Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 June 2012
If you're not sure when - or whether - you should be using report or group variables in SSRS, read this blog to find out how to speed up your reports and solve other problems.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 August 2012
A single report in Reporting Services can serve many masters. This blog shows how to allow a user to choose which data a report should display, using a dropdown parameter.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 August 2012
Create a matrix whose row, column and data fields are all selectable from dropdown lists.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 August 2012
To make report navigation easier, you can create a 2-dimensional matrix of clickable links at the top of a report. This blog shows you how!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 October 2012
By default SSRS will create files with extension .rdl.data to cache data. This blog gives two and a half ways to ensure you're always seeing the latest data in a report.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 April 2013
If your chart has more than a thousand data labels, this blog explains why you may experience problems.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 April 2013
How to store the name of each file in a folder in a SQL Server table using an Integration Services package.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 September 2024
If you have a colleague who trusts you, you could always betray this trust by sending them a workbook which misbehaves: it won't close and you can't leave it!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 12 August 2013
Deep within its bowels Excel contains a feature allowing it to read out the contents of cells (you can also get your VBA macros to talk to users). This blog goes to those deep places hidden within Excel!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 August 2013
A previous blog showed how to get Excel to speak to you; this one shows how to change the voice in which it does it!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2013
The SUMPRODUCT function is one of the hardest ones to understand in Excel, but it's also pretty useful. This blog gives clear examples of how to use SUMPRODUCT for conditional sums, weighted averages and the like.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2013
A short blog showing how to stop Excel hiding duplicate values for pivot table groups.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2013
Range names can have either worksheet or workbook scope - this blog shows how to make sure that you're referring to the right range names!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 November 2013
A short blog explaining how to use Visual Basic for Applications to loop over enumerations.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 November 2013
You can get at all sorts of system information within Visual Basic for Applications by using environment variables - this blog shows you how to get at your user's name, computer name and much more besides.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 January 2014
You can use VBA to extract data from web pages, either as whole tables or by parsing the underlying HTML elements. This blog shows you how to code both methods (the technique is often called "web-scraping").
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 19 February 2014
This blog provides the SQL, C# and VB script needed for the Integration Services script components tutorial.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 May 2014
Did you know that Excel workbooks are really just a collection of XML files, all zipped together? We didn’t either, so we thought we'd tell the world.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 July 2014
Integration Services include a Slowly Changing Dimension transform, which is designed to make loading dimension data easier. This blog explains how it works, and discusses whether it achieves its objectives.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 September 2014
I've already pinched (with permission!) the ideas of Fergus Cairns to explain ways to run automatic searches on popular websites like Google; this blog gives an update on the same topic.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 October 2014
Charts in VBA are a bit weird: this blogs highlights some of their foibles, by showing how charts are really just special shapes, which contain shapes of their own!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 July 2023
One owl's sad story of addiction to a simple computer game: a tale of lost time and lost sanity.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 December 2014
Using an existing flat file in SSIS is straightforward, but creating a new one can be a pain - this blogs gives some steps to follow.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2015
SSIS makes it easy to loop over files, but it's less obvious how to get at file attributes such as the date created or last modified date. To do this you'll need a scripting task, as explained by this blog.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2015
Referring to parameters by their numeric position in a list in SSIS is relatively easy, but there is a way to refer to them by name too, as explained in this blog.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2015
This blog explains how to send an email to every person returned from a SQL query.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 February 2015
How can you encrypt data flowing within an Integration Services package? We don't think you can, but here are a couple of ideas.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 September 2015
Arrows in your Integrated Services packages can go all over the place - learn how to control them in this short blog on formatting SSIS diagrams.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 September 2015
A short blog explaining how the Parse Query property and BypassPrepare property for an SSIS task are related.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 December 2015
There are two ways you can display an input box using Excel macros: the standard VBA InputBox function, or the much better (but lesser known, at least by this blog's author) Application.InputBox function.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 December 2015
This short blog shows that there is a third way to refer to a range, other than using the RANGE or CELLS keywords.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 January 2016
It's often useful to make connections point to different Excel workbooks or SQL Server databases, depending on the value you set for variables or parameters. This blog shows the underlying principle - it's up to you then to apply this in your workplace!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2016
It's not often that this owl learns new things about SQL when giving a course, but when I do, I like to share my new knowledge! This blog shows a new way to create aliases for columns in SQL.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 23 March 2016
It's only a small thing, but … this blog shows how you can click and drag with the ALT key held down, then type to apply a table alias to lots of tables simultaneously.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 April 2016
If you've been given the output from a pivot table or a cube, you can collapse it back into its original state using the UNPIVOT transform in Integration Services.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 April 2016
Looping over Excel workbooks is one thing, but how can you loop over all of the worksheets in a single workbook, importing the contents of each? This blog explains the steps you need to follow.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 September 2016
If you want to initiate (or take part in) a discussion on our website, you'll first need to create a post - and to do that, you'll need to register on our site. This blog explains how to do both these things!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2016
A short blog explaining how you can get Excel to read out values in cells every time that you recalculate a worksheet.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 September 2016
If you want to group items in a SQL query, showing a comma-delimited list of ids for each, generating an XML file is not the obvious place to start - but it should be.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 November 2016
This blog summarises how to run SQL statements in a Power BI Desktop query, using dynamic SQL to pass in parameter values
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 19 December 2016
There are a host of date-based functions in Power BI Desktop for producing cumulative figures, but how do you get running totals for non-date columns? This blog explains!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 19 December 2016
This blog differs from the Microsoft update summary in two ways: it omits preview and obscure changes, but goes into more detail (and gives practical examples) on mainstream updates.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 January 2017
This short blog explains how you can customise your quick access toolbar to display the path of the file that you are currently working on.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2017
A blog setting out an approach to coding in SQL to ensure consistently high standards across your organisation.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 February 2017
Everyone has a favourite system stored procedure (you do, don't you?). But five? That's the subject of this blog, anyway.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 March 2017
When you are programming in SQL, you often have the choice of using table variables or temporary tables. This blog considers whether one method is substantially quicker than the other (spoiler alert: not really).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 April 2017
Follow this blog to learn how to use an SSIS package to loop over the worksheets in an Excel XLSX workbook, importing the contents of each.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2017
If you've added an expression constraint to control flow in a package in Integration Services, this blog will show you how to display what the constraint does automatically.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 June 2017
There are a few ways to find the differences between two Excel worksheets. This blog considers 3 methods (using Excel formulae, using Query Editor and using the Inquire add-in).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 March 2024
Step-by-step instructions for how to show on your LinkedIn profile proof of the Wise Owl courses that you've attended.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 December 2017
Did you know that you can automatically generate multiple versions of a pivot table, with each one configured to filter by a different item? We didn't - this blog is an attempt to apologise for our oversight!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 December 2017
This short blog explains how to convert Julian dates to "normal" ones, and how the formula used actually works!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 December 2017
Introduced in Visual Studio, string interpolation allows you to linking different C# expressions contained in curly parentheses, with everything preceded by a dollar sign. This blog explains how to use this handy new short-cut.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 January 2018
If you get data in pivot (two-dimensional) form, you can unpivot it to get the underlying rows, and hence produce charts and visuals. This blog shows how!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 January 2018
If you're trying to project your screen at the front of a class, the Windows Magnifier lets people see what you're doing more easily.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 February 2018
