Power BI for the Beginners
Time to slip into the insights from the Data in the blink of an eye
The Power BI Topics that are Covered in this Blog includes:
- Power BI and its origin
- What is Power BI
- Supported Operating Systems for Power BI
- Power Bi Licensing Options
- What are the steps to install Power BI
- Power BI Products
- Features of Power BI
- Components and Tools of Power BI
- The ability of Power BI Features and Power BI
- Power BI Conclusion
Let’s continue with the Power BI Tutorial Step-by-step.
Power BI and its origin:
Everyone is well aware of the fact that in no time Power BI has become the Talk of the Town for Business Intelligence and Analytics. Power BI- A business analytics Service developed in 2014, by Microsoft Corporation. Power BI is termed as a cloud-based data analysis, which can be used for reporting and data analysis from a wide range of data source. It is the successor to ‘Power BI for Office 365’ based on Microsoft’s Office 365 and SharePoint Online products, and Excel 2013, encompasses Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View.
Power BI is simple and user-friendly. It gives the Flexibility to the business analysts and Power Bi users to work on BI and get the benefits of it. On the other hand, Power BI is powerful and mature enough and can be used in enterprise systems by BI developers for complex data mash-up and modeling scenarios. Power BI has a brand-new visualization engine and will help you ingest data from virtually any source.
What is Power BI?
Power BI is one Big Umbrella of Data Visualization Tool which is termed as a cloud-based data analysis. It is used by business analysts and power users. A simple and User-Friendly Tool which helps in reporting and in data analysis from a wide range of data sources.
Power BI breaks the mold of traditional BI development and makes the analytics process easier and more flexible for BI Users.
It lets you Build & Automate Interactive Visual Dashboards. You can visualize and Customize your data using a great range of data visualization elements. This helps to support the story behind the Data. Power BI Learners know how to utilize self-service and enterprise-scale Power BI capacities. This helps them gain valuable skills to incorporate, shape, wrangle and visualize data for analysis. It stands to give out easily digestible insights into your business via robust, interactive dashboards.
“This is not only a new, different and better Power BI 2.0 – it is a new, different and better Microsoft.”
― Edward Price, Applied Microsoft Power BI: Bring your data to life!
Power BI helps you connect with many Data Sources. The on-premises as well as Azure/cloud-based data sources. It has a very powerful data mash-up engine where you can mash-up the data as per your wish. With Power BI, you’ll be able to Model the Data, measures and calculated columns and you’ll be able to: build your star schema with the help of the in-memory Super-Fast Engine.
Check out the Best Video on Power BI Tutorials:
To check the system requirements, installation files detail, users have to navigate to “Advanced download options”. Following are the system requirements to download Power BI tool.
Supported Operating Systems for Power BI
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2
For Microsoft Power BI Desktop, you need Internet Explorer 9 or higher
Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms.
Users can select their favorable language whichever is easy and can get a Complete Guide to install Power BI
This Blog will provide you with extensive Knowledge-on power BI suite and knowledge on Power Pivot, Power Query, Power View, and Power Maps.
Power Bi Licensing Options:
The Power Bi-Products are priced and designed like there is no other software investment cost. Power Bi-Products are a great Solution to get started and start Building in Power Bi.
You can simply go through the Power Bi-Products and Select the Power Bi License which fits your Needs.
- Power BI Desktop
You can take Power BI Desktop, if you’re a single user and wish to create ad-hoc reporting and data exploration - Power BI Pro
You can take Power BI Pro if you’ve got a small number of creators and consumers of the data. And these can be licensed with the Power BI Pro license - Power BI Premium
You can take Power BI Premium if you’ve got a Large Consumer Data. If you require additional processing power and storage to work through complex queries with large datasets
Another important Product of Power BI is Power BI Mobile.
Power BI Mobile makes the Business Functioning really easy. Now, Business intelligence is just a touch away. With Power BI Mobile, you’ll get to stay tuned with your Data and obtain deep insights no matter where your Business takes you.
What are the steps to install Power BI?
Steps to install Power BI:
- Download the installation files, for Power BI Report
- Run the Installer by clicking on the Power BI Report Server
- Configure the Server by clicking on Configure the Report Server
- Click on Browse to Browse to Web Portal in Power Bi Report Server
For Power BI Download and Power BI installation:
Details about the Top 3 Power BI Products:
Power BI Desktop
Microsoft Power BI Desktop is the most essential Product of Power BI, it helps to connect to the Data, shape the data and mold the queries. This helps in building insightful and compelling data models. You can use the same Model to connect, shape and create reports. These Reports can later be leveraged, build and Shared upon. The Gripping way to do this is to share the Files on the Power BI service. These Models and your work can both be saved in Power BI Desktop file format.
Rapidly learn the essentials and some advanced Microsoft Power BI techniques to model transform and examine business information with Power BI Desktop.
The Power BI Desktop file format is .pbix extension. Sharing a Power BI Desktop file is as easy as sharing any other file format.
