Power BI

Various ways of sharing and collaborating

- Publish reports from Desktop to Service - Create apps that package a dashboard, report and dataset to sent to colleagues, who can use the content pack as a starting point and further enhance it. - Create Groups which you can use as a security model to identify a subset of users who have access to dashboards, reports and datasets you create. - Publish to the web so that live reports can be embedded in a web page.

Power BI Apps

An app is a collection of preset, ready-made visuals and reports that are shared with an entire organization. Using an app is like microwaving a TV dinner or ordering a fast-food value meal: you just have to press a few buttons or make a few comments, and you're quickly served a collection of entrees designed to go together, all presented in a tidy, ready-to-consume package.

Transpose Data

By using Transpose in Power Query Editor, you can swap rows into columns to better format the data.

Calculated Tables

Calculated tables is a function within DAX. Most of the time, you can import data into your model from an external data source. However, calculated tables provide intermediate calculations and data that you want stored as part of the model rather than as part of a query. You can use calculated tables, for example, to cross join two tables.

Powerful transformations

Examples of powerful transformations include promoting rows into headers, using Fill to replace null values, and Unpivot Columns.

Page Views

Fit To Page (default), Fit To Width, and Actual Size.

Share Dashboards

From the Share dashboard page, select the Share tab. In the Email address field, enter the names of people whom you'd like to grant access to your dashboard. You can also copy and paste email addresses into this field, or you can use a distribution list, security group, or Microsoft 365 group.

Open in Focus Mode

Hover over a dashboard tile and select the ellipsis to see possible actions for the tile. Select Open in focus mode to expand the tile to encompass the full dashboard space.

Optimize Data Models

Imported data often contains fields that you don't need for your reporting and visualization tasks. Data might contain unnecessary information or it might be available in another column. Power BI Desktop has tools to optimize your data and make it more usable for building reports and visuals. - Hide Fields - Sort By Column to sort visualization data by another field : The Sort by Column tool, available on the Modeling tab, is useful to help ensure that your data is displayed in the order that you intended. Like for ordering by the MonthNo to sort from Jan to December.

Reports

In Power BI, a report is a collection of visualizations that appear together on one or more pages. Just like any other report you might create for a sales presentation or write for a school assignment, a report in Power BI is a collection of items that are related to each other.

Measures

In Power BI, measures are defined calculations on your data that are performed at the time of your query. Measures are calculated as you interact with your reports and aren't stored in your database.

Relationships

In Power BI, you can create a relationship to create a logical connection between different data sources. A relationship enables Power BI to connect tables to one another so that you can create visuals and reports. One of Power BI's strengths is that you don't need to flatten your data into a single table. Instead, you can use multiple tables from multiple sources and define the relationship between them.

Publish to web

In this lesson, you're going to share a Power BI report on a webpage or share it through email. This feature of Power BI is often referred to as Publish to web.

Options for Cardinality

Many to One - The most common default relationship. The column in one table can have more than one instance of a value. The related table (or lookup table) has only one instance of a value. One To One - The column in one table has only one instance of a particular value, and the other related table has only one instance of a particular value. Generally, we recommend minimizing the use of bi-directional relationships. They can negatively impact on model query performance, and possibly deliver confusing experiences for your report users

Power BI Mobile - Annotate

Note any insights that you discover by tapping the Annotate button in the top-right corner. The Annotate feature allows you to draw on a focused tile to highlight areas of interest. The annotation tools are along the bottom of the screen.

Modeling Data

Often, you'll connect to multiple data sources to create your reports. All that data needs to work together to create a cohesive report. Modeling is how to get your connected data ready for use.

Calculated Columns

One reason for creating a calculated column is to establish a relationship between tables when no unique fields exist. The lack of a relationship becomes obvious when you create a simple table visual in Power BI Desktop and get the same value for all entries. From the Modeling tab, select New Column to enable the formula bar. You can enter calculations by using Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) language. DAX is a powerful formula language, also found in Excel, that lets you build robust calculations. After you have created the calculated columns in each table, they can be used as a unique key to establish a relationship between them. By going to the Relationship view, you can then drag the field from one table to the other to create the relationship.