You can use the IIF function in SQL as an alternative to the CASE WHEN statement. We thought we would share this new (for us) discovery with the world!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 February 2018
Report Builder and SQL Server Reporting Services are almost identical - which makes the small but important differences even harder to explain.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 February 2018
There seems to be an occasional bug in Report Builder which fills a table with blank rows. Here's one owl's way to get round it.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 23 July 2018
This blog shows how you can load the empty structure of a large fact table into an Analysis Services tabular data model, then use partitions to bring in the data bit by bit.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 23 July 2018
Need to generate a partition for a fact table for each year, product or region? This blog gives five approaches, so that you can choose which method is for you.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2018
Following a question from a Power BI course, this blog shows how you can get a page to show the top N customers by sales value, where N is a number controlled by a slicer.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 January 2019
This blog shows how to create fully dynamic reports, whereby users can choose which statistics to show and which dimensions to report them by.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2019
Someone has finally won our competition to think of a better acronym for the order of keywords in SQL, we're pleased to announce.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 May 2019
This blog explains why you might want to use the PARAMETERS tab in the Dataset Properties dialog box in SSRS.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 May 2019
All trainers live for that moment when someone's face lights up, as they learn something new which will change their working life for the better. This blog lists my 5 biggest such OOH moments from our Excel training courses. How many of these tips do you know?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 May 2019
If your stored procedures or SQL queries are running slowly, don't bother looking at correlated subqueries, cursors, functions or any of the other usual culprits. There's one SQL syntax which Wise Owl have found to be an order of magnitude worse than any other, as this blog shows.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 June 2019
If you're creating Reporting Services reports using multivalue parameters and stored procedures, you'll find this function to split a list of values into a single-table column useful.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 June 2019
When you're copying worksheets containing range names, Excel can detect conflicts and take you into a seemingly endless loop of Yes/No dialog boxes. This blog explains why this happens, and how to get out of the loop!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 June 2019
When you discover a new short-cut key, should you share it? This blog shows a way to bring up Intellisense for the arguments to user-defined functions in Excel VBA.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 June 2019
Some people are experiencing problems when trying to suppress screen updates while macros are running in Excel VBA, under Windows 10. This blog gives one possible solution.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 June 2019
This short blog highlights a quick way to copy the full path (including the file name) of a file in Windows Explorer.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 June 2019
If you want to spice up your emails or reports, use this Windows shortcut to insert emojis.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 June 2019
This month it's Shaun's turn to nominate the five best short-cut tips in Excel.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 July 2019
Did you know that you can view the SQL for a query in Power BI's Query Editor? Me neither!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 August 2019
Most people will be on either the monthly or semi-annual update channel for Office 365. This blog shows how you can find out which channel you are on, and how to change your channel.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 August 2019
For nearly all new Microsoft software updates Wise Owl are prepared to wait before commenting, but the new Office 365 icons are much harder to read and distinguish than the old ones!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 August 2019
The previous blog listing great OOH moments in Excel omitted one of the biggest - the absolute quickest way to create a chart.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 August 2019
Want to make a worksheet inexplicably change colour, and display strange text in cells? This blog explains how you can do this using the Normal style.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 August 2019
In addition to the Power BI preview features dialog box, Andy Gould has discovered two excellent new sources of information on forthcoming changes for Power BI, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 September 2019
How to create a new app to view your Google Analytics data in Power BI Service.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 September 2019
The CONCAT function makes it much easier to join columns together, while the STRING_AGG and CONCAT_WS functions make it easier to create things like comma-delimited lists.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 October 2019
It's fairly easy to create a simple Excel worksheet to chart your weight, but this master class shows you lots of tips and tricks to make the final result quicker to create and easier to use.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 October 2019
Power BI improves with each monthly update. Will it reach a point where SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) becomes redundant? This detailed blog compares the two products, and considers the future of SSRS.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 November 2019
If you're working with different time zones, the AT TIME ZONE keywords introduced in SQL Server 2016 will make your life much easier - this blog explains how they work.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 January 2020
After a huge investment of time and expertise, we're proud to announce that our first full online training course is now live on our website! The course shows you how to program in VBA in Excel, and is completely free (you don't even have to log in to follow it).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 January 2020
When we find new features which we didn't know about, we try to share them! Did you know that you can turn preview off when getting data? Or that you could left-click to drill-through? We didn't!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 January 2020
From SQL Server 2016 onwards you can choose to CREATE OR ALTER a procedure, trigger, view or function, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 January 2020
Microsoft have brought out a new SQL editor called Azure Data Studio, to act as a substitute for SQL Server Management Studio, but this owl cannot see any justification for its existence!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 July 2023
Microsoft have completely rewritten their Edge browser. The result is (by design) very similar to Chrome - you can even use Chrome extensions -but is probably even easier to use than Google's browser.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 February 2020
Simple Talk provide excellent how-to guides on any aspect of Microsoft software. We are proud to have contributed a series of articles explaining how to create DAX calculated columns and measures within Power BI.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 February 2020
Dynamic arrays are a new feature being rolled out in Excel 365. This blog explains how they work, and why they will make so many things in Excel easier.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 12 March 2020
This modest blog explains how you can tell Power BI to show all of the members of a dimension table (even the ones which have no corresponding data).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 March 2020
What happens when you combine the magic of speech recognition with the power of VBA? A user form which you can fill in without a keyboard!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 March 2020
We receive a fair few requests asking us to publish the answers to our exercises. We have now decided to do this, on the understanding that they are for your personal use only.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 March 2020
A website which includes help messages which don't, a password with ridiculous rules, an unhelpful timer, annoying default options for almost everything - thoroughly recommended!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2020
The ComicGen custom visual allows you to show one of two characters (Dee or Dey) in a variety of poses, and with a range of emotions. Excitingly, the poses and emotions can depend on your data, making these the most human of KPIs. Find out more in this blog!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 April 2020
Clients can now sign on to our website to see a full record of everything they've booked. Wondering if Anna in Accounts has been on an Excel course? Log on to find out!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 June 2020
Windows now lets you retrieve up to the last 25 things you've copied. It does this by keeping a clipboard history, from which you can paste items with a single keystroke.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2020
Did you know that Outlook doesn't include your Deleted Items folder by default when you search? This owl didn't until today!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
This month's modest update allows you to use Excel financial functions in DAX, show a gradient legend and change your slicer header, among other minor changes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 August 2020
Sadly we do occasionally make mistakes in our training, but when this happens we always try to correct them. Here, we explain that Power BI report page tooltips can in fact be any size.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 August 2020
What IS Power Apps? In this blog we try to convey the essence of this enjoyable product, so you can make the decision of whether to invest in it.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 August 2020
You can have great fun taking your favourite image (a picture of your loved one?) and pixellating it in VBA. The results are stored as RGB numbers in a workbook - what you do with them then is up to you!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 19 September 2020
This blog shows a simple way to export a Power Apps app without creating a solution. If you've got a fairly simple app without too many resources or data sources, it describes a much easier way to back up and restore apps than the standard export/import approach.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 September 2020
The XLOOKUP function has at least 7 advantages over an equivalent VLOOKUP function, as this blog shows. Convert to XLOOKUP now, and then convert your colleagues!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2020
Any software has things you love, and things you ... don't love so much. This blog covers the latter set of things!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2020
Power Apps is fun, as this blog tries to show. It consists of one owl's very personal take on the 5 best things about using the software.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 October 2020
The new Excel LET function lets you create variables to store the results of calculations, making formulae easier to read and quicker to calculate.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 October 2020
