Direct Lake - The Power BI Revolution

🎯 The Problem: Import mode is fast but stale. DirectQuery is fresh but slow. You've been making this tradeoff for years. What if you didn't have to choose anymore?
💡 This Evening: Direct Lake changes everything. We'll show you how it delivers Import-speed performance with DirectQuery-level freshness - and why it's the future of Power BI.
⏱️ Save yourself: Weeks of performance tuning. Direct Lake + proper semantic model design = reports that just work.
What you'll learn:
📊 Semantic Models - Direct Lake, Import, and DirectQuery modes, and WHY Direct Lake uses Delta parquet files directly (no data copy!)
📈 Reports - Best practices for Fabric-native reports, and WHY report design matters for Direct Lake performance (hint: fewer visuals = faster)
📋 Dashboards vs Reports - When to pin vs when to build, and WHY dashboards are being deprecated in favor of reports
📄 Paginated Reports - Pixel-perfect printing and exports, and WHY paginated reports still matter for invoices, statements, regulatory docs
🎯 Scorecards - KPI tracking and goal management, and WHY metrics need a dedicated home (not buried in reports)
Mode Comparison:

• Import: Scheduled refresh, fast, limited size
• DirectQuery: Real-time, slow, unlimited size
• Direct Lake: Real-time AND fast AND large datasets

Who should attend: Power BI developers migrating to Fabric, Report authors optimizing performance, Architects designing semantic layer
Agenda:

• 18:30 - Welcome & Networking
• 18:45 - Direct Lake Deep Dive
• 19:15 - Reports, Dashboards, Scorecards
• 19:35 - Paginated Reports Use Cases
• 19:50 - Performance Tips
• 19:55 - Q&A and Discussion
• 20:00 - Networking