Microsoft Power BI – Reference Material
What is business intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) uncovers insights for making strategic decisions. Business
intelligence tools analyze historical and current data and present findings in intuitive
visual formats.
How business intelligence works
There are four keys steps that business intelligence follows to transform raw data
into easy-to-digest insights for everyone in the organization to use. The first three—
data collection, analysis, and visualization—set the stage for the final decision-
making step. Before using BI, businesses had to do much of their analysis manually,
but BI tools automate many of the processes and save companies time and effort.
Step 1: Collect and transform data from multiple
sources
Business intelligence tools typically use the extract, transform, and load (ETL)
method to aggregate structured and unstructured data from multiple sources. This
data is then transformed and remodeled before being stored in a central location, so
applications can easily analyze and query it as one comprehensive data set.
Step 2: Uncover trends and inconsistencies
Data mining, or data discovery, typically uses automation to quickly analyze data to
find patterns and outliers which provide insight into the current state of business. BI
tools often feature several types of data modeling and analytics—including
exploratory, descriptive, statistical, and predictive—that further explore data,
predict trends, and make recommendations.
Step 3: Use data visualization to present findings
Business intelligence reporting uses data visualizations to make findings easier to
understand and share. Reporting methods include interactive data dashboards,
charts, graphs, and maps that help users see what’s going on in the business
right now.
Step 4: Take action on insights in real time
Viewing current and historical data in context with business activities gives
companies the ability to quickly move from insights to action. Business intelligence
enables real time adjustments and long-term strategic changes that eliminate
inefficiencies, adapt to market shifts, correct supply problems, and solve customer
issues.
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Microsoft Power BI – Reference Material
Why companies benefit from using business
intelligence tools
Because business intelligence tools speed up information analysis and performance
evaluation, they’re valuable in helping companies reduce inefficiencies, flag potential
problems, find new revenue streams, and identify areas of future growth.
Some of the specific benefits that businesses experience when using BI include:
Increased efficiency of operational processes.
Insight into customer behavior and shopping patterns.
Accurate tracking of sales, marketing, and financial performance.
Clear benchmarks based on historical and current data.
Instant alerts about data anomalies and customer issues.
Analyses that can be shared in real-time across departments.
In the past, business intelligence tools were primarily used by data analysts and
IT users. Now, self-service BI platforms make business intelligence available to
everyone from executives to operations teams.
What is Power BI Desktop?
Power BI Desktop is a free application you install on your local computer that lets you connect to,
transform, and visualize your data. With Power BI Desktop, you can connect to multiple different
sources of data, and combine them (often called modeling) into a data model. This data model lets
you build visuals, and collections of visuals you can share as reports, with other people inside your
organization. Most users who work on business intelligence projects use Power BI Desktop to
create reports, and then use the Power BI service to share their reports with others.
The most common uses for Power BI Desktop are as follows:
Connect to data.
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Microsoft Power BI – Reference Material
Transform and clean data to create a data model.
Create visuals, such as charts or graphs, that provide visual representations of the data.
Create reports that are collections of visuals on one or more report pages.
Share reports with others by using the Power BI service.
People most often responsible for such tasks are often considered data analysts (sometimes
referred to as analysts) or business intelligence professionals (often referred to as report creators).
However, many people who don't consider themselves an analyst or a report creator use Power BI
Desktop to create compelling reports, or to pull data from various sources and build data models,
which they can share with their coworkers and organizations.
Important
Power BI Desktop is updated and released on a monthly basis, incorporating customer feedback
and new features. Only the most recent version of Power BI Desktop is supported; customers who
contact support for Power BI Desktop will be asked to upgrade to the most recent version. You can
get the most recent version of Power BI Desktop from the Windows Store, or as a single executable
containing all supported languages that you download and install on your computer.
There are three views available in Power BI Desktop, which you select on the left side of the canvas.
The views, shown in the order they appear, are as follows:
Report: You create reports and visuals, where most of your creation time is spent.
Data: You see the tables, measures, and other data used in the data model associated with
your report, and transform the data for best use in the report's model.
Model: You see and manage the relationships among tables in your data model.
The following image shows the three views, as displayed along the left side of the canvas:
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Microsoft Power BI – Reference Material
Connect to data
To get started with Power BI Desktop, the first step is to connect to data. There are many different
data sources you can connect to from Power BI Desktop.
To connect to data:
From the Home ribbon, select Get Data > More.
The Get Data window appears, showing the many categories to which Power BI Desktop can
connect.
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Microsoft Power BI – Reference Material
When you select a data type, you're prompted for information, such as the URL and credentials,
necessary for Power BI Desktop to connect to the data source on your behalf.
After you connect to one or more data sources, you may want to transform the data so it's useful
for you.
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Transform and clean data, create a model
In Power BI Desktop, you can clean and transform data using the built-in Power Query Editor. With
Power Query Editor, you make changes to your data, such as changing a data type, removing
columns, or combining data from multiple sources. It's like sculpting: you start with a large block of
clay (or data), then shave off pieces or add others as needed, until the shape of the data is how you
want it.
To start Power Query Editor:
On the Home ribbon, in the Queries section, select Transform data.
The Power Query Editor window appears.
Each step you take in transforming data (such as renaming a table, transforming a data type, or
deleting a column) is recorded by Power Query Editor. Every time this query connects to the data
source, those steps are carried out so that the data is always shaped the way you specify.
The following image shows the Power Query Editor window for a query that has been shaped,
and turned into a model.
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Once your data is how you want it, you can create visuals.
Create visuals
After you have a data model, you can drag fields onto the report canvas to create visuals. A visual
is a graphic representation of the data in your model. There are many different types of visuals to
choose from in Power BI Desktop. The following visual shows a simple column chart.
To create or change a visual:
From the Visualizations pane, select the Build visual icon.
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If you already have a visual selected on the report canvas, the selected visual changes to the type
you selected.
If no visual is selected on the canvas, a new visual is created based on your selection.
Create reports
More often, you'll want to create a collection of visuals that show various aspects of the data
you've used to create your model in Power BI Desktop. A collection of visuals, in one Power BI
Desktop file, is called a report. A report can have one or more pages, just like an Excel file can have
one or more worksheets.
With Power BI Desktop you can create complex and visually rich reports, using data from multiple
sources, all in one report that you can share with others in your organization.
In the following image, you see the first page of a Power BI Desktop report, named Overview, as
seen on the tab near the bottom of the image.
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