Following a question from a recent DAX course, here are 3 recommended YouTube tutorial channels to help you learn to master DAX.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 October 2020
Vancouver-based artist Tim Klein has used the fact that many jigsaws are based on the same template to create some truly weird and wonderful composite images.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 October 2020
What do you get when you combine the futuristic 3-dimensional mixed-reality environment created by the HoloLens 2 headset with Power BI reports? Read this blog to find out!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 November 2020
There's an uncanny correlation between the Mr Men series and the list of American presidents. Donald Trump comes in as Mr Rude, Barack Obama as Mr Cool … see how many correlations you can find!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 November 2020
This awesome game shows what's possible using bookmarks in Power BI (think of it as the sequel to Sam's 2019 Pin the Tail on Rudolf game).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2020
Inspired by a question from a course, in this blog Andy Brown builds up a measure to show cumulative totals for a calendar matrix, dotting his DAX i's and crossing his t's!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2020
Thanks to Simon Ranson for contributing this bit of trivia: what to type into your browser's address bar to turn it into a text editor.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 December 2020
You can now create and use anonymous functions in Excel (usually called "Lambda functions"). Learn how to add to the stock of Excel functions without having to learn any programming code!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 23 December 2020
Puzzled as to why there are two near-identical versions of Power BI Desktop? Wondering if web portal is anything like Power BI report server? Confused as to what a paginated report is? This blog answers all these questions, and more!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 14 January 2021
Did you know that you can write an EVALUATE DAX query in software like DAX Studio and then run it from within Power BI to create a new table? You do now!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 January 2021
How can you show each aggregate value in a group as a percentage of the highest aggregate value? This blog shows two ways to use DAX measures to solve this deceptively difficult problem.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2021
Follow this blog to construct your own word search, complete with a missing phrase spelt out by the unused letters!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 February 2021
My aim in this blog is to show how you can go about building any computer system from scratch (and not just a word search in Excel VBA). Along the way I've included lots of hints and tips!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 February 2021
Did you know that you can apply Snapchat filters to your Teams background? Or show a test card? Or send customised stickers? Read this blog to find out more ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 February 2021
Be careful of referencing measures in calculations when you have duplicate rows in a table! This blog explains why you might want to hang on to that unused primary key column.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 23 February 2021
Details of an impressive new Excel word search system which allows you to recreate a randomised grid every time you recalculate your formulae!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 February 2021
You know what an online course looks like as a delegate, but what happens at the Wise Owl end? We thought we'd shed some light on what goes on from a trainer's point of view.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2021
Not sure what to buy your loved ones for their birthday? How about a laptop which weighs 12 kilos and includes 7 screens?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 March 2021
How can you highlight the row in a table corresponding to the slicer value you've chosen? With a disconnected slicer and a clever measure!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 March 2021
If you're using SQL Server with compatibility level 130 or greater you can now use the new String_Split function to divide a comma-delimited string into a table of values.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 March 2021
Last month I blogged on a folding laptop with 7 screens; this week it's a five-inch fully-formed mini-computer.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 March 2021
A life-changing (or at least job-changing) new software update from Microsoft - you can now see a visual view of data flows in Power BI (at least in the online version, anyway).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2021
Is this the next thing in laptops? Meet a laptop which you can break down into its component parts, each of which you can easily replace.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2021
What happens when you want an aquarium AND a laptop, but are short of space? Sadly, the answer is that you get a computer in a fish tank.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2021
ZoomIt allows you to use keystrokes to zoom in and out in any Windows program, and allows you to draw or write on screen.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 May 2021
Our website quotes an impressive figure for our average feedback from courses given, but how is this calculated, and how can you know that it's accurate?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 19 May 2021
Want to use your pet's picture for a column chart? This blog shows how to create stacked picture charts in Power BI using the powerful Infographic custom visual.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 June 2021
This is the blog which I wish I could have read before starting to integrate Stripe payments on our website! It explains why I'm ultimately glad we went for Stripe, but also some of the things which are harder than they need to be.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 June 2021
How wide is too wide when it comes to a computer monitor? Perhaps the answer depends on the size of your desk, but you'll need plenty of space for this monster.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 June 2021
DAX contains a number of incredibly useful hidden short-cut keys, allowing you to move lines, comment code and much more!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 July 2021
You can now share your screen in Teams, and have your floating head appearing on top of it (the effect is weird if you're the presenter).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 July 2021
Small multiples are mini-charts shown in a two-dimensional grid, with each chart showing the state of play for a different field's value. After a number of improvements small multiples have finally emerged from preview!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 July 2021
How to use the #shared keyword to bring up a list of all of the M functions in Power BI Query, and then use this list to create your own help table or even your own function.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 July 2021
Do you know why World Emoji Day is held on July 17th each year? Or how to see the world's emojis being tweeted in real time? Or that Microsft are trying to resurrect Clippy the paper-clip as an emoji? These are just 3 of the 9 fascinating facts explained in this blog!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 July 2021
You may know about What 3 Words, which allows you to pinpoint your location in the world using just 3 words. Now there's Four King Words, which does the same for the UK and Ireland using just 4 swear words.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 August 2021
The Stuxnet worm was one of the most sophisticated bits of software ever written. Find out exactly how the US and Israel used it to target Iranian uranium centrifuges, and see the implications this has for us all.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 August 2021
The IKEA blue Frakta shopping bag is iconic, and everywhere. Here are 5 suggestions (not always totally serious) for how you can recycle your IKEA bags!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 August 2021
How does Python compare with other programming languages like C#, VB or SQL? This blog looks at the differences we've come across in preparing our Python courses and videos.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 September 2021
Some of the sites on this page will make you laugh, and some make you shake your head, but they should all entertain you for a moment or two!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 October 2021
How to solve the problem that Visual Studio Code can't find a module that you've imported.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 October 2021
This blog shows how you can use Python to loop over all of the emails in a folder in Outlook, saving the attachments for each to your hard disk.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2021
You can add a tab for a Power BI report within a Teams channel, and also share a report from Power BI Service within Teams - this blog shows you how to do both these things!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2021
Consumers of your reports can alter filters, but you can change an option to prevent these changes persisting for other users.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2021
In Power BI Service you can now create personal bookmarks to retain any changes you've made to filtering for a report.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2021
To commemorate the rather dubious International Keyboard Short-Cut Day 2021 (the first Wednesday in November of each year, apparently), we offer the 10 Windows key short-cuts which will save you the most time.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 November 2021
Power Automate Desktop allows you to automate any common sequence of tasks that you perform in Windows, and has the potential to change your working life. So what is it?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 November 2021
Tired of doing repetitive tasks at Christmas? This blog shows you how to create a Power Automate Desktop flow to send emails out to your nearest and dearest programmatically, with each email including instructions on how they should use the gifts they've been given.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 November 2021
You can use SQLCMD mode to parameterise the connection, database name, table name and select columns for a query - and much more besides, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 November 2021
This blog shows how to generate a table which includes not only all of the dates in your data model, but also a range of aggregator columns such as financial year and month name for reporting purposes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 November 2021
To celebrate the 10th birthday of our video channel we've created this infographic, showing for example that the number of hours spent watching our videos would have covered 2,949,152 views of the first episode of Squid Game.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 November 2021
Ten reasons why Python is a better programmng language than C# (and most other languages), as well as two reasons why it might not be.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 December 2021
A summary of how to package up your Python program (including any referenced modules) into a single executable file.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 17 December 2021
This blog shows you various ways in which you can loop over the columns of a pandas dataframe, and also explains how to loop over the rows of a dataframe (together with why you should avoid doing this!).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 January 2022
