Discover our Latest Projects!

Great Barrier Reef SELTMP Dashboards

DiscoverEI developed two interactive dashboards in Power BI to communicate the findings of the Social and Economic Long-Term Monitoring Program (SELTMP) to support managers and decision-makers within the Great Barrier Reef region to improve planning and management for the Reef’s future. The dashboard brings together data about Reef users, communities, and industries, enabling new insights into their dependencies and relationship with the Reef, and how this is changing over time.

Water for Life Dashboard

DiscoverEI is proud to have worked together with the Greater Melbourne Water Corporations to create the Water for Life Strategy Dashboard, to help communicate their strategy to secure the water supply of Melburnian’s for the next 50 years. Through combining videos, interactive maps, infographics and dynamic narratives the we have unlocked the data to quickly create a shared understanding of the strategy for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Urban Water Strategy Dashboard

DiscoverEI is proud to have worked collaboratively with Gippsland Water to develop an interactive dashboard to help communicate the Gippsland Water Urban Water Strategy – their 50 year plan to secure future water resources across the region. Click on the link below to explore the dashboard, including the interactive water and sewer maps, interactive infographics and photo galleries to learn more about where water comes from and where it goes across the Gippsland region.

DELWP Vic Water Grid

COVID-19 Water Security Risk Index Dashboard

The DiscoverEI team is proud to have supported the DELWP Grid Oversight team, in developing their Biennial Statement for the Vic Water Grid. This website features a series of embedded Power BI reports that help describe what is “the grid”, and allows users to see how DELWP are preparing for a future with less water by getting the most out of the grid. The interactive dashboards can be accessed through the button below.

The DiscoverEI team was proud to have worked alongside Griffith University, the International WaterCentre and the Australian Water Partnership, to develop this COVID-19 Water Security Risk Index Power BI report. This interactive decision support tool is enabling governments, communities and development organisations, to visualise the risks to water security, and prioritise response to assist those countries across the Indo-Pacific.

Environmental Flows Webtool

The DiscoverEI team developed a custom web application to visualise environmental and river flows across Corangamites catchments. By developing the tool in JavaScript we were able to customise the look and feel of the tool, and integrate environmental data from the Victorian Water Management Information System (WMIS) with local ‘on-premise’ data sources to provide near real-time reporting. The tool can be accessed through the button below.

Discover our Custom Visuals

We have been working to develop a range of Power BI custom visuals tailored for the environmental industry. We have the DiscoverEI Geological Borelog and Marginal Cost Curve (MCC) currently available for purchase in our Marketplace. The perfect customised visuals for presenting your niche environmental data!

DiscoverEI’s Geological Bore Log custom visual for Power BI allows you to create interactive geological bore log cross-sections for your sites in a matter of minutes! Complete with groundwater level, screen information, consistent formatting and report page tooltips. Visualise your geology alongside all your other project information such as maps, monitoring data and photos in interactive Power BI reports.

The MCC Power BI custom visual is widely used in the energy and resources sectors to estimate the volume and costs of opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The visual can provide additional insights into evaluating the feasibility of projects accounting for greenhouse gas emissions future savings across the project lifetime.

It is available for purchase with an example template Power BI report to demonstrate how to make the best use of the visual for your own Power BI reports.

DiscoverEI Video Blogs!

The intersection of Power BI, Design and the Environment

Check out our video blog and YouTube channel for our latest video tutorials where we share our favourite tips and tricks on all things Data Analytics, Graphic Design and Environmental Engineering.

For our August 2022 session, we had the pleasure of having Belinda Walters (Communications Lead - Greater Melbourne Urban Water & System Strategy) and DiscoverEI’s very own Alice Drummond (co-founder DiscoverEI) present on the Water for Life strategy Power BI report: https://waterforlifestrategy.com.au/

For our July 2022 session, we had the pleasure of having Will Thompson (Microsoft Power BI Program Manager) present on the recent demo Power BI report from the Gartner Bake-Off Summit. You can also see Will's demo at the Gartner Bake-Off summit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjJ-dY01NA

For our June 2022 session Shannon Lindsay shared a recent Workout Wednesday challenge, where we created a custom theme in Power BI, in an effort to build a report exploring the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This session covered the creation of a custom theme, the use of images and icons, and tips and tricks to customize your Power BI reports.

For our April 2022 Power BI 4 Enviro’s session, we had Matt Allington (Australian Microsoft MVP) presenting on his rainwater tank Power BI report. If you want to be good at Power BI, you must get practice. That doesn’t mean you have to practice at work. You can also get practice in at home. In this session, Matt stepped through a process of creating a Power BI report from scratch to determine what size rain water tank is needed for a new property/house.

