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Power BI Training
- Madan Prabhakara
 For Internal Use Only

Overview – Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a suite of
business analytics tools to
analyze, visualize and share data
insights with the required.

It can unify all of organization’s

data, whether on cloud or on-
premises.

Dashboards can be built quickly

to provide a 360-degree view for
business users with all important
metrics in one place, updated in
real time, and available on all
their devices.
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Overview – Power BI

1 Power BI Desktop

Shape Data Publish to Power Create Enable Data Set

Import Data Create Report Share Content
BI Dashboard for Cortana

2 Power BI Service
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Key benefits and differentiators for Power BI

Pre-built dashboards and reports for popular SaaS
solutions

Real-time dashboard updates

Secure, live connection to data sources,

on-premises and in the cloud

Intuitive data exploration using natural language

query

Integrate with familiar Microsoft products and

utilizes commitment for scale & availability in Azure

Fast deployment, hybrid configuration, secure, and

integrated with existing IT systems.
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Power BI vs Competitors
Feature Power BI Qlik View Tableau Spotfire

Data Power View is not as rich as its Similar level to tableau but not Very strong visual analytics Provides interactive and
Visualisation competitors in dashboard and visual as easy to create dashboards and dashboards strong visual analytics
analytics. However, it contains fresh but are regarded as better similar to tableau but the
designs and interesting visuals that quality than tableau, may visuals are not as
can cater to most of the scenarios require scripting customizable

Data Strong data modelling and analytics/ Does have a data modelling Basic data modelling tools Strong in data analytics.
Modelling easier to use than competitors. tool but may require an IT Provides suitable interface
specialist and is known for to run statistical models
taking time to perfect data using Iron Python and R
model

Combining Ease of access to public/corporate Ease of connection to Large list of data source Easy to build powerful and
data data sources including tables from proprietary data sources may support and feeds custom groups of data
the web, merge and append struggle with others

ETL Power Query is easy to use and is a Does have an ETL tool but may Does not have an ETL tool, Provides facility to
powerful ETL tool, Q&A unique to not be included in standard ETL needs to be done in modify /prepare data
Power BI package database or via Excel

* Note: The opinion specified is based on external sources.

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Power BI vs Competitors
POWER BI Qlik View Tableau Spotfire

Pricing for Pro Edition/ Enterprise edition $9.99/User/Month Contact Qlik View $1999/User $2000/User +
Marketing team 0.99$/hour for cloud
service
Pricing for Free/ Personal Editions Free Free $999/User Limited Trial Period

Ease of Administration 1 2 3 4

Quality of Support 1 3 2 4

Ease of doing Business 1 3 2 3

Product Direction 1 3 2 3

Charts and Graphs 2 3 1 2

Dashboards 3 2 1 2

KPI Cards 2 2 1 2

Report interface 1 3 2 2

* Note: The opinion specified is based on external sources.

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Power BI vs Competitors
POWER BI Qlik View Tableau Spotfire

Data Discovery 2 2 1 3

Modeling & Shaping Data 2 1 3 2

Search 2 1 3 3

Filtering Data 1 2 1 3

Predictive Analytics 2 1 2 2

Big Data Services 3 1 2 2

Mobile User support 1 2 2 3

Customization 3 1 2 1

Internationalization 1 2 3 3

Performance & Reliability 2 1 2 3

Sandbox/ Test Environment 2 1 2 2

Average Score 8.15/10 7.775/10 7.625/10 6.05/10

* Note: The opinion specified is based on external sources

 For Internal Use Only

Why Power BI ?
Power BI should not be seen merely as a reporting tool. It can perform all BI functions at a fraction of the cost of other well-
known BI tools as well as provide features that are not currently available in most of its competitors. It can integrate with a
wide range of Microsoft tools and cloud based solutions and provide quick and interesting insights while simplifying
development and reducing costs and T2M (time to market).

Integration with Power Apps

Power App is a PaaS that allows one to build a business application that works on phones, tablets and browsers without
writing any code
 Build business applications with no code.
 Do more by embedding Power BI apps in Power BI reports and vice-versa
 Create custom forms and digital experiences in share-point

Integration with Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Flow is a cloud-based service that makes it practical and simple for line-of-business users to build workflows that
automate time-consuming business tasks and processes across applications and services
 Leverage Power BI Integration with PowerApps and Microsoft Flow for Action on Real Time Data
 Monitor your data by defining action on the insights
 Use built in Schedule periodic generation of Power BI reports ..etc.
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Why Power BI ?
Integration with Cortana

 Cortana is the digital assistant that comes as part of Windows 10. It brings about convenience by acting as a single entry
point for multiple Microsoft services such as Office 365, Emails, Power Bi Reports ..etc
 Enable smart data discovery, self-service data exploration with QnA by integrating Power BI with Cortana
 Fastest and easiest way to gain access to your content, be it on cloud or on your system
 Empowers users to find more with their data with Conversational BI, NLP and Quick Insights