Power BI Desktop helps in simplifying and streamlining the scattered and Disconnected Data used in Report Making. It centralizes the Process of the way how BI Repositories are Created.
Then comes Power BI Pro vs Premium
Power BI Pro:
Bring your data to life:
Live dashboards and reports help in connecting to Multiple Data Sources. This helps in proper visualization of your data. You can later share insights of this Data across your organization.
Data Culture:
Nurture a collaboration with other Users across various Departments. Build reports and share your insights with other Power BI Pro users. It helps you Create a data culture
Direct Connection to your data – in a cloud or on premises, Connecting to your Data in real-time
- Use natural language to ask Questions, and get predictive visualizations as you type
- Use open framework & Create your own custom visuals. Another Option is to choose from the 100 + visuals created by the Power BI community
- Uncover predictive patterns using Quick Insights feature. You can even use this to associate and find trends hidden in your data
Adds more Features into the Microsoft family
Integration of more Features of Microsoft solutions with Power BI Pro. This helps in easy deploying and quick On-boarding of your Team.
The Microsoft solutions that are in your regular use are Office 365, Excel and SharePoint.
- A very user-friendly Microsoft interface. It helps to get started with the visualization in minutes
- Integration of Power BI with Cortana in Windows 10 helps to access the Data using Cortana
- Operating the data stored in Azure Data Lake Storage using Power BI.
- Also, the enabling of the Data with advanced analytics and AI at Azure Data Services
- Integration of the Power BI Pro with the existing Microsoft solutions helps in quick implementation at a lower cost
Content Anywhere:
Distribute the Content Worldwide. Share your insights anytime, anywhere, on any device. You can process this in a few clicks. And an add flexibility into your Data when it’s time to scale with Power BI Premium
- Easy Report Making Techniques using Power BI and Power BI Desktop
- Power BI Mobile app lets you access Power BI from anywhere. This helps to annotate reports and keep your team informed in advance
- Easy Distribution of the pre-built dashboards and reports from your organization’s popular service providers. These service providers could be QuickBooks Online or Salesforce.com
- Share your insights and Data information- both inside and outside your Business organization
Data Security:
Easy User Experience. Flexibility in the Management of the Data.
Manage User access and security from one Focal place which is Common for all i.e. Power BI Pro helps you to Govern the Data Securely. You no more need to beat the Odds of your business intelligence solutions scattered throughout the different teams in your organization
- You can Control the User Access using role-specific insights and row-level security
- You can meet local regulations on access, data residency and service delivery along with national clouds
- Secure your data with the help of stringent industry compliance standards and certifications
- Authenticate users using the built-in Azure Active Directory (AAD). You can do this along with Power BI login credentials to access the resources
Get the Free Trial of Power BI Pro
Power BI Premium:
Content Distribution:
Your BI audience is everywhere. Power BI Premium helps in the distribution of dashboards, reports, and other content Worldwide. You don’t need to buy an individual License here
Raise your expectations
Witness the positive Curve in the performance of your organization and the team’s needs.— since the Power BI service has been allocated only to you. Publish datasets up to 10 GB and get to refresh up to 48x per day
Calculating your Cost
Choose where you wish to keep your Power BI Reports in cloud or on-premises with Power BI Report Server. This lets you move the cloud at your pace
Expands Self-service Prep for Big Data:
The end users get to avail the distribution formats, embedding options, and reporting types. It provides Flexibility and Unifies self-service & enterprise BI. And promises central governance, security, and Data management
For Power BI Premium Pricing, you can check out:
Top 10 Unique Key Features of Power BI:
- Custom Visualization:
There is a library of custom visualization Tools to serve different Business Requirements. If the business needs are different, then the Visuals provided should definitely be different - Hybrid deployment support:
This Support is a feature of Power BI which has built-in connectors. With the help of these Connectors, you can connect the Power BI tools with various data sources. This could range from Microsoft, Salesforce and other vendors - Natural Language Q&A :
This is one of the finest tools in Power BI. In Natural Language Q&A you get to write questions and it will provide you with the content and answer, the result can even be manipulated by looking at the requirements and the visual needs - Quick Insights:
This feature lets you create subsets of data and then you can apply analytics to that information - Content Packs:
Power BI uses Content Packs. This has a base of Dashboard reports, embedded queries, and data models. There are a large number of applications, including QuickBooks that are using Content Packs - Cortana integration: This feature, will let you verbally query data using natural language. This is really popular on mobile devices. You can access the result of the query using Cortana, it is a Microsoft’s digital assistant
- Customization: This feature helps in changing the appearance of default visualization. It even helps in Customizing Reports by including new tools into the platform
- DAX Data Analysis Function: Has more than 200+ functions and counting. With the help of the rich DAX formula language, you get access to the Powerful libraries that has incredible capabilities of performing
- APIs for integration:
You get the sample code and APIs with the help of which you can embed the Power BI dashboard into the other software products - Print Dashboard:
There is another incredible feature i.e. for printing dashboards, this is really handy for board meetings and discussions
4 most important Components and Tools of Power BI:
Power Pivot:
Power Pivot, a part of Microsoft’s BI is capable of Performing big data analytics. It doesn’t have a specialty or the Software but a stack capable to perform Big Data Analytics. It uses DAX (Data Analysis Expressions). Since Excel had limitations of Processing Data with 1,048,576-row limit, Power Pivot was introduced as a Rescue Tool.
