Essential BI Tools
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Bravo for Power BI
Bravo for Power BI is a free open-source tool that helps you create a Power BI model with a simple user interface. -
DAX Studio
DAX Studio is a tool to write, execute, and analyze DAX queries in Power BI Designer, Power Pivot for Excel, and Analysis Services Tabular. It includes an Object Browser, query editing and execution, formula and measure editing, syntax highlighting and… -
Tabular Editor
Tabular Editor is an editor alternative to SSDT for authoring Tabular models for Analysis Services even without a workspace server. -
VertiPaq Analyzer
VertiPaq Analyzer is useful to analyze VertiPaq storage structures for a data model in Power BI and Analysis Services Tabular. A complete description and short tutorial are available in the article Data Model Size with VertiPaq Analyzer. VertiPaq Analyzer requires… -
Analyze in Excel for Power BI Desktop
Analyze in Excel for Power BI Desktop is an external tool for Power BI Desktop that with a single click creates a new Excel PivotTable connected to the data hosted in Power BI Desktop.
Online Services
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DAX Formatter
DAX Formatter is a free tool by SQLBI that transforms raw DAX formulas into clean, beautiful and readable code. See more on www.daxformatter.com -
DAX.do
DAX.do is a free online playground to write, run and share DAX queries. Try it on https://dax.do
Other Tools
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Contoso Data Generator
Contoso Data Generator is a free, open-source tool to generate star-schema-based Contoso databases in several formats: BAK, CSV, Delta, Parquet, PBIT, and PBIX. You can customize the database generated in size and data distribution, developing your version of the Contoso… -
DAX Date Template
DAX Date Template is a Power BI template file containing a fully-featured Date table. This template spares the user from writing the required DAX expression – as well as in setting the necessary properties to define display format, hierarchies, and… -
Power BI Push Tools
Power BI Push Tools is a set of open-source tools to work with Power BI push datasets. Read Implementing real-time updates in Power BI using push datasets instead of DirectQuery to learn the architecture of solutions based on push datasets… -
ALM Toolkit
ALM Toolkit is a free and open-source tool to manage Microsoft Power BI datasets: Database compare, Code merging, Easy deployment, Source-control integration, Reuse definitions, Self-service to corporate BI. It is based on the source code of BISM Normalizer, which provides… -
pbi-tools
pbi-tools bring Power BI projects under source control, enabling professional development workflows and enhanced governance. Available for free and with open source code (MIT License) on GitHub. -
MDX Studio
MDX Studio is a tool that was developed by Mosha Pasumansky, a former Analysis Services developer. This tool is invaluable when writing a MDX query: you have a code formatting feature, an embedded system to analyze query performance and many… -
SSAS Tabular Translator
SSAS Tabular Translator is an editor for the JSON translation files exported and imported by SQL Server Data Tools, for a Tabular model compatibility version 1200 or later. -
BISM Normalizer
BISM Normalizer is a free and open-source tool to manage Microsoft Analysis Services tabular models. -
Power Pivot Utilities
Power Pivot Utilities is an Excel add-in (based on a collection of VBA macros) that helps in documenting PowerPivot models and facilitates the creation of pivot tables connected to the data model. -
SSAS Events Analyzer
SSAS Events Analyzer is a simple monitoring system that can be easily applied to any SSAS server with minimal effort. -
SSAS Activity Monitor
SSAS Activity Monitor is an open source tool to monitor the current activity (sessions, transactions, connections, and locks) on an Analysis Services instance. It works for both the Tabular and Multidimensional mode. -
DAX Editor
DAX Editor is an extension of SSDT that makes it easier to edit DAX measures in a Microsoft Analysis Services Tabular project. It is compatible with Visual Studio 2015, it is not compatible with later versions of Visual Studio. -
Visio Forward Engineer
Visio Forward Engineer is an Office 2010 add-in that provides Visio with the ability to script the database creation of a data model. Though it presents several limitations, it helps Office Visio users create simple data models using the Visio… -
DateTool Dimension
DateTool is a special dimension containing regular members that act as calculated members similar to those generated by the Time Intelligence Wizard, without some of the limitations of the Time Intelligence Wizard. -
DtsToSsis-Prepare
DtsToSsis-Prepare is a command line tool that prepares a DTS package for a better migration to an SSIS package. This article describes the needs for this tool and how to use it. The project is freeware – the full source… -
SQLBulkTool
SqlBulkTool is a command line utility that is used to quickly create a mirror of a database. It reads its configuration from an XML file containing source and destination command strings and a list of all the tables to mirror.… -
MdxScriptUpdater
MdxScriptUpdater is a simple C# class that simplifies updating MDX Scripts into a cube in a production environment. MdxScriptUpdater is provided in form of a sample source code as is. -
Distinct
Distinct is a partially blocking component that removes duplicates from one flow. -
TableDifference
TableDifference is an SSIS custom component designed to simplify the management of slowly-changing dimensions and – in general – to check the differences between two tables or data flows with SSIS. -
FlowSync
FlowSync is a component that will make two or more flows of data in an SSIS data flow package run at the same speed, by stopping one flow if the others run too slowly. The project is freeware – the… -
SQLBI DtExec
SqlBiDtExec is a tool that makes it easy to launch SSIS packages on a remote server, using WCF as the transport medium to both request package execution and fetch all the logs and events from the package in order to… -
MirrorManager
MirrorManager is a tool that implements the Mirror phase of the SQLBI Methodology in a semi-automated way. It handles the partitioning and aging of imported data. -
Action BI Toolkit
Action BI Toolkit is now pbi-tools.