We have launched two new courses: a two-day Advanced Power BI (Reports) course for report authors, and a two-day advanced Power BI (Data) course for data modellers.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 January 2022
You can use these hidden gems to reassign or disable keys on your keyboard, detect pixel colours in a website, display a Windows short-cut key guide … and much more!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 January 2022
The Wordle bandwagon is rolling fast downhill, but we managed to board it. This blog shows one Wise Owl's current stats, and links to our Power BI, Python and Excel VBA versions of this web-based word game.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 January 2022
Can you play Wordle in Power BI? Of course you can! This blog explains how you can get Power BI to do something which it is eminently unsuited to do!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2022
A modest Python program to mimic the popular online Wordle game, using a Tkinter form and some basic classes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
2022 marks the 30th anniversary of Wise Owl Training. Much has happened since we started work in a basement in South Manchester!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 February 2022
This blog lists our 5 worst moments from the first 30 years of Wise Owl, and the 5 bits of advice these would prompt me to give to anyone thinking of starting their own business.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
Much has changed in the 30 years Wise Owl has now been in business - and nowhere more so than in the software that we teach. Take a trip with us down memory lane to remember past applications!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
Wise Owl have come a long way since we started in a basement in Chorlton-cum-Hardy 30 years ago. We thought we'd retrace our steps …
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
A look at how the nature of our clients has changed over the twenty or so years for which we've been recording data.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
Our archived websites only go back to 1998, sadly, but this still offers a fascinating (well, for us anyway) peek back into the past.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 February 2022
The February update enables the big new formatting pane in Power BI by default, as well as introducing changes to mobile view and multi-row cards.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 February 2022
Last month we introduced you to Wordle written in Python, Power BI and Excel; here are a clutch of other alternatives to this popular word game.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 March 2022
There are no significant new features announced in March's Power BI Desktop update, although error bars for line charts are now in preview.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
It can be hard to track down that elusive animal, the Power BI Updates schedule, but we've found two hidden in the Internet undergrowth
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
After shortages of semi-conductors caused by COVID and other global supply problems, are Excel worksheets the latest resource to feel the pinch?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
To help understand what software can do, it can be useful to look at its strengths and weaknesses - which is what this blog aims to do for Power Automate Desktop!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
How can you pass a value from Power Automate Desktop to a Python script, and then get the results back? This blog explains how.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
Emma Howard recently attended a Python course with us, and has sent through a photo of her cat enjoying the courseware manual.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2022
Need an idea for a present for the nerd in your life (which may or may not be yourself)? Here are 3 our favourite geek humour T-shirts (and one bonus Wise Owl one!).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2022
If you have a Power Automate Premium account you can share flows there, but otherwise this blog shows you how you can copy and paste flows between different users.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 March 2022
Marco Russo of sqlbi.com is a (the?) expert in Power BI, so any new tool announced by him has to be worth consideration. Bravo is a new Power BI add-in which lets you analyse your data models, format your DAX, automate the creation of date tables and export data model tables to Excel.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 April 2022
A small update this month, with the main change being the addition of a few formatting options for matrices and chart legends.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 April 2022
A 146-page document online summarising forthcoming changes to the Micrsooft Power Platform
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 April 2022
Did you know that you could use Power BI as a tool to scrape websites, using the Html.Table M function? We didn't either until now!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 April 2022
Get a preview of the 3 text functions and 11 array functions coming to your version of Excel very soon!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2022
Changes are coming to your version of Excel! The navigation pane is excellent, while sheet view will help you work on files being reviewed in isolation.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2022
If you're a fan of Boolean algebra, or are in two minds about Schrodinger's cat, these Ts are for you!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2022
What happens when you try to defy gravity in Python, and why Excel sometimes creates worksheets with foreign names
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 May 2022
Small improvements this month, but welcome ones - particularly the ability to zoom in and out, and to select data points in (some) charts using a selection rectangle.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 May 2022
Bored in your lunchtime? See if you can guess films from condensed five-second clips or from up to 6 still photographs, or songs from clips lasting for as little as one second.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 May 2022
See how many reams of paper in weight Sam and Shaun lost, who won their competition and what they now look like without their beards!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 June 2022
Power BI and Tableau are the two leading BI tools, but how do they compare? We've teamed up with Steve Adams of Viz DJ to find out!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2022
This month sees a smattering of new features, including nicer-looking tables, a new data hub and story-telling in PowerPoint.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2022
Much has changed in the 2 years since we first launched our Power Apps course - this blog is intended to give previous course delegates a chance to catch up on anything you might have missed!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2022
Following last month's high-level comparison between Power BI and Tableau, what aspect of these two popular BI software tools would you like us to focus on next?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 June 2022
An explanation of why our current HTML editor needed replacing, how we decided what technology to go for and the solution we ended up adopting.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 June 2022
If you need to build a GUI system in Python, PyQt5 is probably the best choice, but don't take our word for it - read this blog and see what you think.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 June 2022
This blog will be updated in the next few days.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 June 2022
It's a tad confusing having two software applications from Microsoft with such similar names, particularly when they do such different things! This blog tries to clear up the confusion.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 June 2022
If you’ve been following the saga of the weight-loss competition between Sam and Shaun, you'll be wondering whether the loser got a tattoo showing the winner's name. Wonder no longer!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 July 2022
Watch Jacob Chandler from Oregon pick out each letter from a tin of alphabet spaghetti in a little over 2 minutes!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 July 2022
Andy B claims to be good at only two things in life: crosswords and time management. Having blogged about the first before, it's time to give some tips on how to make your working life more efficient.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 July 2022
Will you soon need to modify a downloaded file's before you can run macros contained in it? Yes … and then no (and now maybe).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 July 2022
You can now display error bars in charts, as well as formatting them and adding error labels.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 July 2022
Microsoft have released a completely new version of Outlook to some beta channels, parts of which will look familiar to you if you already use Outlook.com. This blog shows you what you can expect to see!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 July 2022
A new Excel feature allows you to get data from pictures (you can even review the suggestions before finally inserting the data into your spreadsheet).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 September 2022
There's a tiny change to conditional formatting of data labels this month, but that's about it!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 September 2022
Worried that you're having to type in your second language, English? Help is at hand, with these two specialist Lord of the Rings keyboards.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 September 2022
We review the new Wise Owl bean-to-cup coffee machine, and (at the other end of the scale) a £54,000 samovar for serving tea.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 September 2022
Four examples of using spill arrays to introduce elegance solutions into your spreadsheets.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 September 2022
Did you know that you could combine range names and legacy Excel 4 functions to list out the worksheets or range names in your workbook - wthout using macros? I didn't either - here's how to do this, and much more!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 September 2022
This blog shows how you can create a flow in Power Automate to send yourself a notification whenever someone makes a change to a file in a given OneDrive folder (the blog is designed to give you a good overview of what working with Power Automate is like).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2022
You can now format reports differently for mobile view and display X axis labe`s hierarchically by default. One other tiny change is that default column titles in tables now include the summarisation method used.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2022
Sure, you often turn to StackOverflow to find why a formula isn't working, but are you missing a trick? The site can also help you design solutions to cope with a zombie apocalypse.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 October 2022
SQL Server 2022 is now in preview (you can download an evaluation copy). It includes new functions to split strings, trim text and truncate dates, among other things.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 October 2022
Another small update, allowing you to reverse the stack order of column charts and edit DAX formulae in model view, but not much else.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2022
Microsoft Forms is a joy to use! This blog will show you how to create and distribute a survey or quiz, and the type of whizzy features that you can build into it.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 October 2022
