Introduction to Power BI

About Power BI
Power BI is a Data Visualization and Business Intelligence tool that converts data from
different data sources to interactive dashboards and Bl reports. Power BI suite provides
multiple software, connector, and services - Power BI desktop, Power BI service based on
SaaS, and mobile Power BI apps available for different platforms. These set of services are
used by business users to consume data and build Bl reports.
Power BI desktop app is used to create reports, while Power BI Services (Software as
a Service - SaaS) is used to publish the reports, and Power BI mobile app is used to view the
reports and dashboards.
Power BI is simple and fast enough to connect to an Excel workbook or a local
database. It can also be robust and enterprise-grade, ready for extensive modeling and real
time analytics. This means it can be used in a variety of environments from a personal report
and visualization tool to the analytics and decision engine behind group projects, divisions, or
entire corporations.
As Power BI is a Microsoft product and has built in connections to Excel, there are
many functions that will be familiar to an Excel user.

The parts of Power BI:

Power BI constitutes of
• a Microsoft Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop,
• an online SaaS (Software as a Service) called Power BI Service and
• a mobile Power Bl apps that can be accessed from Windows phones and tablets, and
available on Apple iOS and Google Android devices.
These three elements - Desktop, the Service, and Mobile apps - are the backbone of the
Power Bl system and lets users create, share, and consume the actionable insights in the
most effective way.

Flow of Power BI:

The Common flow of activity in Power BI looks like this:
• Bring data into Power BI Desktop and create a report.
• Publish to the Power BI service, where you can create new visualizations or build
dashboards.
• Share dashboards with others, especially people who are on the go.
• View and interact with shared dashboards and reports in Power BI Mobile apps.
 • Depending on the user role, the user might spend most of the time in one of the
three components than the other.

Features of Power BI:

• Power BI is faster and performs better when there is a smaller volume of data.
• Power BI provides an interface based on Microsoft Office 365 that is user-friendly,
intuitive, and easy to understand.
• Using Power Bl, you can work with several data sources, such as Excel, Text/CSV,
JSON, SQL Server databases, IBM DB2, MySQL, etc.
• Power BI can connect with the R programming language, and it also supports various
Data Analysis Expression (DAX) functions and measures.
• Power BI has functional integration with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. It helps
to analyze insights and patterns in datasets.

Power BI Tools:
We defined Power BI as a suite of Business Analytics tools that enable us analyses our
data and share the insights we derive. In this section, we are going to take a look at the
different tools that make up our solution.

Power BI Desktop: Power BI Desktop is an elegant end-to-end solution for building analytics.
It has all the capabilities to quickly connect, shape, visualize, and share data insights through
Power Bl. This desktop application is easy to use and designed to save valuable time and effort
by simplifying the process of getting your data ready for analysis. Power BI Desktop puts visual
analytics at your fingertips with intuitive report authoring. You can drag-and drop content to
place them exactly where you want them on the flexible and fluid canvas. It enables you to
quickly discover patterns as you explore a single unified view of linked and interactive
visualizations.

Power BI Service: This is a cloud-based service that you subscribe to. It enables you create
and publish your Power BI reports. You can share the reports from this service with other
people who can either view them within the service or in the mobile app.
Power BI Mobile: With apps that are available, and can be downloaded from the Windows
store, App store, and Google Play, Power BI gives you the ability to stay connected to your
data from anywhere and at any time. Having a 360-degree view of your data on the go is sure
to keep you ahead of trends as you stay focused on what matters most to you. You can view
your personalized dashboards and reports from anywhere, as well as easily interact with your
data using a touch- optimized experience. Data-driven alerts help you stay up to date with
important insights and act of them without delay. You can also share live reports and
dashboards with your team and trusted partners to keep everyone on the same page.

Power BI Gateway: This is installed on premises to enable data refresh on published reports
in the Power BI service. It is available in two editions - Personal and Enterprise, for use in
home and Enterprise scenarios respectively. So, let's say you have used data contained in
both your SQL Server and Oracle databases to create a beautiful report containing all those
important metrics your CEO will like to see, and have published that report to the Power BI
service to make it available online. How do you keep the data in the report current so that
your CEO can always have the correct information regardless of the time he views the report?
That's where the Power BI Gateway comes in. It connects to your on-premises data sources
and refreshes the online data to make sure that it is always current. You can schedule this
refresh to a time that is suitable for you, for example, hourly, daily or weekly.

How to use Power BI:

Power BI Desktop is where analysts and other users can create data connections, data models
and reports. The Power Bl service is where those reports can be shared, so other users can
view and interact with them.
To build a Power BI report, take the following steps:
• Connect the data sources.
• Query the data to create reports based on user needs.
• Publish the report to the Power Bl service.
• Share the report, so cloud and mobile users can see and interact with it.
• Add permissions to give colleagues the ability to edit reports or create dashboards or
limit their ability to edit.
Power BI Desktop:
• Power BI Desktop is a free application you install on your local computer that lets you
connect to, transform, and visualize your data. With Power BI Desktop, you can
connect to multiple different sources of data, and combine them (often called
modelling) into a data model. This data model lets you build visuals, and collections of
visuals you can share as reports, with other people inside your organization.
• Most users who work on business intelligence projects use Power BI Desktop to create
reports, and then use the Power BI service to share their reports with others.

Power BI Installation:
• Power BI Desktop is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
• Go to https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-au/desktop/ and click on "download free"
to download Power BI desktop.
• Once the download is complete and you run the file, you will see a screen like this
below:
 • You do not need to sign in or register for a Power BI pro account to use Power BI Desktop,
you can simply close the window. Sign-in is only required to access the sharing and
collaboration tools available through Power BI Service.
• Go to https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Galleries/ct- p/PBI Comm Galleries to view the
gallery provided by Power BI forum. You can connect to the Power BI community through
this, learn more from tutorials and demos, see what's being talked about, view dashboards
prepared by other users and much more.

Checklist for smooth Power BI installation:

• Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 or later.
• NET 4.6.2 or later.
• Microsoft Edge browser (Internet Explorer is no longer supported)
• Memory (RAM): At least 2 GB available, 4 GB or more recommended.
• Display: At least 1440x900 or 1600x900 (16:9) required. Lower resolutions such as 1024x768
or 1280x800 aren't supported because some controls (such as closing the startup screens)
display beyond those resolutions.
• Windows display settings: If you set your display to change the size of text, apps, and other
items to more than 100%, you won't see some dialogs that you must interact with to
continue using Power BI Desktop. If you encounter this issue, check your display settings in
Windows by going to Settings > System > Display, and use the slider to return display
settings to 100%.
• CPU: 1 gigahertz (GHz) 64-bit (x64) processor or better recommended.
• WebView2: If WebView2 wasn't automatically installed with Power BI Desktop or if it was
uninstalled, download, and run the installer for WebView2.