Distilled Side-Effects

Microsoft is often accused of not engaging with the open-source community, but this isn’t entirely true. There are several stable open-source tools available for Power BI Desktop. For those familiar with these tools, there are even more options, including some created specifically for Power BI in the cloud. Many of these tools are free and can be easily installed and learned. Among the ones listed below, three are particularly geared towards serious developers and can be used either standalone or integrated into environments like Visual Studio Code. These tools can help automate and simplify various tasks in your pipeline. It's important to note that, according to Microsoft documentation, "External tools aren't supported in Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server, and Microsoft will not provide support, even for paid subscribers, if the issue can be reproduced with Microsoft tools, such as SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), or sample code that uses the p...

Using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to clean data in Excel can significantly enhance your ability to automate repetitive data cleaning tasks. How to Use VBA in Excel Open the VBA Editor: Press `Alt + F11` to open the VBA editor. Insert a Module: In the VBA editor, go to `Insert` > `Module` to insert a new module. Copy and Paste Code: Copy the desired VBA code and paste it into the module. Run the Macro: Press `F5` to run the macro or go back to Excel, press `Alt + F8`, select the macro, and click `Run`. Here are some common data cleaning tasks you can automate using VBA in Excel: Removing Duplicates You can use VBA to remove duplicate entries from a dataset. Accessibility Text – vba Sub RemoveDuplicates() Dim ws As Worksheet Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1") ws.Range("A1").CurrentRegion.RemoveDuplicates Columns:=Array(1), Header:=xlYes End Sub Trimming Whitespace Trimming leading and trailing whitespace from data i...