In this session, Pragati took us through her Global carbon dioxide emissions public data Power BI report, and how she generated a quick report keeping in mind what insights can be derived from this data. Her version of the report for your interest is available here: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Global-CO2-Emissions-Analysis/td-p/2313590

In this short video blog we walk through how to create custom basemaps in MapBox and integrate them into your Icon Map in Power BI! We then take it to the next level by configuring dynamic basemaps which we can change using slicers. A big shoutout and thanks to James Dales for creating this awesome visual!!

In this short video blog we walk through how to take Icon Map to the next level by incorporating WKT to plot custom points, lines and polygons, including a quick overview of how to convert your spatial files to WKT in QGIS. A big shoutout and thanks to James Dales for creating this awesome visual!!

Icon Map is hands down my favourite mapping visual for Power BI! In this short video I walk through how to get started creating your very first map with custom icons. A big shoutout and thanks to James Dales for creating this awesome visual!!

Working across the environmental industry – it’s fair to say that pretty much ALL of DiscoverEI’s Power BI reports have a map! And if you thought that MapBox was good, well you’re going to LOVE the Icon Map custom visual in Power BI – which allows you to display interactive polygons, points, lines and of course – icons, all in the one visual…plus so much more! To really appreciate how Icon Map can be used to visualize real world data, in this video blog I walk through two real-world applications of Icon Map to visualize environmental data. A big shoutout and thanks to James Dales for creating this awesome visual!!

In December, we were privileged to have Brian Julius, the Chief Content Officer at Enterprise DNA and Sam McKay the CEO and Founder at Enterprise DNA present a review of the Environmental Power BI Challenge Showcase.
Enterprise DNA has been running real-world Power BI Data Challenges for the past two years, but November 2021’s challenge was the first focused on environmental data. Entrants were asked to analyse unmasked data on environmental indicators in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region dealing with precipitation, contaminant exposure, and adult and child asthma prevalence. In this session, Sam and Brian reviewed the top entries, from an analytical, visualization and data storytelling perspective, and discussed some of the unique aspects of this challenge and lessons learned compared to past competitions.

You can learn more about Enterprise DNA and the environmental challenge competition here:
- Enterprise DNA: https://enterprisedna.co/
- Challenge Showcase: https://enterprisedna.co/power-bi-showcase

Join Our Meetup: Power BI for Enviro’s

The DiscoverEI team are excited to have started up our own Meetup group, all around bringing together other people in the community who are as passionate about data analytics and the environment as we are! This Meetup is a place for sharing tips, tricks and hacks for analysing, visualising and communicating environmental data. Our mission is to empower everyone to use data effectively to better manage our environment!

Recent Events

The environmental industry is literally drowning in data! Join Alice for an interactive, demo heavy session packed full of Power BI design tips and tricks, where she showcases Power BI story telling techniques using real-world case studies from the environmental industry. Come along for a deep-dive into creating custom maps in Power BI, learn how to create your own interactive infographics, and combine your data with images, icons and animations to bring it to life; and so much more... For a sneak-peak check out this short 2 minute video: https://youtu.be/veUPIfCK_sk

Having developed a fair few public facing Power BI reports working at DiscoverEI, Christian will share his lessons learnt from these experiences. Whether its visuals that don’t render, checking browser performance, assessing which option is right to use and many more, don’t miss out on the session using plenty of environmental Power BI applications as examples.

The PPPQ is BACK, and this time we’re coming to you live from the Global Power BI Summit!! Come along to learn a bit about the backstory behind the quiz development and the tech we use - we will also run 3 rounds of the quiz live, using a range of Power BI questions sent in by this amazing global Power BI community!

In what promises to be an AWESOME multi-day virtual conference, Alice will share her tips & tricks for making amazing maps in Power BI. In what is commonly considered a limitation of Power BI, mapping has come a LONG way and provides so much greater spatial context to your data, which is especially important for environmental studies.

In what promises to be an AWESOME multi-day virtual conference, Daniel will discuss potential new ways to think about how to create bespoke visuals in Power BI, and will be demonstrating his own new visual, which will provide the tools to do it

It's coming so get excited - the Power Platform 2021 Release Wave 1 contains a set of features being released from April 2021 through to September 2021.

