It’s been some time that I exploit Microsoft To Do to organise my every day duties. From work-related duties to purchase groceries. Whereas Microsoft To Do is tremendous straightforward to make use of however there are some challenges in utilizing it extra effectively, particularly when you’ve a number of O365 accounts inside totally different organisations. Listed below are among the challenges I confronted; you might face different challenges too:

• The Microsoft To Do app for Home windows units could be very consumer pleasant with amazingly good options like the flexibility so as to add a number of To Do accounts. Nonetheless, we at present have to pick out which account we want to use and the app reveals all our duties inside that particular account. This implies we cannot see all our duties from all our accounts in a single place.
• The Microsoft To Do app for iOS units can also be very useful to make use of, nevertheless it lacks including a number of accounts. Therefore we can’t see all our duties from a number of O365 accounts on the app. 🙁
• We will use the Duties throughout the Microsoft Outlook desktop utility (I used the Home windows model) which is by far probably the most complete one with tons of options. Whereas we will see duties from a number of accounts in a single place, it’s a actual problem if I wish to know which process is assigned to which account. Moreover, it’s actually arduous to reply some questions like, what number of high-priority duties I’ve for at the moment or the week forward. I do know, we will group duties, however, it’s nonetheless not so intuitive.

For the above causes, I looked for a product that may do all of the above directly. After spending some hours, I assumed, properly, I’ve to do it myself.

With that, let’s go forward and see how we will get the job executed in Energy BI.

Observe:

This technique shouldn’t be working for Microsoft To Do utilizing private accounts corresponding to Outlook, Hotmail or MSN. If anybody is aware of tips on how to add these, please tell us within the feedback part under this publish.

This can be a lengthy publish that took me an inexpensive period of time to jot down. So I added the next desk of contents so you’ll be able to shortly bounce to a topic of your curiosity.

Desk of Contents

How It Works

Microsoft Energy BI is NOT a reporting instrument solely. We will connect with many information sources, combine and match the info, create information fashions and visualise the info. So it must be potential to connect with a number of To Do accounts, append the info, create a easy information mannequin on high of that, and visualise the info to reply our questions or our prospects’ questions. The Microsoft To Do information is accessible through the Microsoft Trade On-line connector obtainable in Energy BI. The remaining relies on our necessities and what questions we want to reply.

In my case, through which I’m the end-user of the report, I would really like to have the ability to know:

• As we speak’s duties: All duties that their StartDate or DueDate is at the moment or the Duties with none StartDate and DueDate
  • Variety of duties
  • Variety of necessary duties
  • Duties by mailbox
  • Duties particulars
    • Process checklist
    • Process description
    • Standing
    • Begin date
    • Due date
    • A hyperlink to the duty itself that I can replace if I wish to
• All Duties
  • All above plus
    • Variety of open duties
    • Variety of accomplished duties

You or your buyer(s) might need totally different necessities, however when you perceive tips on how to get the To Do information from Microsoft Trade On-line and do some information explorations to search out out what you might be after, you’ll be good.

Integrating A number of To Do Accounts in Energy BI

Earlier than we begin, I wish to encourage you to vary your Energy BI settings to permit parameterisation in all connection and transformation dialogue packing containers. The next steps clarify how to take action:

1. In Energy BI Desktop click on the File menu
2. Click on Choices and settings
3. Click on Choices
4. Within the Choices, window choose the Energy Question Editor tab
5. Tick the All the time permit parameterization in information supply and transformation dialogs possibility
6. Click on OK

With that, allow us to get the Microsoft To Do information in Energy BI Desktop.

Getting Information from the Supply

This part explains tips on how to get the info from Microsoft Trade On-line for Microsoft To Do.

Observe these steps:

1. Click on Get information in Energy BI Desktop
2. Seek for Microsoft Trade
3. Choose Microsoft Trade On-line (you should use Microsoft Trade as properly, in our state of affairs each connections work the identical)
4. Click on Join

5. Click on the Parameterise drop down button and choose the New parameter… choice to open the Magane Parameters window. This button is enabled as we beforehand enabled this function.

