Learn Power BI

By : Greg Deckler

3.5 (8)

Buy this Book

Learn Power BI

3.5 (8)

By: Greg Deckler

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

To succeed in today's transforming business world, organizations need business intelligence capabilities to make smarter decisions faster than ever before. This Power BI book is an entry-level guide that will get you up and running with data modeling, visualization, and analytical techniques from scratch. You'll find this book handy if you want to get well-versed with the extensive Power BI ecosystem. You'll start by covering the basics of business intelligence and installing Power BI. You'll then learn the wide range of Power BI features to unlock business insights. As you progress, the book will take you through how to use Power Query to ingest, cleanse, and shape your data, and use Power BI DAX to create simple to complex calculations. You'll also be able to add a variety of interactive visualizations to your reports to bring your data to life. Finally, you'll gain hands-on experience in creating visually stunning reports that speak to business decision makers, and see how you can securely share these reports and collaborate with others. By the end of this book, you'll be ready to create simple, yet effective, BI reports and dashboards using the latest features of Power BI.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Free Chapter

Section 1: The Basics

Introduction to Business Intelligence and Power BI

Key concepts of business intelligence

The Power BI ecosystem

Power BI licensing

Power BI Desktop and Service

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Section 2: The Desktop

Up and Running with Power BI Desktop

Technical requirements

Downloading and installing Power BI Desktop

Touring the Desktop

Generating data

Creating visualizations

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Connecting and Shaping Data

Technical requirements

Getting data

Transforming data

Merging, copying, and appending queries

Verifying and loading data

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Creating Data Models and Calculations

Technical requirements

Creating a data model

Creating calculations

Checking and troubleshooting calculations

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Unlocking Insights

Technical requirements

Segmenting data

Using report navigation features

Advanced visualization techniques

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Creating the Final Report

Technical requirements

Preparing the final report

Creating the final report pages

Finishing up

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Section 3: The Service

Publishing and Sharing

Technical requirements

Getting an account

Introducing the Service

Publishing and sharing

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Using Reports in the Service

Technical requirements

Viewing reports

Exporting reports

Embedding reports

Editing and creating reports

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Understanding Dashboards, Apps, and Security

Technical requirements

Understanding dashboards

Understanding apps

Understanding security and permissions

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Data Gateways and Refreshing Datasets

Technical requirements

Installing and using data gateways

Refreshing datasets

Summary

Questions

Further reading

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Creating a data model

The concept of a data model is fundamental to Power BI. In short, a data model is defined by the tables that are created from Power Query queries, as well as the relationships that are defined. These are needed to connect individual tables to one another, as well as the metadata (data about data) regarding the columns within the tables.

In Power BI, the data model is stored within a SQL Server Analysis Services tabular cube. It is the creation of this data model that enables self-service analytics and reporting.

In Chapter 3, Connecting and Shaping Data, we connected to various sources of data (three different Excel files), which, in turn, created seven different queries that ultimately resulted in four queries that loaded data tables into our data model. We will now stitch those individual tables, along with our previously created data table, into a cohesive...