Introduction to Power BI
What five [5] steps should you follow
1. In the nav pane in the Power BI service, select Apps > Get apps. 2. In the Power BI apps marketplace that appears, select Template apps. All the template apps available in AppSource will be shown. Browse to find the template app you're looking for or get a filtered selection by using the search box. 3. When you find the template app you're looking for, click it. The template app offer will display. Click GET IT NOW. 4. In the dialog box that appears, select Install. 5. The app is installed, along with the workspace of the same name that has al artifacts needed for further customization
Key Takeaway 1:
1. Microsoft Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights.
Key Takeaway 2:
2. Leveraging Power BI and other Microsoft technologies can lead to significant returns in terms of not only revenue, but your business users' ability to make beneficial decisions.
Key Takeaway 3:
3. Power BI is built on Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing infrastructure and platform, ensuring your data is secure and only accessible by authenticated users.
What is a a report in the context of Power BI?
A Power BI report is one or more pages of visualizations such as line charts, maps, and tree maps; can be read or edit and have permissions.
What is a Dashboard in the context of Power BI?
A dashboard is something you create in the Power BI service or something a colleague creates in the Power BI service and shares with you.
What is a dataset in the context of Power BI?
A dataset is a set of underlying data that you use or connect to in the Dataverse or your report.
What is a shared capacity in the context of Power Bi?
A shared capacity is shared with other Microsoft customers, while a dedicated capacity is fully committed to a single customer
What is a slicer? [the name of slicer is being changed]
A simple type of filtering that you can use directly on the report page is called a slicer. Slicers provide cues to ways you can filter the results in the visuals on a report page. There are several different types of slicers: numeric, categorical, and date. Slicers make it easy to filter all the visuals on the page at once.
Ways to aggregate your data - Standard deviation.
A standard deviation (or σ) is a measure of how dispersed the data is in relation to the mean. Low standard deviation means data are clustered around the mean, and high standard deviation indicates data are more spread out.
Ways to aggregate your data - Sum.
Adds all the values in that field up. - Average. Takes an arithmetic mean of the values.
Security & Administration in Power BI is accessed here
Admin Center
How do filters apply to DRILLTHROUGH in Power BI?
Allows you to explore successively more detailed views within a single visual.
Which is a way that Power BI can help you effectively leverage your data?
Analyze sales data to better allocate resources and place orders, optimizing operations. Analyze customer data to better target and promote specific items to specific customers.
Power BI helps with which of the following business processes?
Analyzing and displaying data.
What is App Source?
AppSource is the place for apps, add-ins, and extensions for your Microsoft software. AppSource connects millions of users of products such as Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Cortana, and Power BI, to solutions that help them get work done more efficiently and insightfully than before.
How do filters apply to VISUALS in Power BI?
Applies to a single visual on a report page. You only see visual level filters if you have selected a visual on the report canvas.
How do filters apply to REPORTS in Power BI?
Applies to all pages in the report.
How do filters apply to PAGES in Power BI?
Applies to all the visuals on the current report page.
Power BI Visuals: Describe chart visuals in Power BI
Bar and column charts are very standard for specific values across categories but Pie Charts show relationship to the whole.
What are capacities in the context of Power BI?
Capacities are a core Power BI concept representing a set of resources used to host and deliver your Power BI content.
What are Certified Power BI visuals?
Certified Power BI visuals are visuals in AppSource that meet certain specified code requirements that the Microsoft Power BI team has tested and approved. The tests are designed to check that the visual doesn't access external services or resources.
Name types of visuals in Power BI
Charts, Graphs, KPIs, Maps, Q&A, Tables, Multi-card Rows & Out-of-the-Box custom visuals
Ways to aggregate your data - Count (Distinct)
Counts the number of different values in that field.
Ways to aggregate your data - Count (Not Blanks).
Counts the number of values in that field that aren't blank.
Data View
Data view allows you to view all of your data available in your report. This is an easy way to quickly check data types and validate data.
What is a shared capacity in the context of Power Bi?
Dedicated capacities require a subscription. By default, workspaces are created on a shared capacity.
What are the three modalities of Power BI designed to let people create, share, and consume business insights in the way that serves them, or their role, most effectively?
Desktop, service, and Mobile apps.
Ribbon
Displays common tasks that are associated with reports and visualizations.
[T/F]: Consumers can add additional filters to Power BI reports after the report designer has added their own filters
FALSE: As a consumer, you can interact with the filters and save your changes but cannot add new filters.
[T/F]: By default, Power BI reports open up to editing view?
FALSE: By default, the report opens in Reading view. Just select Edit report to open it in Editing view (if you have the necessary permissions).
Fields pane
Fields pane - Where query elements and filters can be dragged onto the Report view or dragged to the Filters area of the Visualizations pane.
What does Filtering apply to within Power BI?
Filtering only applies to reports, not to dashboards. When you filter a visual like a bar chart, you are just changing the view of the data in that visual. You are not modifying the source data in any way.
Format Data
Format data: Examples of powerful transformations include promoting rows into headers, using Fill to replace null values, and Unpivot Columns.