6. Kind in a Title for the parameter
7. Change the Kind to Textual content
8. Kind in your e-mail tackle related along with your account within the Present Worth
9. Click on New and repeat the method from step 6 for creating a question parameter for all To Do accounts you’d wish to combine
10. Click on OK

11. Choose the specified question parameter within the Mailbox tackle dropdown from the Microsoft Trade connector
12. Click on OK

We’ve got just a few choices on the Navigator window. We will analyse our Calendar, E-mail, and many others., however this weblog publish goals to get the info from Microsoft To Do. I go away that so that you can discover extra on these areas :).

13. Tick the Duties desk. That is the desk that retains all To Do information 😀
14. Click on Remodel Information

We at the moment are navigated to the Energy Question Editor with 3 queries showing on the Queries pane; the 2 question parameters we created earlier and the Process desk loaded from Microsoft Trade On-line. Now we have now to repeat the method and get the info from our different accounts. After getting information from all our accounts, we have now to arrange the info to fulfill our necessities.

Observe:

I renamed the queries to Process 1 and Process 2.

To this point, we linked to a number of Microsoft Trade On-line sources. That’s the very first step. The following step is to arrange the info to fulfill our necessities.

Information Preparation

I’ve to say that the info is properly structured already; subsequently, we have now to spend much less effort to arrange the info. The next few steps maintain my necessities which is perhaps totally different than yours:

1. Proper-click every question
2. Disable information load (I want I may choose a number of queries and disable load for all chosen queries. When you assume this can be a good concept that improves the event please vote for this concept which was posted a very long time in the past.)

I disabled the info load as I require to Append the queries. I choose to append the queries right into a separate question, so it might be simpler to make adjustments sooner or later if I require to vary something within the authentic queries. I’ll revisit this level later on this publish.

3. Choose a question from the Queries pane
4. Click on the Append Queries dropdown button
5. From the Residence tab, choose the Append Queries as New possibility

6. Choose the primary and second queries you’d wish to append. In case you are appending greater than two tables click on the Three or extra tables radio button
7. Click on OK

8. At this level you might get the Info is required about information privateness warning. We’re getting this warning as we’re appending the info from two information sources which may doubtlessly result in information leakage as the info can trasit from an information supply to a different. In our state of affairs this isn’t a priority as we’re the proprietor of each information sources. Click on the Proceed button

9. Set the privateness degree for all appending information sources
10. Click on Save

Essential observe:

I set the Privateness Stage to Organisational as I’m not coping with delicate information on this specific instance. Make sure you fully perceive the totally different choices obtainable for configuring the Privateness Stage to forestall any potential information leakage. Learn extra about Privateness Ranges right here.

11. Choose the Append1 question from the Queries pane and rename it to Duties. You may rename a question by double clicking the question from the Queries pane.

Now that we appended the queries, it’s good to take a look at the outcomes to see how lots of the necessities we will meet with the info in its present form.

I can see within the information that I’ve a Folder Path column. This column reveals me the totally different process lists I created in Microsoft To Do. The next picture reveals the info in Energy Question Editor side-by-side the Microsoft To Do duties from certainly one of my accounts.

Revisiting the Necessities

Trying nearer to the info reveals that the Topic column incorporates my duties; I’ve StartDate and DueDate columns in addition to Standing and Significance columns. my necessities, I can use all of these columns to assist my necessities colored in inexperienced:

• As we speak’s duties
  • Variety of duties
  • Variety of necessary duties
  • Duties by mailbox
  • Duties particulars
    • Process checklist
    • Process description
    • Standing
    • Begin date
    • Due date
    • A hyperlink to the duty itself that I can replace if I wish to
• All Duties
  • All above plus
    • Variety of open duties
    • Variety of accomplished duties

As you’ll be able to see, we will already meet many necessities, however what concerning the necessities colored in purple? If we take a look at the info, we see no solution to distinguish between duties coming from a number of accounts. This is a matter that we have now to unravel. One fast repair is so as to add a brand new Customized Column into each Process 1 and Process 2 queries utilizing the values of the 2 question parameters. Bear in mind, the question parameters include our e-mail accounts. As acknowledged earlier, we disabled information load and appended the Process 1 and Process 2 queries as a brand new question. The Duties question should embody the brand new customized column.

