Power BI Premium to MS Fabric Primer

Power BI Premium allows all users in your enterprise to consume (use) reports, you buy licences separately for the report builders.

Two methods of getting report data: Import Mode (data is not live/real-time, and retrieval is fast) & Direct Query Mode (real-time data, but retrieval is slow)

All Power BI Premium subscriptions will automatically become MS Fabric during 2025. 

Direct Lake Mode

An additional method of querying, "Direct Lake Mode," combines the best aspects of both old methods for retrieving data.  Direct Lake Mode (real-time and fast data retrieval).

OneLake

• Storage is in Delta Parquet 
• Data is stored once, along with permissions, when copied into Fabric; the individual Lakehouses, warehouses, and transformations still rely on the original Parquet file data.
• Shortcuts create a virtual pointer to a variety of data types such as Snowflake, ADSL, ...

Great Visual Descriptions of the 3 options: Comprehensive Guide to Direct Lake Datasets in Microsoft Fabric

Copilots Explained

GitHub Copilot

Code Copilots: GitHub Copilot extensions in VS and VS Code.  Amazon Q Developer is an AWS code generator best for building code/ and solutions.  GitHub comes in 3 flavours: individual, Business and Enterprise.

GitHub explains code, optimises your code's performance, improves readability, generates unit tests, improves error handling, adds new code with requested functionality, ensures coding consistency, and improves modularisation to help with the DRY principle.

GitHub is the diggity bomb.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered Agent that assists with Microsoft 365 apps like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, and Teams. It leverages large language models (GPT-4 and GPT-4Pro) and your enterprise data through the Microsoft Graph.  To work with M365 Copilot, you need the M365 Copilot license, which is rather pricy, marked at $30 per user per month.  Access to Copilot studio

Copilot Pro

Aimed at individuals with a cost of $20 per month. It works with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook but not Teams.  No ability to customise with Copilot Studio.

Copilots in M365

Optimise results by preparing content!  Like docx, pptx and pdf files.  PDF, DOCX, XLSX (kindof), PPTX. Also works on csv, text, html, md files and wav audio files.  Supported file type.

Microsoft Copilot does not allow uploading images/pictures like ChatGPT does as of March 2025, but I don't doubt it is coming.  ChatGPT also can redraw (using DALLe)

RAG - Retrieval-Augmentation Generation basically indexes data into a Vector Index. Then, users can ask questions of the data source, and it retrieves the data in a formatted way for the requesting user.

RAG Explained.

Retrieval  - query the index/Knowledge source (Vector index)

Source/Vector Index supporting AI (body on knowledge to use)

RAG Grounding - is where accuracy is improved by anchoring the model's output to verify correct information.  Stop hallucinations.

Note/Thoughts:

• Index SharePoint documents in the Copilot can be in German or about 100 languages, and I can ask for them in English or other languages.
• Best to keep the source documents short.  
• Copilots in SPO love formatting, i.e., title and header.
• It does not read doc files but limits itself to the main document types. I need to verify this, as it seems wrong.
• Folders have no influence on Vector Search results. They are helpful in choosing sources and managing content but have no effect on vector databases.
• Neither does the depth of a document inside folders.  Vector data is based on the data in the document & the metadata.
• Content works best in tables if it makes logical sense.
• It's better to move Excel document data into Dataverse. Excel is iffy, so don't expect it to be excellent. Or Excel to PDF can work better. Remember to mark tables as tables in Excel (small tables; don't do massive worksheets). Limits are reached quickly.
• Copilot can also return images; it's new, so no doubt more to come...
• Support for Sensitivity Labels, set up so M365 copilot won't access highly confidential data or whatever policy you want.
• Agents can access the MSGrapgh Data, including emails and SharePoint Onedrive.

Prompt Engineering

Cooking up a great prompt: Getting the most from Copilot - Microsoft Support - How to ask Agents / Copilots..

SAP LeanIX Intro

• LeanIx is an SAP SaaS product that facilitates Enterprise Architecture (EA) in a business using dashboards and diagrams to aid decision-making.   
• To create the roadmap, align business goals with IT strategy by generating 'As is' and 'To be' architectures.
• Improve integration, reduce complexity and duplicate systems and make better decisions.