The environmental industry is literally drowning in data! Join Alice for an interactive, demo heavy session packed full of Power BI hacks, tips and tricks, where she showcases some of the best story telling techniques from a range of case studies from across the environmental industry. Check out this 2 minute video for a sneak-peak: https://youtu.be/veUPIfCK_sk

Join DiscoverEI’s February edition of Power BI and Data Analytics for Enviro’s Meetup as we focus on Data Visualisation with Michael Berry and Ben Ferry (aka PowerBIGuy). If you’re keen to learn how to better present and structure your reports then don’t miss this session!

Join DiscoverEI’s January edition of Power BI and Data Analytics for Enviro’s Meetup! We have a jam-packed line up focused on spatial visualisation, using the Power BI Icon Map, Mapbox API and Carto Mapping Platform. If you’re keen to learn how to better represent your spatial information to bring context to your data then don’t miss this session!

Join DiscoverEI’s December edition of Power BI for Enviro’s Meetup! We have a jam-packed line up including Daniel Marsh-Patrick (DiscoverEI / Coacervo) presenting an Intro into the World of Custom Visuals; Kerry Kolosko sharing Beyond "Click and Viz": looking at using corporate coloured bar charts with Power BI, and our own Alice Drummond presenting on DiscoverEI’s tips for our Top 5 custom visuals that Enviro's need to know.

Join DiscoverEI’s November edition of Power BI for Enviro’s Meetup! We have a jam-packed line up including Dr Justin Perry (CSIRO) presenting on Indigenous led AI in Kakadu National Park; Douglas De Brito (Waikato Regional Council - NZ) will share Water Accounting, Monitoring and QA Checks with Power BI, and Phil Meng will be sharing some case studies from their work at the Water Corporation in Western Australia.

Join Alice as she presents at the Melbourne Women in BizApps Meetup Group all around practical Power BI design tips! She’ll be joined by Stefanie Weedon, who will share her tips around Corporates Design, and Abby Kong sharing tips around accessibility. Register today on Meetup!

Join Alice and Christian at the virtual Adelaide PUG where we do a deep-dive into everything you need to know about Power BI Publish to Web! From embedding with a custom thumbnail, to data refresh times, browser compatibility, mobile responsiveness, WCAG accessibility features, intuitive navigation, corporate branding, security considerations, to simply creating reports that make sense, there’s a lot to consider!

Join the DiscoverEI team, Lachlan Guthrie (IWC) and Jarrod Gaut (Water_Insites) for our first Power BI for the Enviro’s Meetup! We’ll share lots of case studies from across the environmental industry, a Power BI 101, and also discuss all your Power BI questions at our ‘Ask the Experts’ panel discussion. Register today on Meetup.

Come along and join the DiscoverEI team at Microsoft Ignite this year - and learn how they are applying Power BI to the environmental industry!

Come and learn about all the new and exciting features in the Power BI September 2020 release with the PowerBI.Tips team and Data Platform MVPs from across the globe, including DiscoverEI’s very own Alice Drummond!

Designing your Power BI reports to take them from canvas to creation fast. In this session Alice and Christian will guide you through some fantastic Power BI design tricks to bring your data to life.

Join DiscoverEI’s own Alice Drummond as panellist on an open Q&A discussion at the Redgate Streamed Virtual Conference about Women in Tech.

Data is so much more than just numbers on a page. When it is shared as a story, it suddenly has the power to transform data into decisions! Join Alice as she presents at the Australian Power Platform Summit on her top tips to tell a great story in Power BI.

If you’ve worked in the Power BI industry long enough, you’ll be well aware that knowing how to use the tech is only half of our challenge… Join Christian as he presents at the Australian Power Platform Summit virtual conference on Exploring the non-data side of Power BI Projects - the People!

With Power BI moving at such a rapid rate there are many challenges to roll out self-service BI across organisations. Join Christian as he presents at the Australian Power Platform Summit virtual conference on Power BI Data Governance: Self-Service without the Stress!

Alice, Christian, Amey and Greg will bring you the Power Platform Pub Quiz (virtual) as part of the global Microsoft 365 Event aimed at raising money for charity. This quiz will go beyond simply testing your knowledge on all things Power Platform, and includes classic O365 topics and Azure. Join us on 30th July, for what is sure to be a fun-filled event, as we reconnect with our amazing global community to keep the Power Platform spirit alive!

The environmental industry is literally drowning in data! Join Alice and Christian ‘virtually’ as they present at the Canberra Power BI Meetup! Be prepared for an interactive, demo heavy session packed full of Power BI hacks, tips and tricks, where they showcase story telling techniques using case studies from the environmental industry.

Join Christian as he presents at the “Data Visualisation for the Water Industry” RBMS webinar, where he will talk about what is Power BI and how it can be used to visualise and communicate environmental data.