1. Click on the Duties 1 question from the Queries pane
2. Click on the Customized Column button from the Add Column tab
3. Give the brand new column a reputation
4. Kind the corresponding question parameter identify used for connecting to Microsoft Trade On-line
5. Click on OK

If we scroll to the very finish (to the best), we see our e-mail tackle is added as a brand new column.

Now repeat the above steps (1 to five) for the Duties 2 question.

6. Click on the Duties question from the Queries pane
7. On the info view, scroll proper to the very finish to see the brand new Supply column presents

With that, we at the moment are cable of figuring out duties by the mailbox.

So the one remaining requirement that the present information doesn’t assist is a hyperlink to the duty to switch the duty if wanted. This one is a bit difficult as the info doesn’t counsel such a hyperlink on the first look. Let’s look extra totally on the Duties information. There are 5 columns containing structured values throughout the Duties desk. We will click on on every cell of knowledge to see the underlying information.

Observe:

If we click on on the structured worth itself, Energy Question drills right down to the underlying information. We have to click on the cell, not the worth.

Manually exploring all structured columns to discover a particular worth generally is a time-consuming course of. We will use some strategies to undergo the structured values, however these are out of the scope of this publish. Possibly I write a separate weblog publish about that later. However the excellent news is that I do know which column incorporates the URL to the Process. It’s the Attributes column. Observe these steps to develop the Attributes column and the URL:

8. Click on the Develop button on the best facet of the Attributes column
9. Untick the Choose All Columns
10. Untick the Use authentic column identify as prefix possibility
11. Scroll down and tick the WebClientReadFormQueryString
12. Click on OK

13. Double click on the WebClientReadFormQueryString column and rename it to Internet URL
14. Click on the Shut & Apply button from the Residence tab

To this point, we ready the info to assist all our necessities. After we click on the Shut & Apply button on Energy Question Editor, it masses the info for all queries through which their Allow Load is energetic. We disabled information load for Duties 1 and Duties 2 tables. Subsequently solely the info of the Duties desk is loaded into the info mannequin.

Information Modelling

Within the earlier part of this weblog publish, we ready the info based mostly on our necessities. The info is now loaded into the info mannequin. If we take a look at the necessities once more, we see some factors that we have now to maintain. Our necessities have two most important components to analyse the info for As we speak’s Duties and All Duties. To analyse As we speak’s Duties, we require to determine if the DueDate falls into at the moment’s date. To have the ability to deal with date-related calculations, we require to create a Date desk. Learn extra concerning the Date desk right here.

Creating Date Desk

We will create the Date desk both in Energy Question Editor or within the information mannequin utilizing DAX. In my pattern, I create the Date desk utilizing DAX. Different bloggers over the web already wrote DAX expressions to create a Date desk. Some are quite simple, and a few are very complicated. I exploit an easy model utilizing the CALENDARAUTO() operate.

1. Click on the New desk button from the Modelling tab
2. Copy/paste the next DAX expression and press Enter

Date = 
    ADDCOLUMNS(
        CALENDARAUTO() 
        , "12 months", YEAR([Date])
        , "Month", FORMAT([Date], "MMMM")
        , "MonthOrder", FORMAT([Date], "MM")
        , "Day", DAY([Date])
        , "IsToday", [Date] = TODAY()
        )

Marking Date Desk as Date

To this point, we created a Date desk. Now we have now to mark it as Date. Learn extra right here to grasp what marking a Date desk as Date means and why we should always try this. Observe these steps to take action:

1. Proper click on the Date desk
2. Hover over Mark as date desk and click on the Mark as date desk from the context menu
3. Choose the Date as Date column. Be sure the validation was profitable
4. Click on OK

