Working with Alerts

Quick reference

• 00:05 So what I'd like to show you now is how to set alerts for data that changes.
• 00:11 So what we're gonna start with though is we're going cut our dataset down
• 00:15 a little bit.
• 00:16 So we'll go back, we'll open up our sample file.
• 00:18 We'll go to Edit Queries and this is gonna go back into the original query here.
• 00:24 Now if you've opened this up from the sample files, it's very likely that it's
• 00:28 coming back and telling you that it can't find any of the data.
• 00:31 So what we'll do is we'll come back to the source step, click on the gear icon.
• 00:36 And we will go and browse and find the file that is called SalesTransactions.txt.
• 00:41 And say, OK.
• 00:44 And then once that's done, it should refresh the previous.
• 00:47 So it looks like this.
• 00:48 We can go back to the filtered row step at the end.
• 00:52 Now just to make sure that we've got changing data here,
• 00:55 what I'm gonna do is I'm going to go in and I'm gonna choose the Keep Rows.
• 01:00 And I'm gonna keep just the top rows and
• 01:02 I know there's about 40,000 rows in this file.
• 01:05 So I'm gonna keep just the top 10,000 for right now.
• 01:07 We're gonna cut this dataset down a little bit to the earliest records and
• 01:11 we'll say, OK.
• 01:12 So add a new step called Kept First Rows.
• 01:16 And when we go and say, close and apply.
• 01:19 You'll notice that our sales cut rate down to 1.41 million.
• 01:22 So obviously, there's a lot less stuff.
• 01:24 It looks like the last date was July 21st, 2015.
• 01:26 All good for right now.
• 01:27 We're just trying to roll our date back in time a little.
• 01:31 Now that that's done, what we're gonna do is we're gonna say,
• 01:35 Save and we're gonna publish our report again out to the cloud.
• 01:40 Replace the dataset and make sure when it opens up, that we actually have
• 01:45 the same date of July 21, 2015 showing in the Power BI service.
• 01:49 So go to open loaded pencil.
• 01:54 And we've now got our report showing July 21st.
• 01:56 So that's cool.
• 01:59 Now, let's go see about setting alerts to see how we get notified when these
• 02:03 numbers go up.
• 02:04 That's what we wanna know about.
• 02:06 So I'm gonna go and click on my workspace and I'm gonna go to my dashboard,
• 02:10 because all alerts are set in the Power BI service from the dashboard.
• 02:15 Now the key thing that you have to remember about working with alerts is that
• 02:20 alerts can only be set on items that have a single data point,
• 02:23 which means that you cannot set an alert on this chart.
• 02:26 You can't set an alert on this chart, but we should be able to set an alerts here.
• 02:32 I can see the little bell icon.
• 02:34 If we mouse over the top right hand corner of units sold,
• 02:36 let me click the dot, dot, dot.
• 02:38 You notice that we have a bell icon here and let's see if we have a bell icon for
• 02:43 the latest date, and it would appear that we do.
• 02:46 So in this case, what I like to do is I like to set an alert to see have
• 02:51 the sales increased greater than let's say, 1.6 million.
• 02:56 So I go to the dot, dot, dot and we will click on manage alerts.
• 03:02 And it says, would you like to add an alert rule?
• 03:04 So I will say, yes.
• 03:06 The alert is on.
• 03:08 The alert is gonna be for total sales and we're gonna set this alert for
• 03:12 when total sales is above.
• 03:14 And let's go and put this thing at, I don't know.
• 03:16 Let's say, 2 million.
• 03:19 There we are.
• 03:20 Notify me at most once every 24 hours.
• 03:23 Now I also have the option to send me an email, as well.
• 03:28 So this is kind of a useful thing I find is that you can send me an email when
• 03:31 something actually changes.
• 03:32 So at this point, I'm gonna say, save and close and
• 03:35 it doesn't really look like anything's changed all that much.
• 03:39 So let's figure out if it has.
• 03:41 What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go close my window from my web browser.
• 03:46 I'm gonna come back into Power BI desktop.
• 03:49 And now, I'm gonna undo that change I just did to get all of my data.
• 03:53 So I'm gonna go to Edit Queries.
• 03:56 I'm gonna come down to my query chain.
• 03:58 And right at the end here, this is where we kept the first rows,
• 04:01 the only kept the first 10,000.
• 04:03 I'm gonna click the X to delete that step, so it no longer filters out those first
• 04:07 10 rows where we'll no longer fill just rather keep those first 10,000 rows.
• 04:12 So now what I can do is I can say, close and apply and it should run and bring me
• 04:17 back $5.24 million for the sales which is obviously higher than a 2 million.
• 04:22 So we're back to our original state.
• 04:25 So again, save the file.
• 04:27 Cuz you have to save it before you publish it.
• 04:30 Now, we'll publish it.
• 04:32 I'm gonna replace the dataset.
• 04:38 And it's gonna load it all up into Power BI for me and
• 04:42 then I'm gonna open the loaded pencil dataset inside powerbi.com.
• 04:47 We will log in.
• 04:52 And at this point, you can see that the data has indeed been updated.
• 04:57 Now you'll also notice that up in the top right,
• 05:00 something just popped up with a little yellow notification.
• 05:04 And if I click on this, it says, the alert for total sales.
• 05:07 Total sales for loaded pencil is 5.2 million,
• 05:09 which is above the threshold of 2 million.
• 05:12 So now, I can click Go to Tile and
• 05:14 I can go directly to the tile where I can see this.
• 05:17 Now, this is in what we call focus mode.
• 05:20 Let's exit focus mode for a second.
• 05:23 You can see that I have an alert icon,
• 05:25 that's actually setup on the tile which is kind of nice.
• 05:27 So at least I know what's going on with it.
• 05:30 If I need to make any changes to it, what I would do is I'd come back.
• 05:34 Go into the manage alerts.
• 05:37 Click on the alert rule and
• 05:38 I can either turn it off or I can delete the rule outright.
• 05:44 One thing to be aware of with these rules, these rules are global.
• 05:47 You cannot set something, so that it only works on email or in the service or
• 05:52 on your mobile app.
• 05:53 When you actually set an alert rule, it works on all of those locations and
• 05:56 I think that's a bit unfortunate.
• 05:58 I wish you could separate rule for your mobile app from email,
• 06:01 cuz there's some alerts that I don't need to know about at 10 o'clock at
• 06:04 night on a Saturday where they'd be just fine to wait until Monday morning.
• 06:07 But unfortunately, it's all in one.
• 06:10 But it's a cool feature that you can actually use to be alerted
• 06:13 right away when something changes.

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