Notepad is a well-known text editor, but is less well-known for its capacity to host games of Doom - with good reason.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 October 2022
To try to show what developing Power Automate flows is like, we've created two blogs: one listing out its 5 best features, and one listing its 5 worst ones. This is the pessimistic one!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 October 2022
A separate blog lists the 5 worst things about Power Automate; this more positive blog lists its 5 best features!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 November 2022
This blog gives the background to Microsoft's decision to roll out Office Scripts, and explains why you might want to learn how to automate Excel using scripts, rather than VBA (and how you'd then go about doing this).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2022
Last month we sent out a survey - here are the results, showing a) how Microsoft Forms allows you to report on survey data and b) what people think of us!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2022
Words.Net is a utility which allows you to build and edit Microsoft Word documents in C# rather than VBA. Should you adopt it? Read this review to find out!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2022
Wise Owl (and Sam specifically) presented a sample Power BI report that we had created to APSE in Blackpool - take your place in the audience!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2022
What happened to our PyQt5 editor? Well - not much, sadly. We've given up on this approach now and are reverting to a website solution - this blog explains why.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 December 2022
This update includes the roll-out of field parameters, separate Y axes for small multiples and new DAX debugging functions - and a new colour for Power BI!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 December 2022
Not sure whether to choose Report Builder paginated reports for printing or Power BI interactive ones for showing on screen? Now you don't have to choose, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 December 2022
We've added sections on Power Apps and Power Automate to our two-day Advanced Power BI (Data) course, and downgraded 3 topics to be covered only if time allows to make room for these.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2022
The Orb X gaming chair comes with a leather chair, support for 3 screens, surround sound and much more besides, and will be the perfect Christmas gift for the geek in your life when it becomes available for purchase.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2023
This update make slicer formatting much more consistent (a welcome change), and introduces 3 fairly complex new DAX functions (OFFSET, INDEX and WINDOW).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2023
Can you remove all of the formatting that you've applied to a visual? Apparently you can, although this new feature was never announced in an update.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2023
It's taken a long time, but you can now finally get a downloadable PDF file of your Wise Owl course manual, to go with the paper copy.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2023
Although we currently just train in T-SQL for SQL Server, there are many other dialects of this database language: such as MySql and PL/SQL, for example. Which ones would you like Wise Owl to run courses in?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2023
Microsoft have sneaked in a new short-cut key to invoke the Power Query Editor, but in the course of researching this we also unearthed 4 other key combinations which we suspect even diehard Excel users may not know about.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2023
You've always been able to add images within worksheets, but now for the first time you can add them within cells - which is strangely satisfying!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2023
We're delighted to welcome Simone Tyler-Gould as our new part-time marketing manager!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 February 2023
If you turn on this experimental feature in Edge you can show two webpages side by side (you can even choose what proportion of the screen each side occupies).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 February 2023
Learn how to get individual Excel cells to contain sparklines to show trends, how to display column charts or win/loss charts instead, how to play about with grouped charts, how to change sparkline formatting and how to customise sparkline axes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 February 2023
There are quite a few changes in this month's update, but none of them will change your life that much!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 February 2023
Not sure when you should be using a semi-colon or apostrophe? Consult this entertaining cartoon style guide from The Oatmeal!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 February 2023
You may have come across XKCD line-drawing cartoons in your website travels, but did you know that there's also a site dedicated to explaining the science behind them?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 March 2023
We have removed all but a few core tests from our skills assessment site - this blog explains the implications if you're a user of the site.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2023
Artificial Intelligence has always disappointed me - the future of humanity has always seemed secure against the machines - until now …
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2023
Microsoft have made a slew of announcements about how they will be using ChatGPT to incorporate artificial intelligence into their software, including Copilot within Microsoft 365, AI search within Bing and intelligent Power Platform virtual agents (chatbots).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2023
Microsoft Loop allows you to create "workspaces" for project and share "components" across all online Microsoft applications. Might it be also intended as a replacemet for the ageing SharePoint?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2023
Don't want people to see your face on screen, but still want to prove you're at a Teams meeting? You will soon (sadly) be able to get an avatar to represent you, even to the extent of reproducing your movements.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2023
It's not often that a single Power BI update has such a big impact, but on-object interaction (waiting in preview) is a huge change
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 March 2023
This month's update is impressive - including visual subtitles, a button action to clear and apply slicers and a new PowerPoint story-telling feature - but it's the on-object interaction in preview which will truly change your life.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 March 2023
See if you can identify the 15 films depicted - your chances of winning our prize will be proportional to the number you can name!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 April 2023
iPhone users will soon be able to make calls and answer messages on their laptops, with the release of Phone Link for iPhones.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 April 2023
You can customise the Edge sidebar to let you launch programs like WhatsApp or RightMove easily on your laptop, and also use it to drag and drop files or text between your computer and your phone.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 April 2023
When you select part of a formula in Excel, a values preview tooltip now appears showing you what the results would be for this if you calculated it (removing the need for you to press the F9 key).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 April 2023
In addition to writing recipes, poems and software for you, AI tools can also create images too. Want to see an anteater in a red hat? We did!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2023
The SQL Prompt utility from Redgate has an annual subscription cost, but on the plus side it will complete tedious joins for you (among many other things).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2023
After a few false starts we have finally created our web-based HTML editor using TipTap. It's been one of the hardest IT projects we've embarked upon, so we thought we'd share our learning experiences in the hope that they will save others our pain.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2023
We had 27 entries for our Easter 2023 picture rebus competition - we hope you had as much fun solving it as we did creating the puzzles!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2023
Find the Taylor Swift songs hidden in our grid to enter this month's competition (and perhaps win our £50 prize!).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 April 2023
Modern visual tooltips are still officially in preview, but since they're turned on by default we've included them in this update. The update also includes composite models, some new DAX functions and a small change to PowerPoint story styling, but it's the big beasts lined up in preview which are (as always) the real story.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 June 2023
Google have launched a new AI tool called Bard, which is similar to the much-publicised ChatGPT tool from the OpenAI foundation. I thought I'd put both tools to the test!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 June 2023
One of the immediate and obvious ways to use AI tools is to boost your productivity as a programmer. This blog shows how you can use ChatGPT 4 and Google's Bard to write programs in SQL, Python, VBA, JQuery and Office Script (probably the 5 languages Wise Owl use most).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 June 2023
Find out who won last month's newsletter competition, what people's favourite Taylor Swift songs are and why her elbows are so special!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 June 2023
While browsing through forums (as one does) we found what must surely be the most complicated Excel formula. At 1,860 characters long - and combining some of the most complicated Excel functions - it's a true Excel monster. Unless you can do better?!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 June 2023
The big event this month is the (long-awaited) release of Azure Maps, but the May 2023 update also includes the official launch of the Optimize ribbon and allows you to use measures as data labels, among other changes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 June 2023
It may seem a little OTT, but you can use your favourite AI tool as a calculator - as long as you don't mind if the answers are sometimes not quite right!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 June 2023
Microsoft have introduced an impressive new card visual in the June 2023 Power BI Desktop update, which blows the old (rather feeble) card visual out of the water!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 June 2023
The June Power BI Desktop update includes an impressive new card visual, but on-object interaction (the new formatting feature which will change your working life) is still in preview, for now.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 June 2023
We've introduced a new (shorter) two-day Introduction to Python course, a (longer) three-day advanced course and created a three-day fast-track course for those who want a more intensive learning experience.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 July 2023
What connects the ability to high-five in Teams, the inclusion of Excel in EVE Online, a new default font in Office and pricing policy for the new Microsoft AI Copilot feature? This blog!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 July 2023
You can now exchange high-fives in Teams: the first of a planned family of "together emojis".
