What are Power BI External Tools and How Can I Use Them?
Proposed session for SQLBits 2026TL; DR
External tools can supercharge Power BI development. This session explores what external tools are, why they matter, and how popular community tools like DAX Studio, Tabular Editor, and Bravo can improve your daily Power BI work.
Session Details
In this session we will show you what external tools are in Power BI. The rest of the session will be used to demonstrate a lot of tools that are already built by the amazing Power BI community and can provide enormous value. Some tools have similar use cases, some complement each other, most are free, but some (features) can be paid.
I do *not* own or affiliate with any of the tools. I *do* appreciate and work with them on a daily basis!
At the end of this session you will know how these external tools can help you in your day-to-day Power BI work.
We will take a look at a choice of the following tools:
- DAX Studio
- Bravo
- Tabular Editor
- ALM Toolkit
- Measure Killer
- PBI Explorer
- ...
I do *not* own or affiliate with any of the tools. I *do* appreciate and work with them on a daily basis!
At the end of this session you will know how these external tools can help you in your day-to-day Power BI work.
We will take a look at a choice of the following tools:
- DAX Studio
- Bravo
- Tabular Editor
- ALM Toolkit
- Measure Killer
- PBI Explorer
- ...
3 things you'll get out of this session
After this session, participants will be able to:
* Explain what external tools are and how they extend Power BI Desktop.
* Choose the right tools for tasks like modeling, DAX tuning, and cleanup.
* Apply external tools to work faster, cleaner, and with more confidence in real projects.
Speakers
Nicky van Vroenhoven's other proposed sessions for 2026
A Deep Dive Into The Power BI Direct Lake - 2026
From Report to Action: Write-back with Translytical Task Flows - 2026
How to use GraphQL with Fabric SQL Database to Expose Data Externally - 2026
Optimizing Your Power BI Workflow with Project Files, Source Control, and TMDL - 2026
Nicky van Vroenhoven's previous sessions
A Form, a Flow and a Power BI Streaming Dataset Walk Into a Bar
Learn how to integrate Microsoft Forms, Power Automate and Power BI into a live interactive data application!
Write-back with Power Apps in Power BI
Do you want to let the business easily add targets, comments and/or change data quality issues in your Power BI reports? Then you should incorporate write-back with Power Apps to your Power BI reports.
Power Platform Better Together: Create a Scoring App with a Live Dashboard
Use the Power Platform to create an interactive scoreboard