Setup Outlook Rules to Reduce Spam in your Inbox

 This post is inspired by an email I got last week that turned into over a spam dozen emails simply because the sender of the email did not change the 'Reply To' field.

Most of my students are fairly good about using the 'Reply All' option sparingly in Outlook. However, with the increased use of Microsoft Teams and Office 365 Groups, I'm seeing a lot more email trails sent to large distribution groups. A simple 'Reply' will send an email to everyone in the group - same damage as hitting 'Reply All'. 

So how can we avoid getting spam from distribution lists?

Sender Action: Change Reply To in Email Options

If you're the owner of a distribution list, whenever you send an email from that mailbox, ensure you set the 'Reply to' value to an individual email rather than the entire distribution list.

This can be changed under Email Options when you 'Pop out' the email in Outlook;

Select 'Direct Replies To' in the ribbon:

Then type your email in the 'Have replies sent to' box:

This will automatically update the 'Reply' behavior to put any email(s) you put in that box into the Reply field of an email when recipients hit 'Reply'. If they're observant enough they'll notice. So don't worry, you're not doing anything dodgy.

Recipient Action: Setup Outlook Rules

Unfortunately, we can't always just ask the recipient to setup 'Direct Replies To', so we need to take control of our own Inbox and filter out those junk replies.

Outlook Rules can help manage this:

In the Home tab in the ribbon, select Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts. 

Click New Rule > Create Rule on Messages I receive. 

Click Next.

Tick 'To specific people or Group'.

In the bottom pane, click the blue hyperlink to add the email, and type the email for the distribution list.

Click Next to define the action.

Tick 'Stop processing more rules' and 'move it to the specified folder'.

In the bottom pane, click the blue 'specified folder' hyperlink to select a folder. You can move directly to Deleted Items if you're feeling confident, or select / create another folder to store them in.

Click 'Next' again to add exceptions: 

Tick 'except if from people or public group'.

Type the SAME EMAIL as the distribution group you typed in the first screen.

Your rule should look something like this when completed:

Basically, this will ensure that you receive the original email sent from the distribution list, but all replies to it will be deleted/moved.

Note: This will also delete any emails sent to the distribution list in the first instance, so may not work for all scenarios. 

Power BI Formatting

 Today's post is inspired by @PlentyL in the Power BI Community. I find myself repeating many formatting options across Power BI reports, so thought I'd compile some of my 'defaults' here. 

Time series Column Charts

Configure the chart as follows: 

You'll need to use the Drill down arrows to view the month values, and this is the default we get: 

Not exactly easy to read or pretty. So, let's clean it up a bit. 

Sort X-Axis

First, we need to sort the X-Axis by Year-Month in ASCENDING order:

That looks a lot better already, but we still have some work to do. 

Sort Month Name

If you haven't already sorted your date table, sort the Month column by Month number using the Sort by Column feature: 

Already this is acceptable, but we'll go one step further.

Concatenate Labels OFF

The final step is to ensure the Year isn't repeated and takes up less space. To do this, we'll turn off the Concatenate Labels for the X-axis: 

To do this, select the visual, click the Format paint roller icon, expand the X-axis formatting and scroll down slowly until you find 'Concatenate labels' and turn that off.

Voila! We now have a nicely formatted time series chart.

Filter by Date

If you want to take it one step further, you can add the Date column to the filters pane and filter by relative date: 

Drag the Date column from the DimDate table to the 'Filters on this visual' and set to Relative date. Note that if you choose Calendar Years or Calendar Months it will use the last date of the previous month as your max date. In the above screenshot you'll see this is Jan 31, 2022.

If you choose Years or Months, it will use today as the max date. In the below screenshot you'll see this is Feb 11, 2022: 

Slicer Selection Controls

I've mentioned this in previous posts, but I'll say it again. Slicer visual formatting is one of my pet peeves in Power BI. It does exactly the opposite of what we are accustomed to in Excel. 

