely many more datasets which have not been modified via XMLA read/write than those who have. However, many of these self-service datasets often have smaller reach & impact in an organization. Larger enterprise models have wider distribution and are commonly thought to require more advanced development, and thus external tools.

In this article, I reflect on the
importance of external tools & open source development for Power BI
. With regard to measuring how important a tool, feature or artifact is, I explore the need to consider the end-to-end
impact factor
over the primary usage metrics, to more accurately reflect the need it fills.

Helicopter view of a Power BI dataset ecosystem. Since External Tools are used in Enterprise Datasets, they have a higher impact factor.




- Introduction: The Need for External Tools
- The Challenge for External Tools
- Measuring use & need of features - thinking about impact factor instead of primary use

THE NEED FOR EXTERNAL TOOLS

When scaling a Power BI solution
, there comes a point where the out-of-the-box Power BI tools are not able to meet all challenges & needs. This is particularly true among enterprise solutions serving many users from a certified truth. Use-cases like batching/automating tasks, advanced DAX or model development, model optimization, source control, or even advanced or extended visualizations require use of third-party solutions to avoid costly custom development. For data model development, these
external tools
are commonly known among the Power BI development community. While some tools like
*Tabular Editor 3*
and
*Power BI Sentinel*
are commercially available, many tools like
*DAX Studio*
*,*
*

📌 The Impact Factor of Power BI External Tools (Jun)
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