Sam Lester - SQL Server & BI Premier Field Engineer

As the Power BI Desktop team releases monthly updates, some new features are released as "Preview...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/28/2016

Power BI Desktop gets updated each month, packed with new functionality. When you encounter an issue...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/22/2016

If you encounter a product bug when working with Power BI Desktop, leverage the “Send a Frown”...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/19/2016

Today’s blog entry comes from the investigative work of my outstanding SharePoint PFE colleague,...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/18/2016

My Experience Completing the Microsoft Professional Program Certificate in Data Science Earlier this...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/13/2016

In a recent forum post at www.powerbi.com, a user asked how to locate the 32-bit Power BI Desktop...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/07/2016

Power BI - The Shape Map visual fails if a custom map contains non-Latin1 characters with the...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/05/2016

Power BI - Comparing Date Selection Visuals - Slicer vs. Timeline With the recent October 2016 Power...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/01/2016

Loading a Power BI report fails with error "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 10/25/2016

Installing Power BI Desktop through SCCM Over the past few months, my enterprise customers have been...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 09/30/2016

Happy Birthday to Power BI! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An_8wf4RwBw&feature=youtu.be Today...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 07/24/2016

Create your own personalized Twitter Analytics Dashboard in Power BI When I do Tweet the most? What...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 07/06/2016

Power BI - Which data center currently hosts my data? Where is my data stored now? I was recently...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 06/29/2016

Power BI - Using web pages as a Power BI data source to build your personalized MSDN/TechNet and...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 06/19/2016

So long AdventureWorks, we'll miss you! It's the end of an era for the SQL Server sample database...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 06/13/2016

Refreshing KPIs in SSRS 2016   The introduction of KPIs in SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 gives...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 04/25/2016

Power BI and SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 in an entirely On-Premises Environment Jan. 17, 2017...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 04/18/2016

Lately I've been doing a lot of work with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 in terms...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 04/18/2016

SQL Server 2005 extended support will end on April 12, 2016. After this date, Microsoft will no...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 03/11/2016

A question was recently asked in the MSDN Transact-SQL Forum about detecting the usage of...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 01/23/2016

After answering questions in the MSDN forums for the past 10 years, I was curious about which of the...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 01/15/2016

Connecting SQL Server Profiler to your Power BI Desktop Analysis Services Instance One of my...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 12/12/2015

Within one of the SQL Server environments that I support, we recently experienced a Windows Server...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/04/2015

SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 Unattended Setup Error - "The specified value 'Upgrade' is invalid" I...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 05/26/2015

The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 01/21/2014

The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 01/21/2014

The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 10/21/2013

The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 10/21/2013

SQL Server 2012 introduced several new system functions pertaining to the date and time data types....

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 09/23/2013

Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to help judge a great new online competition on...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/21/2013

Error: SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle fails to load columns with error "Loading columns...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 07/17/2013

How can I determine which SQL Server features and versions are on my computer? This continues to be...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 06/13/2013

I recently had a task to perform a bulk migration of hundreds of databases to Windows Azure SQL...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 12/08/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, today's topic will cover a...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 11/30/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, today we will tackle a numeric...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 10/23/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, today's topic will cover a common...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 10/10/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, today's topic will cover a...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 09/22/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, today's topic will cover a...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 09/10/2012

Introduction: As part of the blog series TSQL - Solve it YOUR Way, I will present a topic recently...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/28/2012

For many years, I have been an active contributor to the MSDN Forums, including one of my favorite...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/25/2012

The AdventureWorks database is a fictitious company database that has existed since SQL Server 2005...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/23/2012

As part of my series on creating databases with interesting characteristics for testing purposes, I...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/12/2012

As part of my series on creating databases with interesting characteristics for testing purposes,...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/08/2012

Over the past week, I've written a few entries regarding complex databases with interesting...

Author: Samuel Lester - MSFT Date: 08/07/2012

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