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 July 2023
At Wise Owl we are passionate about short-cut keys - both using them, and sharing discoveries about them with our newsletter readers. Imagine our excitement when we found these gems that you can use when browsing the Internet!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 21 July 2023
We have 15 more films for you to identify from cryptic picture clues - something to while away the time while you sit on the beach, by the pool or in the office this summer - and there's a prize to be won too!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 July 2023
The July update contains smoothed and leader lines for charts, which are very welcome, but on-object interaction remains elusively stuck in preview ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 August 2023
Congratulations to Denzil Foakes of Skanska for winning our second film title rebus competition, out of a field of 24 entries. Here are the answers to the riddles!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 August 2023
A holiday season update with only two small changes: new icons to switch between mobile and normal layout, and a new scaling option for bubble charts (surely on-object formatting will go live soon?).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 August 2023
A substantial proportion of Wise Owls had never heard of either of these life hacks. Don't live in ignorance like we did (the texting trick in particular may change your life).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 August 2023
You can now download a PDF file listing our provisional schedule of courses for the next 12 months, up to the end of August 2024
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 August 2023
If you subscribe to the Excel Beta Preview channel (and are lucky) you can now insert Python code within Excel. The rest of us may have to wait a bit for the official release, but the wait will be worth it, as this blog shows.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 August 2023
Should you write your SQL queries in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Azure Data Studio (ADS)? Read this blog to find out!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 September 2023
We've been teaching SQL to advanced level for a long time now, but it's always been using Transact SQL (T-SQL), the Microsoft SQL Server dialect. If you have a MySQL database we can now teach you using your correct dialect and coding environment (let us know if you are interested in PostgreSQL, PL/SQL for Oracle or any other dialect).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 September 2023
The biggest change in this month's update is that you can now edit mobile reports interactively, but it's the new DAX brackets colours we're most excited about!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2023
If you have a large, modern cinema-style TV in your living-room, the chances are that it's probably 65 inch. Maybe it's time to upgrade to a 135 inch one?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2023
Since Andrew Gould started our video channel (way back in November 2011) we've had over 27 million views and clocked up over 3.2 million viewing hours, but it's the latest subscriber milestone that we're most proud of.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2023
You can now use Microsoft's keyboard app to generate AI images on your phone - it's great fun! Sadly you can only do this on Android for now (although you can use lots of other good AI features of the app on IPhones).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 September 2023
5 friends went trick-or-treating (nothing like a topical puzzle!) in costume to 5 different houses, and were given 5 different treats - but can you work out who got which treat, where and wearing which costume? The first entry picked by our Randomised and Independent Sorting Hat Information System (RISHI S) will win a £50 Amazon voucher.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 September 2023
A look at some of the features coming soon to Power Query (as always with Power Query, you should pay attention to the online version, which seems to get all changes first), such as a conditional split transform and easier selection of SharePoint sites.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 October 2023
You have to tweak Power BI a bit, but you can now generate quick measures using Microsoft's AI Copilot tool (which will be coming to all 365 applications over the coming months). In this blog we see if it works, and if your job is in danger ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 12 October 2023
After 25+ years of using and training in Excel, I have nothing new to learn. Or that's what I thought, until on a recent course a delegate asked me why I was merging cells to make titles ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
The problem with AI tools like Chat GPT is often having the imagination to think how to use them. To give you some ideas here are 5 ways in which you can use image-based AI questions in Chat GPT for general questions, cookery queries, travel updates, website design help and medical enquiries.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
This month sees a new feature allowing you to save reports to/open reports from OneDrive and SharePoint, but (again!) it's the new features waiting in preview which will be of most interest to most report-builders.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
It's in preview at the moment, but it's worth knowing that a new model explorer is coming to Power BI proper soon. This is a good thing, but the calculation groups which will also now be available are not for the faint-hearted!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
The way in which you interact with Power BI when creating and opening reports is about to change, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
Did you know that the Chrome T-Rex dinosaur is the basis of a game? Or that you could surf in Edge? Or drive on any browser? Wise Owl Training: wasting one of your lunchtimes at a time ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
When you try to browse to a webpage that doesn't exist, you will see the dreaded 404 page: but don't have to be dull, as these 5 examples prove.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 October 2023
We received 26 correct entries for this logic puzzle - have a look at the answers to the puzzle (and the winner of this month's prize).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 October 2023
As part of her pre-course checks to assess the suitability of delegates for online training, Jenny gets people to spend no more than 60 seconds drawing in Paint using a computer via Remote Desktop. The results are sometimes astonishingly good - so good that we've decided to reward the best drawing with a prize.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 October 2023
Not happy with how you look? Why not create an idealised avatar of yourself in Teams, which can then replace the real you?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2023
On a recent course I was asked what happens when a Power Automate flow times out. After a bit of research, the obvious answer is to avoid this happening by changing the flow's time-out setting and then handling this in another action.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 November 2023
A nostalgic look back at how our areas of work have changed over the last 30+ years (in 1992 no one was writing blogs or creating videos ... !)