Here is the default formatting of a slicer: 

If you want to tick multiple items, you must hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard. There's also no 'Select all' and no Search like we have in an Excel filter: 

Let's add the search: 

And now we'll edit the Selection controls:

Now I can easily select multiple items, all items, or deselect all items, as well as conduct a search for a particular item: 

New Zealand Win First Ever Winter Olympic Gold

 Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has brought home the GOLD for New Zealand in the Women's Slopestyle final. This marks New Zealand's first ever Olympic Gold medal, and only our 4th ever Winter Olympics medal.

She competes in the Women's Big Air next week Monday and Tuesday, so tune in to see how she does or keep an eye on my Beijing 2022 Olympics report for live updates. 

Updating the Data Source

Last year I did a post on updated data sources from Olympics to Paralympics where the sources both had the same format (column headers, etc).

This year, Olympics.com site kept timing out before I could get the data to load into Power BI, so I had to find a new source. This source had slightly different column headers and data format. 

So that means I can't simply go into Data Source settings and change the source:

Instead, I chose to Get Data and create a new query, transforming it to have EXACTLY the same column names as my previous query for Tokyo 2020 Olympics. 

Now, if we delete the Tokyo2020 query and load the Beijing2022 query, all my visuals and relationships will break. Even if I rename them.

However, if you copy the code from Advanced Editor of the new Beijing2022 query into the Advanced Editor from the old Tokyo2020 query, Power BI will treat this as the existing table and maintain your visuals and relationships. Even after you rename it and delete the dummy Beijing2022 query you've just copied! Voila! Working smarter, not harder.

Freediving for Depth: The value of learning advanced equalization techniques

I just finished my AIDA 4 Star Master Freediver course with World Champion Constant Weight No Fins diver William Trubridge this weekend.

It was four full days of sun, learning, diving and fun. Now that the course is over, I'm digesting all the new things I learned and working on putting them into practice.

This post is a little different than my usual, as it's sharing the report I created based on my learnings in the AIDA 4 course. This course introduces some advanced freediving techniques, such as mouthfill equalization, that can dramatically increase your maximum depth when diving (if that's you're goal). 

The Report

You can view the Freediving Deeper Techniques report and interact with it in Power BI. It's pre-populated with some common depths and reasonable achievements to give you an idea of the leap freedivers can make after mastering the techniques covered in the AIDA 4 course. 

If you're a freediver, play with the values and see what you can achieve. If you're not a freediver, enjoy learning about the physics behind this crazy sport.

DAX Parameters

This report uses lots of DAX parameters which enable the viewer to change the values in order to see their impact. 

Navigator Button

I'm very excited to finally show you the Navigator Button. Last year I wrote a blog about how to design custom navigation in Power BI using buttons. At the end of last year, Microsoft introduced the Page Navigator button to Power BI, making this process so much easier. Now you just need to add a single button to your page and all page names are automatically populated in the navigation pane. You can even change the orientation in case you want your buttons going down the left hand side instead of the top/bottom.

The Course

In order to become an AIDA 4 star certified freediver, you must prove a minimum level of performance:

• Dive to at least 32m depth and back using only the aid of fins (no pulling on the rope)
• Dive at least 70m distance in the pool using only the aid of fins
• Complete a static breath hold greater than 3 minutes 30 seconds in the pool

Additionally, you must also demonstrate that you are capable of assisting fellow divers and yourself in adverse conditions:

• Rescue a diver from 20m depth and tow them at least 50m to the boat/shore
• Rescue a diver from 15m depth while you're wearing only 1 fin
• Return from 20m depth without a mask or nose clip and with only 1 fin

Finally, you must also pass a written exam that tests your knowledge of theory in various areas including nutrition, equalization, environment, safety, training, performance and more.

You can read my summary of the weekend on the Auckland Freediving site: AIDA 4 Star with William Trubridge