Creating Relationships

Now that we efficiently created the Date desk and marked it as Date, we should create the connection between the Duties and the Date desk. Be taught extra concerning the idea behind the relationships right here. We’ve got just a few choices on the subject of create and handle relationships:

• We will use the Handle Relationships button obtainable on the Report view, Information view and Mannequin view (proven within the following picture)
• Or we will drag-and-drop key columns from a desk to a different

The next steps present tips on how to create the connection from the Mannequin view utilizing the drag-and-drop possibility:

1. Click on the Mannequin view
2. Drag the Date column from the Date desk and drop it on the StartDate column from the Duties desk. This creates an Lively Relationship confirmed with a strong line between the Date and Duties tables
3. Drag the Date column from the Date desk, however this time, drop it on the DueDate column from the Duties desk. This creates an Inactive Relationship between the 2 tables

Learn extra about Lively vs. Inactive relationships right here.

By creating the relationships, we will now assist all our necessities. Our date desk has an IsToday column that flags if a particular date is certainly at the moment’s date. We will use this column later to reply the questions round As we speak’s Duties. With that, it’s time to create some measures.

Creating Measures

Probably the most widespread and undoubtedly an important duties whereas creating a Energy BI information mannequin is creating measures. With measures, we will do calculations corresponding to summations, averages, counts, and many others. There are two kinds of measures:

• Implicit measures: Implicit measures or computerized measures proven with a Sigma icon () within the Fields pane in Energy BI Desktop. These are the measures which can be robotically created when utilized in a visible on the reporting canvas. In different phrases, we do not create implicit measures.
• Specific measures: Specific measures however are these ones we create throughout the information mannequin utilizing DAX. The specific measures additionally present up within the Fields pane in Energy BI Desktop. The icon for specific measures is a calculator ().

Learn extra about measures right here.

It’s best follow at all times to create specific measures. Once I point out making a measure, I seek advice from specific measures. We should at all times create the measures to assist our necessities, so in our pattern, we’ll create the next measures:

• Measures to calculate for all duties
  • Variety of duties
  • Variety of necessary duties
  • Variety of open duties
  • Variety of accomplished duties
• Measures to calculate for at the moment’s duties:
  • Variety of duties
  • Variety of necessary duties

Right here is how we create a measure in Energy BI Desktop:

1. From the Report view or the Information view, right-click the Duties desk
2. Click on the New measure
3. Kind within the following DAX expression
4. Press Enter from the keyboard or click on the Submit button to create the Variety of Duties measure

Variety of Duties = COUNTROWS(Duties)

Repeat the above course of for the opposite measures utilizing the DAX expressions under.

Measures for All Duties

Essential Duties = 
    CALCULATE([Number of Tasks]
        , Duties[Importance] = "Excessive"
    )

Open Duties = 
    CALCULATE([Number of Tasks]
        , NOT(Duties[IsComplete])
    )

Accomplished Duties = 
    CALCULATE([Number of Tasks]
        , Duties[IsComplete]
    )

Measures for As we speak’s Duties

Per our necessities for calculating As we speak’s Duties, we have now to search out all duties that their StartDate or DueDate is at the moment or the Duties with no StartDate and DueDate. This particular a part of the requirement incorporates three circumstances:

• Duties beginning at the moment
• Duties due at the moment
• Duties with out StartDate and DueDate

So we will break the calculation into three separate measures. We then create a fourth measure so as to add up the outcomes of these three measures as under:

Duties Beginning As we speak = 
    CALCULATE([Open Tasks]
        , 'Date'[IsToday]
        )

Duties Due As we speak = 
    CALCULATE([Open Tasks]
        , 'Date'[IsToday]
        , USERELATIONSHIP('Date'[Date], Duties[DueDate])
        )

Duties with No Begin or Due Date = 
    CALCULATE([Open Tasks]
        , AND(ISBLANK(Duties[StartDate]), ISBLANK(Duties[DueDate]))
        )

As we speak's Duties = [Tasks Starting Today] + [Tasks Due Today] + [Tasks with No Start or Due Date]

The final measure to create is As we speak’s Essential Duties. The next DAX expression caters that:

As we speak's Essential Duties = 
    CALCULATE([Today's Tasks]
      , Duties[Importance] = "Excessive"
    )

Now that we created all of the required measures, it’s time to visualise the info.

