Never ship a broken semantic model again: how to build automated tests in Power BI with user-defined functions
User-defined functions (UDFs) in Power BI let you build reusable, automated tests for your semantic models — so you catch broken measures, duplicate rows, and faulty relationships before they reach your reports. This article walks through how to use UDFs alongside PQL.Assert to standardize testing across your team, and how to automate those tests with Power Automate or a Fabric Notebook.
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Learn about an alternative strategy for avoiding hardcoded literal values in SQL Server queries by using single-row views designed to mimic enum behavior.
Add Nodes to SQL Server 2022 and Windows Server 2022 Failover Cluster
I used the guide in a previous tip on Install SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster Part 1 to install a SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster (WSFC). Now, I would like to upgrade and migrate my SQL Server 2008 failover clusters to SQL Server 2022 running on Windows Server 2022. What is the process for installation and configuration?
Concurrency and Baseline Control: Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 5
As database development scales across multiple contributors, concurrency becomes an inherent aspect of the process. Changes that are individually correct may still conflict when developed against a shifting baseline. This level introduces a disciplined approach to managing parallel changesets by controlling their scope, identifying overlap, and resolving conflicts through realignment. By ensuring that only one changeset retains its original baseline while others are adapted accordingly, deployments remain predictable and consistent. Once released, changesets are treated as immutable, and further evolution proceeds through new, forward-only changes.
Spending Time in the Office
Many of us work remotely, lots of of hybrid, but some are in the office every day. Steve has a few thoughts on these models.
How to host an AI text embeddings model for SQL Server using Ollama
When we want to use AI-based comparisons of text, via vector search in SQL Server, we need to first generate embeddings for the text. An embedding is a numeric representation of meaning, usually represented by vectors. In this article, I’ll show you how to use Ollama to host a server locally that can be used to generate embeddings.
Index Fragmentation Explained: Page Splits, Logical Reads, and What to Do
Index fragmentation can silently degrade your query performance over time. Learn what happens at the page level, how to measure it, and how to fix it.
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward
By Steve Jones
This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...
dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts
You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)
By SQLPals
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...
Forums
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Question of the Day
Using CHOOSE()
We have this code that sets some status values and then queries them using the CHOOSE() function in SQL Server 2025.
CREATE TABLE Status
(
StatusID INT,
StatusDescription VARCHAR(20)
);
GO
INSERT dbo.Status
(
StatusID,
StatusDescription
)
VALUES
(0, 'Uncategorized'),
(1, 'Active'),
(2, 'Inactive'),
(3, 'Temp');
GO
SELECT CHOOSE(StatusID, 'Unknown', 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Temporary')
FROM Status;
When the SELECT runs, what is returned? See possible answers