Note: Using LeanIX is an all in or don't bother tool.  LeanIx helps you get a complete view of your applications, business processes, and interactions with IT assets.

3 Products make up LeanIX:

1. Application Portfolio Management: The base product for recording the application landscape allows for inventory dependencies and identifying redundancies to optimise the application landscape.
2. Architecture and Roadmap: Using the Application Portfolio, visualise the 'As Is' and 'To Be' architectures and visualise impacts of change.
3. Tech Risk and Compliance: We check technology standards, and we can fund projects to help with data residency rule breaches.

12 Fact sheets, like the application fact sheet template, are essential. The meta model is the plan that shows how information in the fact sheets is interconnected.  

The "LeanIX Meta Model" at a high level shows the 4 EA architectural views:  

1. Data Architecture
2. Application Architecture
3. Business Architecture
4. Technical Architecture 

On top of the four architectural pillars sits Strategy & Transformation, covering:

• GAP & Roadmap, 
• Principles, 
• Requirements and Assumptions.

What I Like:

1. Inventory of Products and dependencies and link to documentation
2. Nice predefined reports and ability to collaborate with stakeholders
3. Visualise dependencies, excellent reporting capabilities

Note: LeanIX is based on The Open Group Architecture Framework, i.e. TOGAF.  TOGAF's Architecture Development Method (ADM) 

SQL Server on Microsoft Fabric

 Release to Public Preview in Nov 2024 and Ignite.

• SQL Server can be directly used/provisioned within MS Fabric.  This means you get your data instantly into OneLake for reporting, and you have a fully functional relational database.  
• Supports temporal tables (history)
• Enable GraphQL to allow secure OAuth access to the data.
• Stored Procs are supported, and GraphQL API can be enabled on each of them.
• Fully managed Service by Microsoft.

Introduction to ProjectWise and BIM

Overview: Bentley Systems is a leader in BIM and working with CAD documents. Bentley's BIM-compliant Document Management System (DMS) is ProjectWise.  BIM aims to improve collaboration between parties and ensure consistent, relevant information is available.  

Goals: Design, Coordinate and Collaborate.

ProjectWise Server

• Setup DataSource (separate databases), e.g. UK Archive, UK Projects, EU Projects
• Hierarchy for files (think Windows Explorer view of files)

ISO 19650

• Manage information (data & Assets) within an Infrastructure project.  Founded in the UK under BIM, it is now an international standard.  
• Strength is ensuring users are using the correct approved document (stop incorrect versions/info)
• All versions, comments, and updatedby recorded.
• Workflow has metadata to be filed for each phase/status change.
• BIM Statuses: 

1. WIP (draft) | Open - only a tiny part of the project team can see the document,
2. Shared | Review - This can be used by other teams so more people can see the files,
3. Published - all internal reviews completed.  And ready for the customer,
4. Archived - Completed 

Tip: Code folders and files within ProjectWise.

Workflows

• Can create custom workflows such as a peer review or technical approval.
• There is also the workflow that copies the document and moves it into the next BIM status Folder. So if I change the status in WIP, the document is copied along with its properties, and the major version is incremented.

ProjectWise 365 Services

1. ProjectWise Web Connections - Web 
2. Share - Share with 3rd parties
3. Deliverable Management - create the output for the customer, including comments made on documents
4. Project Insights - analytics on each project that can show if it is late or the status is not correct. 
5. Forms

ProjectWise Web

• Standard UI that shows the folder and file hierarchy and can search for files
• Attributes are just document metadata that is relevant to the file.
• Files can be checked in and out so they are locked to you.
• Link files in Deliverables or create Document Sets (basically group documents) into a file/container.
• Files can be assigned to workflows such as a peer review...

ProjectWise Drive

• Download and install on each laptop

• Can use Windows Explorer to work with files as if on the local machine (as if on an SMB file share)

BIM Dimensions

3D - Geometry (Drawing) including metadata such as width and weight and hierarchy

4D - Scheduling

5D - Cost Estimation

6D - Lifecycle

7D - Asset Management

Note: 360 - Is AutoCAD's equivalent to ProjectWise.

