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This blog will guide you step-by-step through the fundamentals of Power BI. Many concepts will be illustrated using an example dataset, and we will end by how you can transform data using Power BI.
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What Is Power BI?
Power BI is an accessible business intelligence solution designed to allow you to connect various data sources, visualize them into reports and interactive dashboards, and share them with those you choose.
Power BI includes three components that work in harmony:
- Power BI Desktop is a free desktop app for creating and designing reports,
- While Power BI Service offers online publishing features to access reports and dashboards
- While mobile apps enable viewing these on the go.
What is Power BI used for? Power BI falls within the Business Intelligence (BI) tool category and serves to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and uncover insights in business data-driven decisions for improved organizational decision-making.
It specializes in tracking KPIs to measure overall organizational health while uncovering insights for enhanced decision-making processes. Power BI can be applied in numerous ways depending on a person's role, from developers and analysts to managers, directors, and everything in between.
Downloading And Installing Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is an integral component of Power BI. It serves as the go-to application for designing and creating reports.
Due to its many benefits, we suggest downloading Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store. Here are just a few:
- Windows automatically updates Power BI Desktop to its most up-to-date version; with Microsoft providing monthly Power BI updates, this can save a considerable amount of time and hassle.
- Windows' update system downloads only the components affected in each update, significantly speeding up updates while simultaneously decreasing data usage.
This approach reduces bandwidth requirements.
- Power BI Desktop does not require administrative privileges on your computer to install or update, eliminating the hassles often associated with company-provided computers and speeding up monthly updates as you don't have to reach out to IT each time there's an update required for an app.
If you need the Power BI Desktop application, head over to its product page and click 'See Download or natural language queries.
This will take you directly to Microsoft Download Center, where you can get hold of the most up-to-date version. Keep in mind that both versions must be installed separately. If switching, make sure you uninstall your current application first before installing a different version.
Power BI will begin by creating an empty report when launched, so let's go over its components:
- The top ribbon contains the majority of the controls and options required for creating the account.
- Views include the report view, the data view, and the model view.
- Canvas is the primary design area where interactive visualizations and other elements are placed.
- Page selector - allows you to navigate to other pages in the report.
- Filters are fields that can be added to the table to filter the data.
- This section contains a list of available visualizations.
- Fields - the tables and fields available in the data model are listed in this section.
Read More: Maximize Analytics ROI: Power BI Features For 300% Efficiency Gain
Importing And Transforming Data In Power BI Desktop
Data Sources And Connections
Power BI offers support for multiple data sources and connections, making connecting to any desired one quick and straightforward.
To gain further knowledge about Power BI best practices for this blog, we will import some sample financial data provided by Microsoft for further study.
Importing Data
As stated at the start of this blog, you may download sample data and import it by choosing Excel as its data source.
An Excel preview window will appear, from which you can select which table or sheet from your Excel file you would like to import. Then, you'll see icons corresponding to tables and sheets - in general, tables tend to be better as they come complete with clear headers and row boundaries for importation purposes.
You can also choose whether to load the data directly or use the Transform Data option to go straight to the Power Query Editor.
Deciding to transform your data first before packing it in can be advantageous because there are frequently minor errors and issues that you may want to address first. When you select Transform Data, a new window for the Power Query Editor will open.
Power Query
The Power Query Editor is divided into four major sections:
- The top ribbon collaboration features most of the transformation options you'll need to manipulate your data.
At the same time, we discuss several common transformations.
- Queries - This section lists all of the questions that have been created for this report.
For complex reports, group queries for easier management.
- Data View (or Preview Table) displays only 1000 rows from any query selected and includes formula bar information for that table.
- Transformation Steps - Each transformation step that was applied to your selected query can be found listed on the right-hand pane, providing a way for you to keep track of individual changes that were made to it - including adding or removing steps as required.
Because the financial sample data is already very clean, no transformation steps are required. However, the following are some of the most typical transformation steps:
- Removing Rows and Columns - Excel data may contain blank rows or columns for readability or aesthetic reasons; these should be eliminated when used within Power BI as they will no longer provide useful actionable insights.
- Switching data types - For each column, specific data types like numbers, dates, or text must be specified.
Power BI may attempt to detect them as numbers, dates, or readers automatically, but this could sometimes prove inaccurate; to prevent potential mistakes, it's wiser to double-check any changes of this nature.
- Merge and append can help combine data from various sources by performing transformations similar to join and concatenate in SQL, allowing you to combine queries from multiple sources into one query set.
- Pivot and unpivot are tools used for converting data from wide to long formats and vice versa, particularly useful when working with Excel files containing information (like dates) that span multiple columns rather than rows.
These Excel files can come in very handy when dealing with dates running across columns rather than rows.
- Add Conditional Column - With this transformation, you can easily create conditional columns according to the if/then/else logic.
Power BI Tools
Following that, in this Power BI blog, we will go over some of the best Power BI tools:
Power BI Service
Power BI Service (also referred to as Power BI Online) is an internet-based platform that enables you to share reports created from Power BI Desktop with others and collaborate on dashboards and reports more easily than before as a SaaS tool hosting Power BI models and dashboards on-demand.
In turn, it facilitates report sharing, administrative operations, and collaboration.
However, it is only available with a Pro license, which costs a US$10 monthly subscription fee. You can ask questions about your data using Power BI Service.
Power BI is available in three different versions: free, pro, and premium. Overall, Power BI Service is one of the Power BI building blocks; Power BI Service allows you to create, share, and consume business insights.
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is a free data analytics tool and visualization tool used for creating data models, dashboards, reports and connecting to multiple available data sources.
Many business intelligence projects rely heavily on Power BI Desktop when producing reports - its main uses being:
- Relating to a variety of data sources
- Visualization of data
- Report writing
- Transformation of data
- Reporting and sharing
Power BI Report Server
Power BI Report Server is an on-premise platform designed for displaying and managing reports and KPIs, housing paginated reports, dashboards, power applications, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Customizable existing reports created by our development team by changing filters; accessible via browsers on mobile devices as well as email; reports can even be customized.
Power BI Gateway
Installed by the BI administrator, Power BI Gateway connects Power BI to on-premises sources like Excel, DirectQuery, PowerApps and Azure Analysis cloud Services via secure channels for analysis and reporting purposes.
Direct connectivity from client platforms directly connects Power BI to its data sources on-premises for easy data access.
Power BI Mobile
Power BI Mobile is an app available for iOS, Android and Windows mobile platforms that makes viewing reports and dashboards from anywhere at any time easy and accessible.
With Power BI Mobile's convenience, you can view reports and dashboards for any real-time data of the day without ever leaving home.
Power BI Apps
Power BI Apps are mobile applications available for Windows, iOS and Android smartphones that make sharing reports and dashboards with others simple and accessible from smartphones anywhere across the internet.
Business users can share messages through Microsoft Intune so that other people may access accounts remotely on their smartphones via Internet access.
Conclusion
This blog on Power BI revealed it is an empowering business intelligence tool that allows the user interface to create interactive reports and dashboards to aid decision-making processes more easily.
Furthermore, you learn Power BI step by step and about the suite of business intelligence tools itself, its significance, how Power BI came to exist and works, its role within companies that use it, etc; additionally, in subsequent sessions, you will discover its building blocks.
