Power BI Desktop Tutorial
When you open Power BI Desktop, you will see a start-up screen similar to the one shown in Exhibit
C1.
or
Exhibit C1
The tutorials and other training resources on the right-hand side of the start-up screen are helpful
for getting started with Power BI.
The Get Data button on the left-hand side of the start-up screen will bring you into Power BI’s Power
Query tool. It is set up exactly like Excel’s Power Query Tool, so you can use it to connect to a variety
of sources, including Excel, SQL Server, and Access.
To familiarize you with Power BI, we will use the data in Appendix_C_Data.xlsx. The data are a
subset of the sales data related to a fictitious brewery named Sláinte.
1. Click Get Data on the start-up screen.
2. Select Excel from the list of possible data sources, then click Connect (as shown in Exhibit C2).
Exhibit C2
3. Browse to the file location for Appendix_C_Data.xlsx and open the file.
4. Because there are three spreadsheets in the file, the Navigator gives you the option to select
1, 2, or all of the spreadsheets. Place check marks next to each.
5. You are also given an option to either Load or Edit the data. If you click Edit, you will enter
the Power Query window, which has the same ribbon and options to transform the data as
the Excel version of the tool (add columns, split columns, pivot data, and so on). These data
do not need to be transformed, so click Load.
6. Once the data are loaded, you will see a blank canvas on which you can build a report. There
are three key elements bordering the canvas:
a. To the left of the blank canvas, you are presented with the three options shown in
Exhibit C3.
Exhibit C3
Report Mode: The first option, represented by an icon that looks like a bar chart, is for
Report mode. This is the default view, and it is where you can build visualizations and
explore data.
Data Mode: The second option, represented by an icon that looks like a table or a
spreadsheet, is for Data mode. If you click on this icon, you can view the raw data that
you have imported into Power BI. In this mode, you can also create new measures or
new columns.
Model Mode: The third option, which looks like a database diagram, is for Model mode.
When you click on this icon, you enter PowerPivot. From this mode, you can edit the
table, attribute names, and relationships between tables.
b. To the right of the blank canvas are your Visualizations and Fields list.
Visualizations: You can drag any of these options into the canvas to begin designing a
visualization. Once you have tiles on your report, you can change the type of
visualization used to depict a set of fields by clicking the tile and then selecting a
different visualization option.
Fields: This section is similar to the PivotTable field list. You can expand the tables to see
their attributes. Placing a check mark in the fields will add them to an active tile.
Values, Filters, etc.: This section varies based on the tile and the fields you are actively
working with. Any time you add a field to a visualization, that field gets automatically
added to the filters, which eliminates the need to manually add filters or slicers to your
PivotTable.
c. Immediately above the canvas is the familiar ribbon that you can expect from Microsoft
applications. The available tabs differ across the three different modes (Report, Data,
and Model), but four tabs—Home, Modeling, View, and Help—stay consistent across the
three modes. Exhibit C4 displays the ribbon that is available in the Report mode.
Exhibit C4
7. To begin working with the data, expand the Customer table and place a check mark in the
State field (as shown in Exhibit C5).
Exhibit C5
8. Power BI will default to creating a tile with a map visualization, similar to how Tableau
defaults to working with geographic data. To make the map more interesting, expand the
Sales_Orders table and place a check mark in the Quantity_Sold field (as shown in Exhibit
C6).
Exhibit C6
This will make the tile more interesting by changing the size of the symbol associated with
each state—the larger the symbol, the higher the quantity sold in that state.
9. You can also change the way the data are presented by selecting a different visualization
type. Select the first option in the Visualizations window (as shown in Exhibit C7) to view the
data in a horizontal bar chart.
Exhibit C7
10. One of Power BI’s most exciting offerings is its natural language processing for data
exploration. Click the Insert tab in the ribbon, then click Buttons. In the drop-down, select
Q&A (Exhibit C8).
Exhibit C8
11. The Q&A icon shown in Exhibit C9 will appear as a separate tile. If the placement defaults to
being on top of the bar chart, you can click and drag it to somewhere else on the canvas.
Exhibit C9
12. To activate the Q&A, ctrl + click the icon. The window shown in Exhibit C10 will pop up. You
can select from the list of questions that Power BI has generated, or you can type directly
into the “Ask a question about your data” box.
Exhibit C10
13. You can also add a question directly to the canvas. To do so, select the Q&A icon from the
Visualizations pane (Exhibit C11).
Exhibit C11