Integration with Office 365 Products

 Get data from Office 365 products by connecting to files stored in OneDrive or Share-point Online
 Publish Power BI reports to Office 365. These reports can be embedded in Share-point or published to web and embedded
in any of the applications
 Use Office 365 to manage Power BI

Power BI reports are generally published to cloud. However, they can also be used as cloud ready on-premise reporting
solutions by using Power BI Reporting Server
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Power BI - Pricing vs Features

POWER POWER BI Power BI Premium
BI PRO (Content licensing)

Cost/User/Month Free 9.99$ Varies by users and nodes

$4995/node/month
Cost Calculator
Capacity type and infrastructure Shared Shared Dedicated capacity, Customizable

Data capacity limit 1 GB/user 10 GB/user Allocate as per your discretion

Create, view and share dashboards and reports with other Power BI users Cannot • •
share

Author content with the Power BI Desktop • • •

Explore data with Natural Language • • •

Access dashboards on mobile devices using native apps for iOS, Windows, and • • •
Android
Consume content packs for services like Dynamics, Salesforce, and Google Analytics • • •

Import data and reports from Excel, CSV and Power BI Desktop files • • •

Publish to web • • •

* Note: The specifications above is provided by Microsoft and can be referred from https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en/pricing/
 For Internal Use Only

Power BI – Pricing vs Features

POWER BI POWER BI POWER BI
PRO Premium
Consume content that is scheduled to refresh Once/ day 8 times/ day 48 times/ day

Consume streaming data in your dashboards and reports 10K rows 1M rows/hour No restriction
/hour

Consume live data sources with full interactivity • •

Access on-premises data using the Data Connectivity Gateways (Personal and Data Management) • •

Collaborate with your team using Workspaces in Power BI • •

Create, publish and view organizational content packs/ Apps • •

Manage access control and sharing through Active Directory groups • •

Shared data queries through the Data Catalog • •

• •
Control data access with row-level security for users and groups
• •
Embed APIs and controls
• •
Email subscriptions, export to PPT, CSV, excel

* Note: The specifications above is provided by Microsoft and can be referred from https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en/pricing/
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Power BI Architecture
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Power BI - Internal Architecture

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Power BI Security- Access Control

1. Power BI App Workspaces are created to align with
segmentation of report/ content ownership
Power BI 2. Content Developer creates report using Power BI for
Online Desktop and saves .pbix files into One-Drive for
Finance Business. Implementation may be checked by
PROD App publishing into a Personal Workspace.
3. Report Author publishes .pbix file into the required
workspace.
DEV QA PROD Management 4. Dashboards are created specific to each group in
Workspace Workspace Workspace
collaboration between content developers and report
authors using reports published into workspace.
5. Testers are provided read-only access to dashboards
in QA / PROD Workspace.
General User 6. After verifying content in PROD Workspace, report
authors can publish the app. There can only be one
app per workspace. .the app includes all reports and
content published to App Workspace
7. Once the app is published, it is visible under Apps 
PBI Desktop
Get Apps  My Organization . Users having access
PBIX PBIX
to the security group can only view the app. For
example, users with access to Finance AD Group will
Tester see PROD App. On the other hand, general users will
Content Developer not be able to access this App.
8. Whenever a report is revised, report author need to
PBI Desktop
re-publish and update the app for the changes to be
visible to the user.

Report Publisher
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Power BI Security– Row Level Security

Power BI
Azure Data Store

Data request via gateway

Using Effective User Name
Power BI
Service Filtered output
PBIX
Row Level Security
Role User Mapping Table
[Country] = “US”
R3

R1 [email protected] Data

[BU] = “A1” Roles

R2

R1 [email protected] Data

R2 [email protected] Data
R1

[BU] = “A2”
R3 [email protected] Data

User

1. Roles are created as DAX expressions in .pbix file 4. When authenticated user tries to access dashboard,
using Power BI Desktop PBI Service issues queries required to render the
2. These roles are exported to Power BI Service on visuals.
publishing the report 5. RLS policy is applied against each row of the table
3. Email Ids used to register Power BI account is mapped and only rows that the user has access to are
against the role in Power BI service considered.
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Power BI Desktop
 Create Power BI Content
For Internal Use Only

What is Power BI Desktop ?

Connect to data and build reports for Power BI

A free downloadable 32/64 bit

desktop application optimized for
the Power BI Service

Combines the power of Power

Query, Power Pivot and Power View

Dedicated BI workflow: Specializing

in Interactive Visualization and
Analysis

Main output: Interactive Reports

Effortlessly publish interactive visual

reports to Power BI users

Support: Monthly updates

 Prepare, explore, report and collaborate with
For Internal Use Only
Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop
Feature

Prepare
• Acquire and prepare data with
extensive query capabilities
• Establish data structure and transform
Explore
and analyze data
• Explore data in new ways through a
freeform, drag-and-drop canvas
Report
• Author reports with a broad range of
Available as a free, downloadable desktop
modern data visualizations companion to the Power BI service, Power BI
Desktop is a visual data exploration and
• Publish interactive reports to Power BI reporting tool
Share &
collaborate
 Consolidate data from a broad range of sources
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Power BI Desktop