Information Visualisation

To this point, we ready the info and constructed our information mannequin. It’s time now to carry our information to life and constructed some significant information visualisation. Once more, the final rule of thumb is to take a look at our necessities first then begin visualising the info. In your comfort, I copy the necessities right here to keep away from transferring up and down on this weblog publish.

• As we speak’s duties: All duties that their StartDate or DueDate is at the moment or the Duties with none StartDate and DueDate
  • Variety of duties
  • Variety of necessary duties
  • Duties by mailbox
  • Duties particulars
    • Process checklist
    • Process description
    • Standing
    • Begin date
    • Due date
    • A hyperlink to the duty itself that I can replace if I wish to
• All Duties
  • All above plus
    • Variety of open duties
    • Variety of accomplished duties

One of many largest challenges in information visualisation, whatever the visualisation instrument we use, is actual property. It’s fairly difficult to make use of the obtainable house on the report canvas to symbolize the knowledge effectively. It isn’t value constructing a flashy and vibrant report that doesn’t inform a narrative concerning the information and doesn’t reply the enterprise questions mirrored within the necessities. Information visualisation is a serious matter that requires particular consideration to element. There are lots of greatest practices round information visualisation which can be out of the scope of this weblog publish. So, I put collectively a easy information visualisation that meets all the necessities.

Within the subsequent few sections, I shortly clarify some easy strategies used within the above visualisation, leaving the remaining so that you can examine.

Exhibiting URL Hyperlinks in Desk Visible

Exhibiting a URL hyperlink as an alternative of displaying a textual full hyperlink could be very straightforward. Observe these steps to get it executed:

1. Choose the Internet URL column from the Duties desk
2. Choose the Internet URL possibility from the Information class dropdown from the Column instruments tab
3. Click on the Desk visible
4. Click on the Format tab from the Visualisations pane
5. Seek for url
6. Toggle on the URL icon possibility

Filtering the Information to Present As we speak’s Duties Solely

As you’ll be able to see within the As we speak’s Duties report web page, we have now a Desk visible containing the required columns from the Duties desk displaying all duties. We require to filter the info proven on the desk solely to indicate at the moment’s duties. You could assume that we will use the IsToday column from the Date desk on the visible filters. Suppose we filter the Desk visible utilizing the IsToday column when IsToday equals True. In that case, we’re placing a filter on the Date desk. The filter propagates to the Duties desk through the connection between the Date column from the Date desk and the StartDate column from the Duties desk. Subsequently, the values on the Desk visible are filtered solely when the beginning date is at the moment. However this isn’t what we require. The necessities clearly say, “As we speak’s duties are all duties that their StartDate or DueDate is at the moment or the Duties with none StartDate and DueDate”. So we can’t merely filter the values of the Desk visible by the IsToday column from the Date desk. The answer is easy. We already carried out the required logic within the As we speak's Duties measure. We will put this measure on the Desk visible, which leads to displaying the proper values.

Whereas it could look to be answer, it isn’t superb. In actuality, we’re not including any insights by including the As we speak's Duties measure to the Desk visible, because it reveals 1 in nearly all rows. Including a measure to a visible to solely remedy our downside with out including any worth is inappropriate. A greater answer is to filter the Desk visible by the As we speak's Duties measure. Observe these steps to see how:

1. On the As we speak’s Duties web page, click on the Desk visible
2. Proper click on the As we speak's Duties measure from the Fields pane
3. Hover over Add to filters and click on Visible-level filters

4. On the Filters pane, choose the shouldn’t be clean possibility from the Present gadgets when the worth dropdown checklist
5. Click on Apply filter

It’s executed now.

Downloading the Pattern File

You may obtain the PBIT model of the report from right here.

As at all times, please let me know in case you have any feedback or suggestions through the feedback part under.