Microsoft Power BI


Microsoft Power BI is a complete reporting solution that offers data preparation, data visualization, distribution, and management through development tools and an online platform.

Power BI can scale from simple reports using a single data source to reports requiring complex data modeling and consistent themes. Use Power BI to create visually stunning, interactive reports to serve as the analytics and decision engine behind group projects, divisions, or entire organizations.

Power BI is an essential tool to data analysts and their organization; however, all data professionals benefit from understanding how Power BI works to explore and present data insights within organizations.


          Use Power BI

In order to create reports with Power BI, you must first understand the tools necessary. There are three primary components to Power BI:

  • Power BI Desktop (desktop application)
  • Power BI service (online platform)
  • Power BI Mobile (cross-platform mobile app)
Power BI Desktop is the development tool available to data analysts and other report creators. While the Power BI service allows you to organize, manage, and distribute your reports and other Power BI items. Power BI Desktop is available to download for free either through the Windows store or directly online.


You can access the Power BI service at app.powerbi.com with a school or work account. If your organization doesn't already use Power BI, you can still explore the service by getting a free trial or signing up for a free Microsoft 365 Developer account.

Power BI Mobile allows consumers to view reports in a mobile-optimized format. You can create these optimized report views in Power BI Desktop.


Explore the flow of Power BI

There's a common flow when creating reports with Power BI. First, you start with Power BI Desktop to connect to data and create the report. Then you publish the report to the Power BI service and distribute to consumers.

The flow of Power BI is:

  1. Connect to data with Power BI Desktop.
  2. Transform and model data with Power BI Desktop.
  3. Create visualizations and reports with Power BI Desktop.
  4. Publish report to Power BI service.
  5. Distribute and manage reports in the Power BI service.

The Power BI service also allows you to create high-level dashboards that drill down to reports, and apps to easily group related reports to users in a simple format.



Building blocks of Power BI

The building blocks of Power BI are semantic models and visualizations. Create a semantic model and then use visuals to build a report. Let's explore these items in more detail and how they relate to the flow of Power BI.

Create a semantic model

A semantic model consists of all connected data, transformations, relationships, and calculations. To follow the flow of Power BI, you first connect to data, transform data, and create relationships and calculations to create a semantic model.

First, connect to as many data sources you need. Then clean and transform the data to your needs. Add relationships between tables and calculations to extend the semantic model. After all of that, now you can create a report.

Create visualizations in a report

In Power BI Desktop, when you create a visualization (also called visual), you add it to the canvas for a report page. Choose your visualizations to build pages in your report. It's ideal to keep each page simple with related data, so consumers can easily see the insights.

Power BI is a low-code solution, which means that you can "drag and drop" data field directly onto the canvas. Power BI will choose a visual for your data field. You can easily change between visuals for the same fields and add or remove data fields to the visual.

One of the most valuable features of Power BI reports is the interactivity between visuals. Consumers can select different data points in the visual and see how that affects the other visuals. Depending on your design, they can also drill through from one visual to more detail or filter based on different fields in the report.




Create a dashboard

In the Power BI service, you can also create dashboards after you've published a report. Dashboards consist of a single page made up of tiles. Add tiles to a dashboard by pinning a visual in a report to the dashboard. Tiles aren't interactive like visuals, so when a user interacts with the tile, they go to the underlying report for more information.

Dashboards are an excellent way to provide high-level information to consumers. Similar to a dashboard in a vehicle, include the most important information in a dashboard. Then consumers can go to the report for more details.







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