2. Get Started Building with Power BI

Introduction

• Power BI can scale from simple reports using a single data source to reports requiring complex data modelilng 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 organisations.

Use PowerBi

There are 3 main components to PowerBi

• 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 organise, manage, and distribute your reports and other Power BI items. Power BI Mobile allows consumers to view reports in a mobile-optimised format. You can create these optimised report views in Power BI Desktop.
• The flow of work in the use of PowerBi is to start with the Power BI Desktop where all the data preparation and modelling is being done, thereafter, the report is published to Power BI service. Power BI service is used to distribute and manage reports. 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.

The flow of Power BI is:

• Connect to data with Power BI Desktop.
• Transform and model data with Power BI Desktop.
• Create visualizations and reports with Power BI Desktop.
• Publish report to Power BI service.
• Distribute and manage reports in the Power BI service.
• You can access the Power BI service at app.powerbi.com

Building blocks of PowerBI

• The building blocks of Power BI are semantic models and visualizations. Create a semantic model and then use visuals to build a report. The two concepts are the most critical element of the PowerBi.

Create a semantic model:

• This is the connected data, the transformation, the data relationships and equally the involvement of the calculations.
• In line with the flow of PowerBi flow, you must first connect to the data sources, transform the data, create relationships, and create a semantic modelling.
• After the determination the of the data relationship through the semantic model, the next stage is the creation of the 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.
• PB is a low code solution design software whereby you do more of the task by drag and drop field directly into the canvas.
• Interactivity is one of the most valuable features of the PB. Consumers can easily select and drill through from one visuals to a more detail of filter base on different fields in the report.
• Once we are satisfied with our report, we publish it to the Power BI service.

Create a dashboard

• We can create a dashboards after we have published our report.
• Dashboards consist of a single page made up of tiles. We can add tiles to a dashboard by pinning a visual in a report to the dashboard.
• Note that tiles are not interactive like visuals, mostly, tiles are interlinks to the main report. 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.

Tour and use of the Power Bi Service

• As stated that after the creation of report, the next stage is the sharing of the content of the report, and this is done by PB services.
• Activity in the PB services are organised by workspace, and note that workspace is the foundation to the activity in the PB Services. Thus, it is compulsory that before we can publish a report, we must choose a workspace.
• By default, every users have access to the “My workspace” which is the ideal for testing.
• Note that if we want to share content with others, we are expected to aways create and use a “Share workspace.

To create a new workspace

• Click on the workspace icon
• Click on the + New Workspace

Sample report:

• PB Services comes with some free sample report that can be used for training purpose. Those reports load to My workspace, thus, it can be explored in course of knowing what did the PB services entails. Click on “learn” to access the free sample report.

Distribute a content:

• In a workspace, you can create an app, which provides consumers a simplified interface to access reports and dashboards. In the app configuration, you set up the app, select the content to include (limited to the current workspace), and choose your audience.
• Once you create an app, you must update the app after each change to items in the workspace. The requirement to update the app allows you to control what version of the content is visible to your audience.

Explore template apps:

• Aside from creating our own app, there are several pre-loaded and various app from other developers being added to PB Services every time, and those can be a good start for finding an existing app that suits our needs, and then we can connect our data.
• These apps can be a great way to quickly share insights with minimal effort.
• Click on the get App to explore the existing app.

Refresh a semantic model

• In order to support your ever-changing data, you can configure scheduled refreshes of your semantic models in the Power BI service. On-demand refreshes are also available.

Knowledge checks

Summary

Microsoft Power BI offers a complete data analytics solution that includes data preparation, visualization, and distribution. Semantic models and visualizations are the building blocks of Power BI.

The flow and components of Power BI include:

• Power BI Desktop for creating semantic models and reports with visualizations.
• Power BI service for creating dashboards from published reports and distributing content with apps.
• Power BI Mobile for on-the-go access to the Power BI service content, designed for mobile.

By using Power BI, you can make data-informed decisions across your organization.