Recently a client came to us to see if we could help them automate their RFP distribution system.  Currently the client has an employee manually check several websites for RFPs and alert the appropriate business vertical when a relevant RFP is found.  The current system requires manual data scraping, meaning the process is slow and results in RFPs being missed.  For the proof of concept phase with the client, we decided to build a machine learning model to classify the RFPs correctly and provide a way to automate the routing of the RFPs.  The client wanted to break the project into stages so once the initial Proof of Concept was successful, other parts required to automate the whole process would receive the go-ahead. If you would like a proof of concept, visit our Business Analytics page for information.

Microsoft has just introduced dataflows to Power BI service which they see as the next step in the self-service revolution Microsoft began with Excel. Dataflows incorporate the necessary ETL steps and allows other people to access and work with the dataflow. Think of dataflows as power query on steroids with the capability of multiple users to take advantage of a centralized ETL operation on data.

Recently I was leading some Power BI sandbox co-development with a client whose business is based on buying and selling commodities with US and Canadian customers. As we explored ways to solve business problems with Power BI, we encountered a situation where their Canadian customers’ financial transactions are in Canadian dollars (CAD), but the client’s reporting was all in US dollars. The client wanted a dynamic currency conversion calculator built into their reporting to show all financials in US dollars. There wasn’t a dynamic currency table in the client’s SQL server. This was a request that I had not fielded before, but I was confident that Power BI could handle it. Below I outline how we solved this particular challenge in a few simple steps noted below. Learn more about how we can partner with you to elevate your Business Analytics. Or head on over to our Power BI resources library for more information.