Power BI Overview

Power BI is a Data Visualization and Business Intelligence tool that converts data from
different data sources to interactive dashboards and BI 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 BI reports. This tutorial covers all the important
concepts in Power BI and provides a foundational understanding on how to use Power BI.
Audience
This tutorial has been prepared for beginners to help them understand the basic concepts of
Power BI. This tutorial will give you enough understanding on Power BI, from where you can
take yourself to a higher level of expertise.
Prerequisites
Before proceeding with this tutorial, you should be familiar with Microsoft Excel, data
modeling, and have some knowledge of any programming Language
Power BI Architecture
• Power BI Desktop − This is used to create reports and data visualizations
on the dataset.

• Power BI Gateway − You can use Power BI on-premises gateway to keep

your data fresh by connecting to your on-premises data sources without
the need to move the data. It allows you to query large datasets and
benefit from the existing investments.

• Power BI Mobile Apps − Using Power BI mobile apps, you can stay
connected to their data from anywhere. Power BI apps are available for
Windows, iOS, and Android platform.

• Power BI Service − This is a cloud service and is used to publish Power BI

reports and data visualizations.
 Power BI Data Sources
• Power BI supports large range of data sources. You can click Get data and it shows you all the available data
connections. It allows you to connect to different flat files, SQL database, and Azure cloud or even web platforms
such as Facebook, Google Analytics, and Salesforce objects. It also includes ODBC connection to connect to other
ODBC data sources, which are not listed.
• Following are the available data sources in Power BI −
• Flat Files
• SQL Database
• OData Feed
• Blank Query
• Azure Cloud platform
• Online Services
• Blank Query
• Other data sources such as Hadoop, Exchange, or Active Directory
• To get data in Power BI desktop, you need to click the Get data option in the main screen. It shows you the most
common data sources first. Then, click the More option to see a full list of available data sources.
Power BI Components
• Power Query: It can be used to search, access, and transform public and/ or
internal data sources.
• Power Pivot: It is used in data modeling for in-memory analytics.
• Power View: You can analyze, visualize and display data as an interactive data
visualization using Power View.
• Power Map: It brings data to life with interactive geographical visualization.
• Power BI Service: You can share data views and workbooks which are refresh-
able from on-premises and cloud based data sources.
• Power BI Q&A: Ask questions and get immediate answers with natural
language query.
• Data Management Gateway: By using this component you get periodic data
refreshers, expose tables and view data feeds.
• Data Catalog: User can easily discover and reuse queries using Data
Catalog. Metadata can be facilitated for search functionality.
 Building Blocks Of Power BI
Everything you do in Power BI can be broken down into following
building blocks. A good understanding of these building blocks would
help you understand concepts and will let you create detailed and
complex reports.
The basic building blocks of Power BI are the following:
• Visualizations
• Datasets
• Reports
• Dashboards
 Visualizations
A visual representation of data is called visualization. For example, a
chart or a graph can be used to represent data visually. Power BI gives
you different visualization types, which keep getting updated with time.
Following image shows some commonly used visualizations:
• Map representation
• Card visualization
• Stacked area chart
• Tree map
• Pie chart
 Datasets
We know that data-set is nothing but a collection of data or
information. Power BI harnesses this data to create visualizations. It can
be a simple data set or a combination of many different sources, which
can be filtered and combined to provide a different data set altogether.
For example, you can pull together data from many different sources
like different database fields, an excel table, and online results of some
email campaign to create the data set. Having said that, you may want
to filter your data before you bring it into Power BI. Filtering lets you
focus on the data that matters to you. The image below shows a sample
data set.
With the data set ready, you are free to create visualizations and display different
portions of that data set in different ways, and with this, you gain insights.
 Reports

• A collection of visualizations that appear together on one or more

pages is a report in Power BI. It is a collection of items that are related
to one another.
• You can create visualizations, on multiple different pages if necessary,
and arrange them in a way that suits your story best. The image
below shows a sample report.
• You can also drill down the One report to another report from
different pages.
 Dashboards:
A Power BI dashboard is a single page interface. It is often called a
canvas, that uses visualizations to tell a story. Because it is limited to
one page, a well-designed dashboard contains only the most-important
elements of that story. The visualizations you see on the dashboard are
called tiles and are pinned to the dashboard from reports.
In Power BI, a tile is a single visualization found in a report or on a
dashboard. It’s the rectangular box that contains each individual visual.
Power BI gives you the freedom to move or arrange tiles, so you can
present the data the way you want to, even while you’re creating a
report or a dashboard. You can make the tiles bigger, change their
height or width, and snuggle them up to other tiles the way you want.
 Import Vs Direct Query:
• Import Connection – Import Data Connectivity mode lets you import
data into Power BI cache. Highly recommended to use Import
connection when the data size is less than 1 GB and the data is not
continually changing. You can import data with schedule refresh to get
the latest data. With Import connection, you can take full advantages of
the high-performance query engine.
• DirectQuery – DirectQuery Connectivity mode lets you connect directly
to data. DirectQuery mode used to build Real-time or near real-time BI
solutions when the data is changing frequently, and Data volume is very
large. No data will be imported into Power BI. Instead Power BI will
send queries to the data source upon building visual/interacting with
visuals. Each query is restricted to return less than or equal to 1 Million
rows.
Capability Import DirectQuery
Size Up to 1 GB per dataset No limitation
Data Source Import data from Multiple sources Data must come from a single Source
Depends on the data source response for each
Performance High-performance query engine query

Not Reflected. Required to do a Manual Power BI caches the data for better
Data Change in the underlying data refresh in Power BI Desktop and republish the performance. So, it is necessary to Refresh to
report or Schedule Refresh ensure the latest data

Schedule Refresh Maximum 8 schedules per day Schedule often as every 15 mins

Power BI Gateway Only required to get latest data from On- Must require to get data from On-premise
premise data sources data sources
Supports many data transformations with
Data Transformations Supports all transformations some limitations

Some limitations such as auto-detect

Data Modelling No limitation relationships between tables and relationships
are limited to a single direction.

Built-in Date Hierarchy Available Not available

Restricted to use complex DAX functions such

DAX expressions Supports all DAX functions as Time Intelligence functions. However, if
there is a Date table available in the
underlying source then it supports