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 November 2023
Although our new website is functionally still pretty much the same, it looks completely different. This blog explains why we made the change and the issues we faced.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 November 2023
Power Automate now includes Copilot, Microsoft's AI tool to help you generate flows and actions. But is this a good thing?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 November 2023
The new flow designer in Power Automate is now turned on by default, which isn't necessarily a good thing, as this blog explains.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 November 2023
After every training course I have to manually delete every flow from every delegate's computer. This takes ages, and stresses me out. There must be a better way ... mustn't there? Maybe I should write a flow to delete all my flows?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 November 2023
How to export a flow from one account and import it into another in Power Automate
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 November 2023
Microsoft Graph is the (strange and misleading) name for the gateway provided by Microsoft to get at all of the things stored in your 365 cloud (emails, files, users, groups, teams and much more). This tutorial explains what Graph is in more detail, and shows how you can call Graph from within Power Automate flows.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2023
If you're struggling to think of a present for the nerd in your life (yourself?), here are 3 ideas to help you: a game, a book about games and a book about murder mystery puzzles.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2023
Wise Owl have form for developing games in VBA (remember Flappy Owl, anyone?), but Tom Hedge has taken this one stage further by providing a portal to 3 popular games from a single webpage.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2023
Although the main innovations in this update are in preview, two of them are turned on now by default: button slicers and reference labels for cards. We also can't resist the temptation to show the new DAX query view, even though it's still very much in preview only.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 December 2023
To reflect our increased costs we are (sorry) increasing our prices for scheduled courses to take effect from now (although if you book any course before Christmas 2023 we will keep to our pre-incresae prices, even if it takes place in 2024).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2024
Do you hate OneDrive as much as I do? I doubt it. How about those extra dialog boxes which appear in Excel, Word and PowerPoint whenever you want to open or save a file, called Backstage view? This blog gives some welcome ideas for reducing the intrusion of unsolicited OneDrive dialog boxes into your working life.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2024
If you have something to say about the content of one of our web pages, you can now say it with pictures! Implementing an HTML editor which accepts images is not easy, but we're pleased to say we've now incorporated this feature within this site.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2024
Congratulations to Paul M of Rochdale Borough Council for winning our New Year quiz (and a £50 voucher). This blog shows which questions were the easiest and hardest, and gives some background information and analysis.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 February 2024
See if you can name the 5 Abba songs identified in these pictures, and win a £25 voucher to boot!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 January 2024
If anyone rang the office on Monday 29th January and wondered where we were - here's the answer!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2024
It's time to bite the Power BI bullet and revamp our courseware (our last update was nearly two years ago).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2024
This update includes lots of updates to the formatting of bar/column charts, even more data label formatting options and better clustered bubble chart formatting for Azure Maps.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2024
We've discovered two (more) Windows short-cut keys which will help you work with multiple screens - and there's also a new Copilot key coming to your keyboard soon.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 February 2024
A series of steps that you can follow to convert UK format postcodes into latitude and longitude data for use in Power BI Desktop visuals.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2024
Chat GPT now incorporates a range of mini GPTs dedicated to different tasks. We put a few through their paces, so that you don't have to!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2024
There's a famous sentence which reads "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana". It turns out that this is just one example of a sentence deliberately designed to lead you up the garden path ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2024
A review of websites whose UI is bad by design (and often very funny as a result), including hard-to-use Captchas, irritating volume controls and date-pickers designed to exasperate.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2024
Power BI is a nightmare to teach, as it keeps changing! Our policy is to update our courseware roughly every 18-24 months; this blog contains details of our latest huge update, and how it will affect delegates on our Power BI courses.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 March 2024
The Azure map visual has been an official part of Power BI now for nearly a year, and the initial teething problems have now been ironed out. This blog shows how to use the Azure maps visual, and explains why you don't now need to use any of the other map visuals in Power BI.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 March 2024
Two little tricks to change the order of columns in SQL Server Management Studio and Power BI Query Editor, which (to our shame?) we've only just discovered.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 March 2024
Last month we asked you to identify 5 Abba songs from cryptic pictures. Out of 16 correct entries our randomised sorting hat chose the name of Alison Palmer of Devon Council, who wins a £25 voucher. An explanation of the answers follows!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 March 2024
The only big change in the February 2024 update to Power BI Desktop is that "Power BI Home in Desktop" is now enabled by default, but the exciting new visual calculations feature is also now waiting in preview.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 March 2024
While doing a thorough site audit we came across some pages which we no longer link to, but which we don't want to lose. This blog ensures that you (and Google) can still get to them!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2024
There are updates to on-object interactions and visual calculations this month, but these major new features still remain in preview. This leaves small changes to data bar and data label formatting - and a new way of doing row-level security - as the only signficant changes in this month's update.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 April 2024
Don't consider yourself to be musical? Think again! Now everyone can unleash their inner Taylor Swift, using the Suno plug-in within Copilot.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 April 2024
Want a complete list of all of the AI tools available for you to use? Here's a website which lists 32 tools just for sarcastic conversations alone!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 April 2024
How one determined person embedded the published ChatGPT 2 source code and weightings within an Excel workbook to give an insight into how AI works
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 April 2024
Microsoft would much prefer it if everyone switched to a subscription model for Office licensing, but they aren't abandoning the sale of standalone software applications just yet.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 April 2024
The Ajelix Excel AI tool claims to help you generate formulae in Excel - so we put it to the test
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 April 2024
On-object interaction remains stubbornly in preview in Power BI, but it's been steadily updated since we last blogged about it, so we felt it was time for this catch-up.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 May 2024
We've created two new sections in our website: to house full-blown tutorials and (at the other extreme) short tips.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 May 2024
Our grid contains 24 hidden thematic treats. Once you've found them all, the unused letters will spell out a message. Email this to us and you have a change of winning a £50 voucher!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 May 2024
Congratulations to Samantha Wareham of Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust for winning our Easter quiz (out of the 47 answers received, hers was the entry chosen by our randomised Excel sorting hat). You can see some further analysis of the answers in this blog.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 May 2024
The April 2024 Power BI update includes a new 100% stacked area chart visual and some minor new line chart formatting options - but still none of the big beasts lurking in preview!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 08 May 2024
You can now add Copilot to your 365 licence, although it isn't cheap - this review looks at whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 June 2024
This month's bigger than average update sees new pivot table style matrix layouts, the emergence of modern tooltips, calculation groups and the DAX query pane from preview and a couple of other smaller changes.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 June 2024
We thought it might be useful to share the theme that we use for some of our reports, with some annoations, to give you an idea of what's possible when setting default Power BI formatting
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 June 2024
The PQ How site contains both a reference guide to the M language and lots of links and resources for articles which will help you to learn it.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
The Northwest Computer Museum not only has a vast array of old hardware, software, documentation and games on displays, but allows you to interact with much of this. Time to brush up your BBC Basic programming skills?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
If you love Excel and are also a fan of regular expressions, your Christmas has come early! And if like me you don't know how to create regular expressions, you can just get an AI tool to build them for you ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
StackOverflow and OpenAI have announced a partnership, but I think it's fair to say that not every StackOverflow user is sold on the idea ... !