Detailed view of Data Relationships - go to Manage Relationships

The Manage Relationships dialog box displays your relationships as a list instead of as a visual diagram. From the dialog box, you can select Autodetect to find relationships in new or updated data. Select Edit to manually edit your relationships. You'll find advanced options in the Edit section to set the Cardinality and Cross-filter direction of your relationships.

Model View

The Model view in Power BI Desktop allows you to visually set the relationship between tables or elements. A relationship is where two or more tables are linked together because they contain related data. This enables users to run queries for related data across multiple tables.Use the Model view to see a diagrammatic view of your data.

Full Screen Mode

The easiest method to display your entire dashboard in one screen is to select the Full Screen Mode button in the top right-hand corner of the dashboard. Selecting the Full Screen Mode button removes all chrome elements from around the dashboard, which increases the amount of viewable space. From within Full Screen Mode, you can select Fit to Screen to shrink all your tiles to a single screen.This mode without scrollbars is commonly called TV mode and is useful for giving presentations.

Building Blocks of Power BI

Visualizations Datasets Reports Dashboards Tiles

Exploring Time Based Data

Visuals display data at the year level by default, but you can change that by turning on Drill Down in the top, right-hand corner of the visual. You can also drill up or go to the next level of the hierarchy.

Manage how Elements Overlap

When you have several elements on a report, Power BI lets you manage how they overlap with each other. This ordering of layers is known as the z-order. To manage the z-order of elements in a report, select an element and use the Bring forward and Send backward buttons on the Visual tools tab.

Quick Insights

When you select Get quick insights, Power BI searches the data for patterns. After about 15 seconds, the notification changes to let you know that Power BI found some insights.With Quick Insights, you can let Power BI do the work to spot outliers and trends in your data. Use those findings in your dashboards or continue to refine and filter to get to the insights that you need.

Republish and refresh your data

When you select Replace, the datasets and reports in the Power BI service are overwritten with the new datasets and reports. Also a way to manually refresh the data.

Dashboard

When you're ready to share a single page from a report, or a collection of visualizations, you create a dashboard. Much like the dashboard in a car, a Power BI dashboard is a collection of visuals from a single page that you can share with others. Often, it's a selected group of visuals that provide quick insight into the data or story you're trying to present. A dashboard must fit on a single page, often called a canvas (the canvas is the blank backdrop in Power BI Desktop or the service, where you put visualizations)

Workspaces in Power BI

Workspaces are places to collaborate with colleagues to create and refine collections of dashboards, reports, and paginated reports. There are two types of groups in Power BI: Classic workspaces - groups are based on the groups in Microsoft 365. If you've been using Microsoft 365 groups to manage your group's email, calendar, and documents, then you'll find that Power BI offers the same features. When you create a group in Power BI, you're actually creating an Microsoft 365 group. New workspaces - are now the default workspace in Power BI. -Assign workspace roles to user groups: security groups, distribution lists, Microsoft 365 groups, and individuals. Create a workspace in Power BI without creating an Microsoft 365 group. Use more granular workspaces roles for more flexible permissions management in a workspace. The Power BI admin can control who can create workspaces in Power BI.

Q&A

You can use Q&A to explore your data by using the intuitive, natural language capabilities of Power BI and receive answers in the form of charts and graphs. Q&A picks the best visual based on the data that is being displayed. For example, numbers might be displayed as a line chart while cities are more likely to be displayed as a map.

Custom Column

You can use the Add Custom Column tool to write new customized query expressions by using the powerful M language.

Combination Charts

You might want to visualize two measures with different scales, such as revenue and units. Use a combination chart to show a line and a bar with different axis scales. Power BI supports many different types of combination charts by default, including Line and Stacked Columns charts.

Tiles

a tile is a single visualization on a report or a dashboard. It's the rectangular box that holds an individual visual.

Datasets

ou can create a dataset from three database fields, one website table, an Excel table, and online results of an email marketing campaign. That unique combination is still considered a single dataset, even though it was pulled together from many different sources.

Append Queries

use the Append Queries tool to add the data from a new table to an existing query. Power BI Desktop attempts to match the columns in your queries, which you can then adjust as necessary in Power Query Editor.