Power Pivot is capable of collecting Data from multiple data sources and then import millions of rows of data into a single Excel workbook. Power Pivot creates Relationships between heterogeneous data.
According to Microsoft, “Power Pivot enables you to import millions of rows of data from multiple data, build PivotTables, Pivot Charts, and create calculated columns using formulas.
Power Pivot was created keeping in consideration the big data demands of contemporary business intelligence needs. It helps in Business decision making by analyzing the Data.
Power Query:
Power Query recovers reshape and combine the Data of Various Resources.
It is an Excel add-in which is used as a part of Microsoft Power BI self-service solution. It is a combination of an intuitive and an interactive user interface. This interface of Power Query is used to search, discover, combine, refine the Data. Also, it helps in Data Enrichment and Data Transformation.
Let’s see how to install Power Query and get started with using it.
Power View:
Power View is a feature of Microsoft Excel 2013 and an Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition.
It helps to Explore the data, visualize it and presents this experience for encouraging the intuitive ad-hoc reporting. With Power View, you can create interactive Charts, maps, graphs, and compelling Visuals as it a part of a data visualization technology.
You can avail Power View in Excel, in SharePoint, SQL Server, and Power BI.
Power Map:
Microsoft Power Map is again a data visualization tool just like Power View which provides an immersive experience to make discoveries in data. These are the discoveries which you might have never seen in traditional 2D tables and charts. It is a three-dimensional (3-D) data visualization tool which allows you to glance at the information in New Ways.
Power Map lets you plot geographic and temporal data.
The Data is created on 3-D globe or custom map. You have to show it over time, and then create visual or cinematic tours which you can later share with other people.
The ability of Power BI Features and Power BI
| Power BI Features | Ability |
| Connectors | Will help you connect with other services |
| Customizable visualizations | The wide range of visualization features are available here |
| Interactive dashboards | Multiple data visualizations in a single interface |
| Live connectivity | Ability to live to connect to SQL |
| Sharing | Cloud-based analytics platform allows sharing anywhere and anytime |
| Time and effort saving | Quick extraction of data |
The arrival of Power BI has surpassed all the Analytics and BI platform.
Power BI is a token and a non-stop flood of new and better functionality for the Organizations.
It is a big help in transforming your organization’s structure through data.
Why Power BI?
Helps to Spot trends and make better, more informed decisions in real time:
You don’t have to be dependent on the traditional BI tools like Tableau or Qlik anymore. With the traditional BI tools, people were limited to historical analysis. Whereas, with Power BI you get the access to information & to identify trends in real-time.
This way, you can head off potential issues of your Business using Advanced Analytics. With the integration of R scripts and visuals, Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Stream Analytics, you can improve the performance and predict the outcome of your business. Using Predictive analysis and intelligence you can take proactive action to stick on the right path to achieve your goals.
Experience your data in new ways:
Easily attain actionable insights. Power BI Q&A gets you super-fast answers in the form of charts and graphs. You can instantly Pin it in your dashboards. Through deep integration with Windows 10, Cortana makes BI as easy as search, right on your desktop.
Automatically search datasets for hidden insights:
Auto search datasets for hidden insights in seconds with Quick Insights: correlations, outliers, seasonality, change points in trends, and major factors, from specific dashboard tiles and its related data
Custom visualizations:
Just imagine about any Visualization and the Custom visuals in Power BI will allow you to have it
Easy to use with other Microsoft products and services:
Power BI has been designed in a way that it can be easily used with Azure, Excel, Office 365 and SQL Server. You can pin items to a Power BI dashboard by Uploading the Reports to Power BI. This can even be used as a data source. Keep a Track on your current investments while empowering your people in finding new actionable insights using the Power BI tools.
Any data, anyway, anywhere:
Power BI enables the Connection to multiple data sources. The data could be from cloud service or from on-premises, Power BI will let you connect, clean, shape, model and visualize the Data using the insight in reports and dashboards.
Conclusion:
Power BI for Business users is a Blessing in disguise. Business intelligence is the key component in the Business drive and Organizations. Power BI helps the Business to stay agile, competitive and effective in the Business.
Power BI Tools will help you to transform your data into live dashboards. You can even obtain reports that’ll help you find the answers and information relevant and in Support of your company’s Data. Power BI and Power BI Tools provide non-technical business users the Potential which helps to aggregate, analyze, visualize and share the data. It gives you a single view of your most critical business data.
Most Recent: What is Data Mining? Read Now
