In Nov 2023, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Material’s common availability and Public Preview of Copilot in Microsoft Material. In a earlier publish, I defined what Copilot means to Energy BI builders, which is legitimate for different Material builders comparable to information engineers and information scientists as Copilot for Material helps with these experiences as nicely. However the primary focus of this weblog publish is to debate the necessities, find out how to allow Copilot, and find out how to use it from a Energy BI growth standpoint. So, this weblog won’t talk about different elements of Copilot in Microsoft Material. With that, let’s start.

Proper off the bat, Copilot is simply accessible on Energy BI Premium capacities or their equal Material capacities. So, NO it’s NOT accessible on Energy BI Professional or Premium Per Consumer or Energy BI Embedded Analytics. So the Energy BI objects you wish to use Copilot on should be in a Workspace assigned to a Energy BI Premium P1 or Microsoft Material F64 capacities or larger.

You additionally have to have a Contributor function on the premium workspace.

To make use of Copilot, your Microsoft Material Administrator should allow it from the Material Admin Portal. This setting will not be accessible in all areas but, however Microsoft is step by step rolling it out to extra areas.

Helpful hyperlinks:

Enabling Copilot on Material Admin Portal

As talked about earlier than, your Material Administrator should allow Copilot options throughout the Admin Portal. Comply with these steps to allow Copilot in your tenant after logging into Microsoft Material:

1. Click on Settings (the gear icon on the highest proper of the web page)
2. Click on Admin portal
3. Be certain that the Tenant setting tab is chosen
4. Scroll all the way in which right down to the Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)​ part

Observe

You may also use the search field and seek for OpenAI to search out the Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)​ part.

5. Allow the Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI
6. Click on the Apply button
7. Allow the ​​​Knowledge despatched to Azure OpenAI will be processed outdoors your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion
8. Click on the Apply button once more

That’s it. You enabled the Copilot capabilities in your tenant.

The next picture exhibits the previous steps:

Listed here are some necessary notes to concentrate to:

Notes

1. Whereas this can be a Preview function, I might strongly advocate studying by way of the Phrases of use earlier than enabling it in your tenant, particularly if in your Manufacturing tenant.
2. These configurations apply tenant-wide. We at present can not limit it to particular safety teams.
3. Microsoft has carried out an ideal job in highlighting a notice when enabling the Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI setting that claims:

If Azure OpenAI will not be accessible in your area, your information could have to be processed outdoors your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion. To permit information to be processed in a area the place Azure OpenAI is obtainable, activate the associated setting, “Knowledge despatched to Azure OpenAI will be processed outdoors your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion”.

4. Take note of one other notice highlighted underneath the ​​​Knowledge despatched to Azure OpenAI will be processed outdoors your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion part saying:
   Even when this setting is on, additionally, you will have to activate the associated setting “Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI” for these options to work.​
5. I encourage you to learn Microsoft’s documentation round Accountable use for Copilot in Energy BI.

With that, now allow us to use Copilot on Material service and see the way it generates stories.

Producing stories with Copilot is tremendous simple. Comply with these steps to generate your first report with Copilot:

1. Navigate to the specified premium workspace
2. Hover over the specified semantic mannequin and click on the Extra choices ellipsis button
3. Click on Create Report

4. On the brand new report, click on the Copilot button
5. Click on the Create a web page that exhibits… button
6. Kind in to elucidate the way you want the Copilot to generate the report
7. Submit your request by urgent Enter in your keyboard or clicking the submit button

There you go! You might have it!

It seems fairly cool, doesn’t it? However wait, there’s something mistaken with the report. Have you ever observed the road chart within the backside proper of the report exhibits a flat line for Web Gross sales and Web Revenue by Product Class? It can’t be right. This takes us to the subsequent part of this weblog publish, the place we talk about some suggestions and tips.

As Copilot seems on the construction of the semantic mannequin to generate stories for us, it’s essential to make the semantic mannequin as optimised as attainable. For instance, within the earlier picture, we will shortly spot a difficulty mirrored within the Web Gross sales and Web Revenue by Product Class line chart on the underside proper of the report web page the place the chart exhibits a relentless line for all product classes. This means a possible lacking relationship between the Product Class and the Web Gross sales tables contributing to the connection. Let’s look into this.

The next picture exhibits the info mannequin the place I put the required tabled as a brand new structure:

As you may see, the lacking relationship is certainly between the Product Subcategory and Product tables, which led to incorrect leads to the reporting layer. Creating the connection between the 2 tables fixes that difficulty as proven within the following pictures:

As you see, semantic mannequin points can result in reporting points generated by Copilot. Properly, let’s face it, that is precisely what we anticipate to occur even when we manually create the report, isn’t it?

The previous instance leads us to the next suggestions and tips to get the perfect Copilot expertise:

• Get the relationships proper: as we noticed within the above instance, lacking or incorrect relationships will result in inaccurate information visualisation.
• Naming conference: Use extra user-friendly names within the information mannequin. For instance, Whole Gross sales as a measure title could be extra comprehensible than TotalSales. Enjoyable truth: Nobody likes Col1 or Tble1 names for any objects, particularly Copilot.
• Create express measures: It’s higher to have express measures within the information mannequin as an alternative of implicit measures. Only a fast notice for many who have no idea the distinction between express and implicit measures:
  • Implicit measures: Implicit measures are columns proven with a Sigma icon () within the Knowledge pane in Energy BI. These columns are mechanically detected as measures when utilized in a visible on the reporting canvas. In different phrases, we don’t create implicit measures.
  • Specific measures: However, the specific measures, are these ones we create throughout the information mannequin utilizing DAX. The specific measures additionally seem within the Knowledge pane in Energy BI. The icon for express measures seems like a calculator ().
• Comply with star schema mannequin design: Create truth and dimension tables following the star schema design. For instance, it’s best to maintain additive, measurable and quantitative information, plus international keys of the dimension tables. In distinction, maintain the descriptive information within the dimension tables.
• Create hierarchies: Creating hierarchies in dimensions helps Copilot perceive the info grouping higher. That is useful, specifically with figuring out drill-down actions.
• Take note of information sorts: Defining right information sorts for measures and columns within the information mannequin helps Copilot to generate higher stories. For instance, utilizing Date information sort as an alternative of Textual content helps Copilot to know it’s coping with date values as an alternative of textual content.
• Use easier prompts: In my expertise with the report era functionality of Copilot for Energy BI, it performs greatest when utilizing easier prompts with minimal situations, comparable to Create a web page that exhibits Gross sales by Product as an alternative of Create a web page that exhibits Gross sales by Product the place Procust Class is “Equipment” and Calendar Date is 2012. Whereas it nonetheless generates the report, its accuracy decreases by elevating the complexity of our immediate.

The Copilot for Energy BI does an excellent job of producing stories, particularly in its early phases. We will use this function to make stories, however we needs to be conscious that there could be issues, particularly if we haven’t made our information fashions higher. We have to test and repair the stories.

As all the time, please share your ideas and opinions with us.