As data analysts, we are constantly challenged to think harder about how we can transform mountains of data into business actions. Join Alice, as she presents at Agile Analytics Power BI Lunch & Learn on DiscoverEI’s 5 Tips tip accelerate your Power BI Report Design!

Join Alice as she presents virtually at the Southern Californian Power BI Meetup on DiscoverEI’s Top 10 Power BI Data Storytelling Techniques, to share an Australian Water Story!

Come along to the virtual Microsoft Reactor event where Amey and Alice share the story so far on how their virtual Power Platform Pub Quiz initiative #PPPQ is leveraging the power of the platform to run live virtual quiz events featuring trivia questions across the power platform stack.

Power BI Design 101: Data is more than just numbers on a page. When combined with design, we suddenly have the power to connect and engage with our report users and ultimately transform our data into decisions. Come along to the ‘virtual’ Power BI Sydney Meetup to watch this presentation!

Christian will present Power BI features and techniques that we use at DiscoverEI to constantly work with our clients, rather than working for our clients. These include enhancing navigation and context, using placeholder visuals, utilising the App Workspace and communicating effectively through visual design.

Alice will present 10 of her favourite Power BI storytelling tips and tricks.

From data storytelling, to dashboard design and environmental science - we’ve got your Power BI training covered! Get in touch today with our team of Microsoft Certified Trainers to secure your place!

Feedback from our participants…

Take a look at some of the interactive dashboards you’ll create from scratch!

Click on the images below to interact with the Power BI reports…

Data Analytics

Data at your fingertips

Applying the latest Business Intelligence tools within the environmental industry, we process, analyse and visualise your data through interactive dashboards and mobile apps to discover your data story. Our expertise includes: database and dashboard development (Power BI), custom visual development, mobile apps, and in-house training.

Graphic Design

See the big picture

Using video footage and computer animations, we enable you to better understand, visualise and communicate complex systems, and bring your environmental data to life. Our expertise includes: video capture by drones, environmental schematics, computer animations as well as developing virtual and mixed reality solutions.

Environmental Modelling

From simulations to solutions

We conceptualise, configure and simulate models of groundwater and surface water systems, working with you to develop solutions for your environmental challenges. Our expertise includes: water allocation modelling (eWater Source, REALM), groundwater modelling (MODFLOW, PEST), and environmental site assessments.

What our clients are saying…

Congratulations MVPs!

The DiscoverEI team are incredibly proud to celebrate Alice Drummond and Daniel Marsh-Patrick for both being recognised as Microsoft Data Platform MVPs!

But what exactly is an MVP..?

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They have a very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems, and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge! Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others - that's what sets them apart!

For Alice, it’s her passion for Power BI and the environment, where she is constantly sharing new and interesting examples of how we can bring environmental data to life, inspiring the community through the DiscoverEI blog, YouTube channel, Data Stories Gallery, PowerBI.Tips contributions and as many conference and community events she can attend!!! She’s also incredibly passionate about #WomenInTech and is a community leader for the Women in BizApps Melbourne Meetup.

For Daniel, it’s sharing his intimate knowledge of the Microsoft stack, consistently posting helpful content and answering the Power BI community questions across all forums, which has also earned him the esteemed title of Datanaut! Daniel is also pushing the boundaries of open source custom visual development (check out his AWESOME Violin Plot and Small Multiple Line Chart) and regularly shares his learnings and experiences through many conference presentations, community events and his Coacervo blog!

The DiscoverEI Data Gods

The DiscoverEI Co-Founders Alice and Christian have been inducted into the KratosBI Data God Hall of Fame, for their amazing work combining graphic design and Power BI to bring environmental data to life!

Chris Wagner (aka. King of the Data Gods) works tirelessly to empower the global Power BI community to work together to create, share and promote amazing content to make the most out of Power BI. Head across to KratosBI.com to find loads of great content to help you get started with your Power BI journey!

Australian Water Association

Drowning in Data: Business Intelligence Tools for the Water Industry

In this age of ‘Big Data’ and real time monitoring, our water industry is literally drowning in data. As water professionals, we are constantly challenged to transform data into decisions.

Join Alice Drummond (DiscoverEI) alongside Jacqui Kelly (Wannon Water) and Amanda Hazell (Melbourne Water) where we share how we are using Business Intelligence tools to support a culture of data driven decision making across the water industry.