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
Apologies for making this word search slightly harder than usual - you can see the answer in this blog, as well as discover who was the lucky win of the month's prize
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 June 2024
This month we ask you to travel to the terrifying Skull Island and find the hidden treasure buried there, armed only with some - unlikely - Excel clues
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2024
This month's update to Power BI Desktop adds some seriously arcane functions to DAX, but it's the roll-out of the Power BI Home feature which most people will notice.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2024
In computing it's enough to solve a problem, but as a bonus it's nice to do so in the most elegant way (although elegance is a subjective quality). This blog gives my 3 favourite ways to solve last month's Excel desert island competition.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2024
You can now add a checkbox to a cell with a single mouse-click. They look good, although it's hard to ensure that only one checkbox in a range is selected.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2024
Microsoft are introducing two new functions to Excel: TRANSLATE (to translate passages of text into another language) and DETECTLANGUAGE (to determine the language in which a particular passage of text is written).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2024
"Is the periodic table yummy? Well, it depends on the element." Any website containing this text bears further investigation. Watch the epic spaceman shrink down by a factor of 10 every 20 seconds until he's the size of an atom, find out how to repair Oreo biscuits using the Japanese art of Kinstugi and learn which elements of the periodic table you should and shouldn't eat: all (and much more) at the Kottke archives.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 July 2024
We've created clues to help you identify 16 different books (they're all well-known). The more you can guess, the greater will be your chances of winning our £50 voucher!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 15 July 2024
In this blog we'll compare OpenAI's Chat GPT 4, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 and Microsoft's Copilot to see which AI tool gives the best results for different types of queries.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 16 July 2024
I'm sick of reading blogs pretending to explain how Large Language Models work, when the truth is that few people on earth can ever hope to understand how they are constructed. This blog is my attempt to explain as much as 99.99% of us can ever hope to understand about how AI works, and why the other bits will always remain opaque to most people.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 22 July 2024
Having recently compared the 4 main AI tools for text prompts, I thought I'd do the same for image generation tools. In this blog series we compare Dall-E (via ChatGPT and separately via Copilot), Firefly, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for 3 pre-defined tests to see which ones score most highly for cost, ease-of-use, speed, editing ability and above all for quality of image.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 August 2024
In creating our two-day course on using AI tools we found a few sources of help particularly useful, and thought we'd take this opportunity to acknowlege them.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 September 2024
We have always provided the best courseware, exercises and standard of training in the industry, but now we have the CPD certification to prove it!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 September 2024
Learning to use AI tools has been a journey for us, although not one which we thought would take in broccoli cats and Neanderthal film reviews. In this blog we look at the 3 best and 3 worst things we've found when using AI tools like ChatGPT.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
Most of the changes in the July and August updates to Power BI are either too insignificant to merit a write-up here or else are for features in preview. For most report-writers the ability to document DAX measures is the only change which will make much difference in these two updates.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
Five tribute acts played in 5 different venues on successive days of one week in September. Can you use your skills of logical deduction to work out who played which venue when, and what the capacity of each venue was? The incentive is a chance to win our monthly fifty-pound prize.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
Announcing the winner of last newsletter's competition (and also giving the answers in case anyone is still struggling to identifiy the 16 book titles).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
If you're a qualified pilot (but also a bit of a data nerd) how do you keep track of your flights? With a Power BI report, of course!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 September 2024
We've now published our schedule of courses for the coming 15 months (up to the end of 2025 in fact) in a handy format convenient for bookmarking or printing.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 September 2024
Custom GPTs are mini-versions of ChatGPT tailored towards a specific task, whether this be looking up information from your company's procedures or website, subtly skewing answers to questions to meet a particular need - or just having fun!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 25 September 2024
Excel Labs is an experimental toolkit being developed as part of Microsoft Garage. This blog shows how you can use it to call AI functions, use the advanced formula editor and use an Excel-based Python editor.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
This month Power BI Desktop gets a new dark mode! Visual calculations and visual level format strings have also been turned on by default (although both remain in preview, strangely).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
Many thanks to all of those people who have kindly reviewed us on Google. We are pleased to say that we now have over 50 reviews!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
Feeling stressed? Keep one of these wildlife webcams from Namibia open as you work to put everything in perspective.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 September 2024
Congratulations to Rory O'Connor of Freemans Grattan Holdings for winning last month's logic puzzle competition. Here's the answer!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2024
I regularly include trivia quizzes in our monthly Wise Owl newsletter. Last month for the first - and probably only - time, I decided to enlist the help of ChatGPT to generate the questions, suggest plausible (but wrong) answers and add relevant pictures. Here's how I did this, so that you too can do the same!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2024
Announcing the winner of our October 2024 newsletter competition, giving the answers and showing which questions people found most and least difficult
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2024
Think you're good at Power BI Desktop data manipulation? See if you can present our Excel football results as a final table (showing games played, goals scored/conceded and points won) to have a chance of winning this month's £50 prize.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
A website which generates a different (imaginary) human face when you refresh the page doesn't sound that creepy - but somehow it is.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
Google are right to worry about the safety of their current virtual monopoly on search, with breaking news on new desktop search versions of AI tools from ChatGPT and Claude.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
Rachel has created two custom GPTs allowing you to get any information on our courses and services. You can use either of these as intended (to get course details, dates, venues or prices) or to give you ideas for how you could implement a similar search GPT within your own organisation.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
The new PIVOTBY function in Excel allows you to create a pivot table with a dynamic formula. Does this mean that the pivot table is redundant?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
This blog gives a practical example of using the new Excel PIVOTBY function to create a dynamic pivot table (one where you can choose the row, column and data fields from drop lists).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 November 2024
You can now create data-bound reference layers in Azure maps, document your model's measures, tables and columns using the INFO.VIEW function in DAX, format chart markers within inches of their lives and apply dynamic formatting using DAX.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 November 2024
We've silently added a fair few blogs on Power BI in the last couple of months - this short blog gives a useful index to them.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2024
A new single page summarising planned improvements to visuals and other display items in Power BI Desktop
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2024
Not before time, we've updated our Power BI Desktop skills test to the latest version. It's interesting to look back at the original test to see just how much has changed!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2024
This month sees a few new preview features (of which we've chosen to highlight list and text slicers), but only two release changes: paths in Azure maps, and the ability to create new measures in DAX queries.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2024
Last month we blogged in detail about the new GROUPBY and PIVOTBY functions in Excel. This month we have 4 lighter new features: focus cells, colour pickers, Draw and Hold and some new templates.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 December 2024
Now that Microsoft have finally ironed out most of the bugs from the new flow designer in Power Automate, we thought we'd share this blog on how to automate your email Christmas card procedure!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 December 2024
For our newsletter competition this month everyone gets one shot only at creating a perfect image in Dall-E. This blog takes a behind-the-scenes look to explain the nuts and bolts of how we used the OpenAI API to get this to work.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 December 2024
How good is the new ChatGPT voice mode? Listen to this six-minute conversation and you'll realise that life will never quite be the same again. I genuinely don't think this is exaggerating!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 December 2024
In what is becoming a Christmas tradition, here are a few suggestions for things to buy the nerd in your life (you?) for Christmas this year.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2024
Last month we asked you to come up with a series of Power Query transforms to massage some data into football league format, and only three people answered the call!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2024
Microsoft have announced the preview availability of SQL Server 2025, complete with the new vector field. This blog explains what a vector field is, and why you might need it.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 11 December 2024
Microsoft have announced the next version of their editing environment for SQL Server Management Studio, including the integration of Copilot and (finally) a dark theme.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
Apparently Sora is named after the Japanese word for sky to signify its "limitless creative potential". In the future this may be true, but for now we were ... underwhelmed.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 February 2025
Much has been made in the media of how the new Chinese AI tool DeepSeek rivals almost anything that the likes of ChatGPT can offer.
Does it?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
The software application and course pages of our website are the most important ones (apart from the home page, of course). We have completely redesigned them to make them easier to use - see what you think!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
The Excel World Championship has always been an event to set the pulse racing, but now it has a theme song to match!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
How did we never discover this site before? Travel into space or the ocean, use the world's most annoying password field or help spend Bill Gates's fortune, to name just 3 of the many pastimes on this amazing site.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
In our Christmas newsletter we asked people to create an image through our website, which used behind-the-scenes code to generate pictures in Dall-E/ChatGPT. The results surpassed our expectations: here are some of the best pictures, together with the details of the overall winner of the competition.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
We were as surpised as anyone to find that our February 2025 newsletter included our 50th prize-winning competition. Puzzles over the last 6 years have included word searches, logic puzzles, quizzes and much more, as this blog shows.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 February 2025
This month includes some pretty minor updates (such as new ways to do treemaps), but we're breaking with our usual rules to highlight two features in preview: a new way to save files and a new language called TMDL for updating models.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 February 2025
Your task for this month is to identify the singers or bands from the picture clues. Every entrant will have a chance of winning our £50 prize!
