Data Manipulation and Reporting
with Power BI
Introduction to Power BI
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Understand the concepts of business intelligence and Power BI
Understand the architecture of Power BI
Identify the different offerings by Power BI
Know the benefits and applications of Power BI
Install a Power BI desktop
Overview of Business Intelligence and Power BI
What Is Business Intelligence?
Capability to make intelligent business decisions
Makes information discovery simple
Helps you in analysis of the data
Enables you to send the right information to the right people
Provides data insights to everyone from any type / size / source of data
What is Business Intelligence?
Power BI is a self-service cloud based BI tool, which can be used for reporting and data analysis from a
variety of data sources.
Power BI provides a simple and user-friendly drag and drop interface so that users can work with it and
get benefits from it.
Power BI produces highly interactive and beautiful graphs, dashboards, and reports in a matter of
minutes.
Why Power BI?
▪ You can create a report and perform data manipulation easily.
▪ Power BI provides a 360-degree view to visualize the data and publish the resulting content.
▪ It supports natural query language.
▪ It allows you to fetch data from 60 different data sources.
▪ You can connect your data live or save it on your local machine.
▪ The product updates happen frequently and regularly.
▪ Power BI offers a simple learning curve.
▪ Performance of Power BI is much better as compared to the other BI tools in market.
Power BI Architecture, Components, and Products
Power BI Offerings
You can choose from four different products that suit your need. They are:
Power BI
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Mobile
Power BI Embedded
Power BI Desktop Architecture
Power BI Desktop Components
Power BI Desktop uses three components to perform different operations. They are:
Power Query
Power Pivot
Power View
Power BI Desktop Components—Power Query
Power BI Desktop uses Power Query to:
Store the
results in an
Perform data
excel file or in
transformation
a Power Pivot
model
Power BI Desktop Components—Power Pivot
With Power Pivot you can:
Build a schema,
Perform data Create user-
relationships,
modeling defined fields
and so on
Power BI Desktop Components— Power View
Power View allows you to:
Connect to
Add
different data Create views
interactivity
sources
System Requirements and Installation
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Before you install Power BI Desktop, your system should meet the minimum hardware requirements.
They are:
Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2, or later
.NET 4.5
Internet Explorer 9 or later
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster x86- or x64-bit processor
At least 1440x900 or 1600x900 (16:9)
Minimum 1 GB space should be available, Recommended available space
should be 1.5 GB or more
Steps to Install Power BI Desktop
Here are the steps to install Power BI Desktop on your system.
Open a browser and navigate to the Power
BI page.
Click on the Download Free button and
enter the required details.
Click the Get Started button.
Locate the installed file and run it.
Follow the on-screen instructions.
Knowledge Check
Knowledge
Check
Is it possible to publish a dashboard using Power BI Desktop?
1
a. Yes
b. No
Knowledge
Check
Is it possible to publish a dashboard using Power BI Desktop?
1
a. Yes
b. No
The correct answer is b
The Power BI Desktop application only allows you to build and publish reports.
Knowledge
Check
Which type of device can be used to access a dashboard designed using a web layout?
2
a. Laptop
b. Mobile device
c. Laptop and mobile device
d. None
Knowledge
Check
Which type of device can be used to access a dashboard designed using a web layout?
2
a. Laptop
b. Mobile device
c. Laptop and mobile device
d. None
The correct answer is c
Both mobile device and laptop can be used to access a dashboard designed using a web layout.
Key Takeaways
Now, you are able to:
Understand the concepts of business intelligence and Power BI
Understand the architecture of Power BI
Identify the different offerings by Power BI
Know the benefits and applications of Power BI
Install a Power BI desktop
