Explicit Measures Podcast

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573

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Hosted by Mike Carlo, and Tommy Puglia, the Explicit Measures Podcast is a Power BI focused show that is like being around a Power BI Pro’s Water Cooler. With so many available resources in the community that focuses on the “how” in Power BI (how to do Drill Through, how to use DAX, etc.,), the Explicit Measures Podcast is all around the WHY. Why use a particular feature, does it make sense for my users? Build the toolset, learn the how, and then come to the Podcast to the listen to the why in situations we all experience as Power BI Pros.

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60 recent

October 29, 2026Episode 5761 hr 9 min

576: Distributed Wisdom for Fabric

Mike & Tommy dive into the concept of distributed wisdom—how organizations can connect expertise spread across people and teams so that knowledge shapes decisions beyond where it originated—and explore what that means for Microsoft Fabric and agentic tooling. They tackle whether technology like semantic models, the OneLake catalog, and AI agents can actually carry human judgment across an org, or whether the real blockers are process and culture. From governance guardrails to communities of practice, the conversation surfaces practical first steps for BI teams trying to make collective intelligence real inside Fabric. More on the topic: Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide News links: DAX LLM Benchmark v2.0 Trailer – SQLBI Govern Your Microsoft Fabric Data Estate from One Place with the OneLake Catalog thisorthat.tips Book Link Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 27, 2026Episode 5751 hr 5 min

575: Choosing the Right Model In Fabric

Mike & Tommy tackle the question of how to match the right LLM to the right Microsoft Fabric workload, exploring whether bigger always means better or just more expensive, and how teams can build a practical model-selection strategy across Power BI, notebooks, pipelines, and more. They break down the planning and execution decisions behind agentic tooling in Fabric—covering Power BI Desktop Bridge, semantic models, and notebooks—and land on a framework for making model choice a deliberate, cost-aware decision rather than a default. News: Fabric Data Warehouse Integration with Fabric User Data Functions (Preview) | Data Visualization in the Agentic Era Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 22, 2026Episode 5741 hr 18 min

574: Data Agent Contract Layer

Mike & Tommy tackle the emerging role of the semantic model as an AI contract layer in Microsoft Fabric, weighing in on whether Data Agents should reason over governed semantic models or hit OneLake directly. They explore the tension between years of invested business logic in semantic models and the flexibility of Lakehouse-first agent access, breaking down how OneLake Security, RLS, and semantic model permissions can coexist for both traditional BI and AI-powered data workloads. This is a Mailbag episode. Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 20, 2026Episode 5731 hr 9 min

573: Fabric Deployment Plan

Mike & Tommy dive into Fabric Deployment Plans, exploring how this new Fabric item fills a real gap in CI/CD by giving teams explicit control over deployment order, pre- and post-deploy actions, and environment binding — things lineage alone never reliably handled. They weigh whether a visual canvas makes deployments more approachable or just hides what's really happening under the hood, and what teams should nail down before trusting a preview feature with a production release. Learn more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/deployment-plan/how-to-create-deployment-plan | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/deployment-plan/deployment-plan-sample-plans Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 15, 2026Episode 5721 hr 13 min

572: Does the Ontology Agent Change Our Minds?

Mike & Tommy weigh in on the Fabric IQ Ontology Agent, exploring whether a conversational interface built on structured business definitions finally makes ontology worth the investment—or just adds another layer for BI teams to govern. They break down the real cost of building and maintaining an ontology, who owns it when answers go wrong, and whether this changes how business users get to the truth. News: Fabric App Functions – Secure Server-Side Custom Logic (Preview) | File Data Ingestion with Materialized Lake Views in Fabric (Preview) Learn more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/iq/ontology/tutorial-4-use-agent Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 13, 2026Episode 5711 hr 14 min

571: Fabric Notebook Toolkit - Measuring the Impact

Mike & Tommy dive into the Fabric Notebook Toolkit (FNTK), a Python library that makes end-to-end agentic development of Microsoft Fabric Notebooks possible from GitHub Copilot CLI, OpenAI Codex, and Claude Code. They break down whether putting AI agents in the driver's seat of notebook creation raises the bar for governance or just accelerates the chaos. Tune in to find out what guardrails, skills, and mindset shifts BI pros need before letting an agent loose in their workspace. https://pypi.org/project/fabric-notebook-toolkit/ News: https://www.meetup.com/chicagolandpowerbi/events/316158533/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events https://promptingbi.com/2026/10/08/why-i-built-skill-vault/ https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/a-new-look-and-new-capabilities-in-the-capacity-metrics-app-preview/5374114 Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 8, 2026Episode 5701 hr 14 min

570: PADU & Fabric

Mike & Tommy tackle PADU — Preferred, Accepted, Discouraged, and Unacceptable — and map the four-bucket framework onto Microsoft Fabric, exploring how teams can bring real governance and process architecture to a platform that gives you five ways to do everything. They weigh in on where Lakehouse, Git, Dataflows, Copilot, and self-service Power BI land on the scale, and why defining what your org will no longer tolerate might matter more than any architecture decision you make this year. News links: Chicagoland Power BI Meetup | Trusted AI with Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence | Understanding DAX Contracts When Using AI – SQLBI Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 6, 2026Episode 5691 hr 9 min

569: Signal & Reporting - Write Back Belongs Where?

Mike & Tommy tackle the question of whether Power BI should stay an analytics layer or evolve into an operational one, joined by Mike Zack — former CEO of Acterys, now part of Vena — who has built his career around closing the gap between insight and action. They weigh in on when write-back genuinely belongs in a report, who owns the data once users can change it, and what governance has to exist before you flip that switch. With AI surfacing signals faster than ever, the real bottleneck may not be the dashboard — it's the disconnected workflow that follows it. More on Mike Zack and the tools discussed: What's New in Microsoft OneLake | Microsoft & Snowflake's Commitment to Apache | What's New in Fabric Data Factory Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

October 1, 2026Episode 5681 hr 8 min

568: FabCon Barcelona - Feature Draft

Mike & Tommy dive into the biggest announcements from FabCon Barcelona, breaking down how Fabric IQ, agentic app creation, ontology authoring, and a wave of platform updates are reshaping what Power BI and Fabric mean for everyday BI teams. They tackle whether the semantic model has officially become the center of the Microsoft AI universe, and what orgs need to do right now to be ready. From write-back apps built with natural language to zero-provisioned Fabric and on-demand billing, they weigh in on which features deserve a spot on your 90-day roadmap and which ones need more governance guardrails before anyone touches them. Read more: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 in Barcelona | Power BI's Next Chapter | Power BI September 2026 Feature Summary | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

September 29, 2026Episode 5671 hr 13 min

567: Picking the Right Model for the Task

Mike & Tommy dive into why choosing the right AI model is one of the most consequential decisions a Power BI or Fabric team can make—and why most teams aren't making it deliberately at all. They explore the tension between cost, capability, and governance: when a frontier model is worth it, when a cheaper one is more than enough, and why letting a model review its own DAX is a governance risk hiding in plain sight. For more, check out the main topic and recent Fabric news below: https://tabulareditor.com/blog/picking-the-ai-model-for-the-task https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/connecting-apps-databases-and-ai-on-one-foundation-new-innovations-at-sqlcon-and/5369538 https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/bringing-governed-analytics-into-the-flow-of-work-fabric-analytics-at-fabcon-eur/5368918 Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page . Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/