Big providers of technology for the BOM framework are Bentley and AutoDesk.

BIM Execution Plan (BEP)

Plan prepared to manage BOM activities

Agile Project Management Thoughts

Initially, this post was on keeping Project Management Simple.  This works well for small and medium-sized projects.  How I think Kanban boards are excellent, I like MS Planner as it's built into MS Teams and Outlook and stores project documentation within SharePoint connected to MS Teams.

There is a ton of sound Project Management software and approaches.  

Primavera (P6) - Oracle

Strong Project Management software focusing on the Construction and Infrastructure industry.  

Microsoft Project

A project management tool that offers advanced features such as tracking dependencies, costs, and complex project schedules. It is suitable for larger projects that require detailed planning and management. MS Project can be used in various forms, including Project for the Web, Project Online, and the Project desktop application.

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is a web-based planning application that allows you to assign and discuss tasks, manage tickets, and view progress charts. It is integrated with Microsoft Teams and Outlook, making it easy to organise team tasks and collaborate.

Problem-Solving (Explore/Interview Process to build IT solutions)

McKenzie Problem-Solving Approach

1. Define the problems
2. Find the root cause
3. Use “hypothesis-driven” process
4. Analyze with “issue tree”
5. Propose solutions

My preferred approach is the three-step Problem-Solving approach:

1. Problem
2. Initial Hypothesis
3. Proposed Resolution

Repeat until fixed/solved.

ProjectWise from Bentley - extend with Powershell

ProjectWise from Bentley - Document Management Software

ProjectWise is a Document Management Solution (DMS) from Bentley.  Its key use case is supporting BIM.

Architecture:  It appears to have a pretty old architecture with the ability to "webify" the DMS.  

Integration: There are APIs and Power Connectors, but they are extremely limited and not developer-friendly. You can also extend the capability using PowerShell. Be warned: Bentley does not support this, but the ProjectWise community does help to solve the issue.

There are add-ins for office software (word, excel, pptx) and some CAD products to make the BIM process easier.

This post outlines how I have extended ProjectWise to build out a pre-populated folder structure using PowerShell.  I then wrap the PS code in an HTTP Azure HTTP-triggered function to call.

Connecting to ProjectWise using PowerShell Example 1:

PS> Import-Module pwps_dab
PS> New-PWLogin -BentleyIMS

Federated login for PS

Note: You need to already have Bentley's federation auth set up on the local machine running the "CONNECTION Client."

Machine running PS must use the CONNECTION Client from Bentley and the user will be prompted to login.

Connecting to ProjectWise using PowerShell Example 2:
Login using Federated identity without a popup to select the datasource

PS> Import-Module pwps_dab
PS> New-PWLogin -Datasource 'org-pw.bentley.com:Org Delivery' -BentleyIMS

Connecting to ProjectWise using PowerShell Example 3:
Login with a local account - No Federated account needed.

PS> $Password = ConvertTo-SecureString "passwrdxxx" -AsPlainText -Force
PS> $Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("my_user_logical", $Password)
PS> New-PWLogin -Datasource 'org-pw.bentley.com:Org Delivery' -UserName $Cred.UserName -Password $Cred.Password

Below are two error codes that tell you if your datasource or login credentials are incorrect.

Example 3.  Error code: 32768 - Datasource not found.

Example 3, this item has the wrong credentials Error code: 58064.

To Review: 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-bim-workflow-importance-microstation-yassir-el-yaqouby-ltinf/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/uday-singh-5b18a2155/recent-activity/all/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bim-summary-day-1-introduction-what-building-modelling-uday-singh-d48xc/?trackingId=jVx9vtIRPnylCdD6UVE0ag%3D%3D

AutoDesk Revit

Revit 

Autodesk BIM 360

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/bim-manager-managing-bim-360

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/search?keywords=Autodesk%20BIM%20360

AutoDesk Construction Cloud

Procore - Project/Construction Management 

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/search?keywords=BIM