Power BI Analytics Benchmark (AB) Trainings

Power BI Desktop Installation

Power BI Desktop lets you build advanced queries, models, and reports that visualize
data. With Power BI Desktop, you can Prepare/Transform data, build data models, create
reports, and share your work by publishing to the Power BI service or Power BI Report Server.
Data Preparation  Query Editor
Data Modeling  Relationship View+ Data View
Data Visualization  Report View

Power BI Desktop is a free download.

System Requirements
Supported Operating System

o Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows
Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2.

Pre-installed software’s required

o Internet Explorer 9 or greater.

o Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6

Install Instructions

o Download the version of Power BI Desktop that matches the architecture (x86 or x64)
of your Windows OS.
o Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms.
o Power BI Desktop is free software and it is available at Microsoft's Power BI Site
(https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop/).
(https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45331)
o By clicking on DOWNLOAD FREE link the software will start downloading.
o By default, you will get 64-bit software.
o Once after download run the MSI installer and follow the setup steps, No
Configuration Required.

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Building Blocks of Power BI

Everything you do in Power BI can be broken down into a few basic building blocks.
Once you understand these building blocks, you can expand on each of them and begin
creating elaborate and complex reports.

The basic building blocks in Power BI are the following

 Datasets
 Visualizations
 Reports
 Dashboards
 Tiles

Datasets

 The source which we are connecting with Power Query we call it as Data Sources.
 The transformed data source that we loaded to Power Pivot we call it as Datasets.
 A dataset is a collection of data that Power BI uses to create its visualizations.

Visualizations

 A visualization (sometimes also referred to as a visual) is a visual representation of

data from the Datasets, such as a chart, a graph, a color-coded map.

Reports

 In Power BI, a report is a collection of visualizations that appear together on one

or more pages.

Dashboards

 When you’re ready to share a single page from a report, or share a collection of
visualizations, you create a dashboard.
 Often, it’s a selected group of visuals that provide quick insight into the data or
story you’re trying to present.
 You can share dashboards with other users or groups, who can then interact with
your dashboard when they’re in Power BI service or in Power BI Report Server or on
their mobile device.

Tiles

 In Power BI, a tile is a single visualization found in a report or on a dashboard.

 It’s the rectangular box that contains each individual visual.
 When you’re creating a report or a dashboard in Power BI, you can move or
arrange tiles however you want to present your information.
 You can make them bigger, change their height or width, and snuggle them up to
other tiles however you want.

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Opening Power BI Desktop

 All Programs  Microsoft Power BI Desktop Power BI Desktop
 The following image shows the Start Screen of Power BI Desktop, which appears
when you start the application.

 From the start page or start screen you can connect to different data sources, can
connect to recent sources, you can open existing saved reports, can access power
BI Blogs, Forums, Tutorials so on.
 Once you close the start page then we will enter in Power BI Desktop Home page.
 If you close the screen (select the x in the top right corner), the Report view of
Power BI Desktop is displayed.

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 From the Get Data option under Home Tab you can connect to data sources.

Connecting to Excel
Select Get Data > Excel from the Home ribbon.

Select your Excel workbook from the Open dialog that appears  Select Open

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Power BI Desktop presents the tables and other data elements from the workbook in the
Navigator window. When you select a table in the left pane, a preview of the data appears in
the right pane.

You can select the Load button to import the data, or if you want to edit the data using
Query Editor before bringing it into Power BI Desktop, select the Edit button.
When you load the data, Power BI Desktop displays the Load window and displays the
activity associated with loading the data.

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 Once you load data into Power BI Desktop you will see the below screen.

The Visualizations and Fields pane can be collapsed by selecting the small arrow along
the edge, providing more space in the Report view to build cool visualizations.
Understanding Power BI Desktop User Interface (UI)/ Report View
1. Fields Pane
 Fields Area will contain the tables with columns that are loaded into Power BI
Desktop.
2. Visualizations pane
The Visualizations pane will contain list of visualizations available in Power BI.
And you can also download a custom visual from the visuals gallery. Here you can change
visualizations, customize colors or axes, apply filters, drag fields, and more.
3. Ribbon
 It will contain the options that are associated with reports and visualizations.
4. Views
 Report View
 Data View
 Relationships View
5. Pages Tab
 The Pages tab area along the bottom, which lets you select or add a report
page.

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6. Canvas

 Canvas is the place where visualizations are created and arranged.

With Power BI Desktop, you can do

Data Preparation  Query Editor

Data Modeling  Relationship View+ Data View

Data Visualization  Report View

Get and Shape or Transform data - Power Query

 The Power BI Desktop makes discovering data easy. You can import data from a wide
variety of data sources.
 After you connect to a data source, you can shape the data to match your analysis
and reporting needs.

Create relationships and enrich your data model with new measures and data formats –
Power Pivot
 When you import two or more tables, oftentimes you'll need to create relationships
between those tables.
 The Power BI Desktop includes the Manage Relationships dialog and the Relationships
views, where you can use Auto detect to let the Power BI Desktop find and create any
relationships, or you can create them yourself.
 You can also very easily create your own measures and calculations or customize data
formats and categories to enrich your data for additional insights.

Create reports – Power View

 The Power BI Desktop includes the Report View. Select the fields you want, add
filters, choose from dozens of visualizations, and format your reports with custom
colors, gradients and several other options.

Power View = Fields + Visualizations + Report View.

Save your reports
 With the Power BI Desktop, you can save your work as a Power BI Desktop file. Power
BI Desktop files have “. pbix” extension.
 Power BI Report template (pbit) file, which contains the report definition minus the
dataset.

Upload or publish your reports

 You can upload the reports you created and saved in the Desktop to your Power BI
Service or Power BI Report Server.

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