Aggregate Data
Mathematical combinations of values in your data. The mathematical operation could be sum, average, maximum, count, and so on. When you combine values in your data, it's called aggregating. The result of that mathematical operation is an aggregate.
What is Power BI?
Microsoft Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights.
What types of Slicers are there in Power BI?
Numerical, categorical, and date
Pages tab
Pages tab - Located along the bottom of the page, this area is where you would select or add a report page.
What are the parts of Power BI?
Power BI consists of a Microsoft Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop, an online SaaS (Software as a Service) service called the Power BI service, and mobile Power BI apps that are available on phones and tablets.
Power BI Q&A: Describe Q&A visuals in Power BI
Q&A Visual lets you ask questions about your data using natural language.
What are the four [4] types of filters in a Power BI report?
Report, Page, Visual & Drill through
What are the five [5] main data modeling areas?
Ribbon, Report View or Canvas, Data View, Model View, Pages tab, Visualizations pane, Fields pane.
What are two types of Capacities in the context of Power BI?
Shared or Dedicated
Ways to aggregate your data - Minimum.
Shows the smallest value.
[T/F]: When Power BI service and Power BI Desktop create visualizations, they may aggregate your data types
TRUE: When Power BI service and Power BI Desktop create visualizations, they may aggregate your data types because the type of data determines how, and whether, Power BI can aggregate it.
[T/F]: By default, workspaces are created on a shared capacity.
TRUE: customer. Dedicated capacities require a subscription. By default, workspaces are created on a shared capacity.
Power BI Tables: Describe table visuals in Power BI
Tables work well with quantitative comparisons among items where there are many categories.
Model View
The Model view 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.
What are the concepts of Power BI?
The major building blocks of Power BI are datasets, reports, and dashboards. They are all organized into workspaces, and they are created on capacities.
What is the purpose of the Power BI Template Appp?
The new Power BI template apps enable Power BI partners to build Power BI apps with little or no coding and deploy them to any Power BI customer. As a Power BI partner, you create a set of out-of-the-box content for your customers and publish it yourself.
Power BI Single or Multi-card Rows: Describe multi-card rows in Power BI
These 1-3 key metrics on the card at time.
Power BI Out-of-the-Box custom visuals: Describe custom visuals in Power BI
These are some of the out-of-the-box Power BI visuals available from the visualization pane in Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service. However, sometimes you need a more custom visual and these can be found in AppSource for Power BI.
Where can you add buttons to reports in Power BI?
You can add buttons to reports in Power BI Desktop and in the Power BI service.
When you create a visualization in Power BI, the service will aggregate ________________ (the default is sum) over some categorical field.
[numeric fields]
Power BI KPIs: Describe KPI visuals in Power BI
Key performance indicator [KPI] displays progress towards a measurable goal.
Ways to aggregate your data - Variance.
The variance is a measure of variability. It is calculated by taking the average of squared deviations from the mean. Variance tells you the degree of spread in your data set. The more spread the data, the larger the variance is in relation to the mean.
How do you access an underlying Power BI report?
To access an underlying report, select a dashboard tile (more on tiles later) that was pinned from a report. Keep in mind that not all tiles are pinned from reports, so you may have to click a few tiles to find a report.
Where do you go to create a button in Power BI?
To create a button in Power BI Desktop, on the Insert ribbon, select Buttons and a drop-down menu appears, where you can select the button you want from a collection of options, as shown in the following image.
What are some common data transformations you can do inside of Power Query Editor within Power BI?
Transform data, clean data, transpose data, format data, aggregae data
What does it mean to CLEAN Data in Power BI
Transpose, Format or Aggregate
Transpose Data
Transpose: By using Transpose in Power Query Editor, you can swap rows into columns to better format the data.
Power BI Maps: Describe map visuals in Power BI
Used to associate both categorical and quantitative information with spatial locations.
What is the purpose of using Buttons in Power BI?
Using buttons in Power BI lets you create reports that behave like apps, and thereby, create an engaging environment so users can hover, click, and further interact with Power BI content.
Visualizations pane
Visualizations pane - Where you can change visualizations, customize colors or axes, apply filters, drag fields, and more.
How do buttons functions provide an app for your users?
When you share your reports in the Power BI service, they provide an app-like experience for your users.
Report View or Canvas is where visualizations are created and __________________.
Where visualizations are created and arranged.
How do you Transform Data?
With Power Query Editor
Ways to aggregate your data - Do Not Summarize.
With this option chosen, Power BI treats each value in that field separately and doesn't summarize them. Use this option if you have a numeric ID column that the service shouldn't sum.
Why don't aggregates work the way I want them to?
Working with aggregates in Power BI service can be confusing. Maybe you have a numeric field and Power BI won't let you change the aggregation. Or maybe you have a field, like a year, and you don't want to aggregate it, you just want to count the number of occurrences. Typically, the underlying issue is the field definition in the dataset. Maybe the dataset owner defined the field as text and that explains why Power BI can't sum or average it. Unfortunately, only the dataset owner can change the way a field is categorized. So if you have owner permissions to the dataset, either in Desktop or the program used to create the dataset (for example, Excel), you can fix this problem. Otherwise, you'll need to contact the dataset owner for help.