From Canvas to Creation

We had a fantastic time presenting virtually at the Portland PUG, sharing design tips for taking your reports from Canvas to Creation! The Portland PUG is an awesome community and Greg P and Bastian are fantastic hosts who bring amazing speakers in from all across the world.

Data is more than just numbers on a page - when combined with design, we suddenly have the power to connect and engage with our report users and ultimately transform our data into decisions. In this session we went through practical design tips to help you start shaping your data story in Power BI - quickly! Its important to always ask questions of your data, and get something on the page early with a '5-minute mock-up'. From here you can quickly transform a 'Proof of Concept' report, into a work of art with layouts, themes, corporate branding, which help get early feedback and engagement from business report users. We demo how to add some finishing touches like navigation bookmarks, buttons and tooltips to create a seamless user experience.

Click on the button below to register for the awesome meetup group!

The Power of Storytelling

As data analysts, we are constantly challenged to think harder about how we can turn mountains of data into business actions. Alice and Christian gave an interactive, demo heavy session sharing their Top 10 Power BI Storytelling Tips from a range of case studies across the water industry as part of the Power Platform 24 virtual conference!

Watch the full recording from their session (and many more awesome sessions!!) to learn how to use bookmarks for seamless navigation; layouts to frame your reports; embed videos and GIFs to create emotional connections; use cross-report drill-through to create linkages; configure decomposition trees to facilitate decision making; and many many more tips to help you share your data story! And stay tuned, because this has the makings of a great blog series…

ABC Radio: Water Management

Alice Drummond, Director of Environmental Analytics at DiscoverEI, sat down with Antony Funnell from ABC Radio National, to offer her perspective on how we can apply data analytics tools to help manage Australia’s precious water resources. This interview is part of the ABC series on water conflict and management – the politics, the problems and the potential solutions.

Panel Guests:

Alice Drummond – Director of Environmental Analytics for the environment intelligence consultancy DiscoverEI

Dr Stuart Blanch – Senior manager, land clearing and restoration, WWF Australian

Dr Belinda Wade – Co-lead, business sustainability research area, University of Queensland Business School

Dr Andrew Ross - Research Fellow, Australian National University and the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training

Dr Scott Moore – Director, Penn Global China Program; Senior Fellow, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and also the Water Center, University of Pennsylvania

Dr Mark Cuthbert - Lecturer in Groundwater Sciences, Cardiff University

YBF Tech Start-Up Spotlight

Working out of YBF Ventures, Australia's top startup hub for tech and innovation, we’re constantly surrounded by others who are on a similar journey to discovering how we can develop, and apply technology to help make our world a better place.

It was wonderful to reflect on the DiscoverEI journey with Joe Harrington (YBF Ventures), and share a bit more about how we are applying data analytics and visualsiation tools to streamline environmental modelling and create a shared understanding of the complex environmental systems we are working to protect. Can’t wait to reflect again in another 12 months!

Data Analytics for Environmental Challenges

Protecting our environment is not just about collecting and analysing data. It’s also about educating and engaging our communities, and using all of the tools at our disposal to help secure a more sustainable environment for future generations.

Take a look at our case studies to see how DiscoverEI combine the Power BI, PowerApps and Power Automate to help transform environmental data into decisions. We created this short video to help spark ideas for the #Hack4Good event happening at the Microsoft Community Summit in Barcelona in March 2020, where teams are working together to solve some of our biggest environmental challenges using the Microsoft stack! The datasets presented in this video are for demonstration purposes only, and have been anonymised so that we can share with the community.

Visual Communication

Animating Australian Catchments

In 2019, we’ve just experienced another record breaking Australian summer, with January to April being the warmest period on record. DiscoverEI have been busy capturing these impacts on our water systems, combining aerial drone footage with animations and infographics to help our clients visualise and communicate their complex environmental systems.

Take a look at one of our case studies we’ve prepared for the major reservoirs within the Werribee system in Victoria.

Water Resource Management

The water industry is literally drowning in data. At DiscoverEI we combine the latest business intelligence tools with computer animations facilitating a culture of data driven decision making across the water industry. Interactive dashboards are valuable decision support and communication tools, presenting a large volume of information in an accessible format to facilitate stakeholder engagement.

In this short video, we present a range of case studies where interactive dashboards have been applied across the water industry, to streamline data processing and create a shared understanding of our complex water systems to help secure a more sustainable future water supply.

Get in touch today to find out more

About Us

Our mission is to bring environmental data to life!

We are passionate about using data analytics and visualisations to secure a more sustainable environment for tomorrow. We are a team of environmental engineers, data analysts and computer animators. Find out more about our team, what we stand for, and what sets us apart.