Feature
 Use Query functionality to connect to data from a variety of sources beyond
those available from powerbi.com
Prepare  Navigate data quickly with in-memory processing that optimizes
performance
 Pare down datasets to only what’s needed by editing queries before data
loading
Explore  Ability to automatically find related tables when connecting to data sources
Data sources available through Power BI Desktop
File Database Azure Other
Report • Excel • SQL Server • SQL Database • Web • SweetIQ
• CSV • Direct Query for • Direct Query for SQL • SharePoint List • Twilio
• XML SQL Server Database • Odata Feed • Zendesk
• Text • Access • SQL Data Warehouse • Hadoop File (HDFS) • Spark
• Folder • SQL Server Analysis • Marketplace • Active Directory • Blank Query
Services • HDInsight • Microsoft Exchange • Mail Chimp
• Oracle • Blob Storage • Dynamics CRM Online
Share & • IBM DB2 • Table Storage • Facebook
collaborate • MySQL • HDInsight Spark • Google Analytics
• PostgreSQL • DocumentDB • Salesforce Objects
• Sybase • Salesforce Reports
• Teradata • ODBC
• appFigures
• GitHub
• QuickBooks Online
 Shape data into the format and structure you need
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Power BI Desktop

Feature

Prepare • Transform data to fit your needs using Common data-shaping tasks
intuitive UI
o Select data for inclusion
• Remove rows
o Cleanse data and remove errors
Explore • Rename/Remove tables and
o Precisely tune the query step columns
sequence: re-order, add, edit or delete • Change a data type
steps as needed
• Delete Relationships
Report o Modify data types to support specific
calculation requirements • Pivot columns and group
rows
• Modify a table name
• Very powerful for advanced scenarios
Share &
such as Mashups • Identify and fix errors
collaborate
• Merge or append queries to
combine data from multiple
queries into a single query
 For Internal Use Only
Power BI Desktop
Produce rich data models using formulas and
relationships
Feature
Apply complex schema and business logic
 Automatically create a model by importing to create rich, reusable data models
Prepare
data
o Desktop detects relationships automatically,
categorizes data and applies default
summarization
Explore
 Refine models to enable complex calculations
o Create relationships between tables manually or
using the AutoDetect feature Create and modify relationships
o Adjust relationship type (1:1, m:1) and cross-filter
Report
data for new insights
 Define calculations – known as measures – to
generate new fields for use in reports
Share &
o Use automatically generated measures, create
collaborate custom measures, or create Calculated Tables
with Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) formulas Define and use measures with DAX
formulas
 Develop advanced analytics using a
combination of measures and relationships
 Explore your data with freeform, drag and drop canvas
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Power BI Desktop

Feature
 Explore data in a variety of ways and across
multiple visualizations
Prepare o Select data elements and sort data
o Filter data and use cross-filter capabilities
o Drill into and across datasets
o Pivot and slice data
Explore o Change visualization types
o Date sort and filters including Min & Max
functions Power BI Desktop allows you to
explore your data and create
o Ability to refresh all views with a single click insightful visualizations on a freeform
Report o Copy/Paste queries to/from Excel canvas
o Improved default sorting
o Ability to sort the slicers
o KPI Consumption when connecting to Analysis
Share & Services or importing Excel Workbooks with Data
collaborate
Model KPIs (Preview Feature)
 Select, transform and mashup data via a
freeform, drag-and-drop canvas
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Power BI Desktop Deliver valuable insights with customizable visual reports
Feature
• Visualize data and author reports
o Depict data in compelling reports that tell stories using a
range of interactive visualizations
Prepare o Use data from many sources in a single, consolidated
report
o Create relationships via drag & drop between tables
o Apply filters in visualization, page, and reports
Explore o Ability to drill down/up in column and scatter charts
o Support for inserting Shapes in the Report canvas
o Expand/Collapse All for multiple tables in Fields pane
o Adjust reports to fit various screen sizes
o Rename and delete tables and columns
Report Power BI Desktop allows you to
o Support for median, standard deviation, and variance create and customize reports that
o Ability to incorporate custom visualizations tell visually compelling data stories

• Change color, format and customize

o Adjust Title, Background Color, Legend, Data Labels
Share & including color saturation values
collaborate
o Change X-Axis label direction
o New visual color formatting with fixed and data driven
settings
o Linear or Logarithmic scales for values in Y-axis
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Power BI Desktop Share reports, visualizations and data with a broad audience
Feature

Prepare
 Save Power BI Desktop report files
and easily publish them to Power BI

Explore
 Share as appropriate with other
Power BI users in your organization
Import Power BI Desktop file in Power BI
service

Report  Changes to dashboards automatically

sync across all users

Share &
 Copy table, cells or columns to
collaborate clipboard

Publish from Power BI Desktop to Power BI

service
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Sharing Content

Publish to Web When you: When you:

When you: When you:
Others can Share a Share
Publish App Publish to web
dashboard Workspace

Power BI account
Share Dashboard required to view
report yes yes yes no

View and interact yes Yes yes yes

Share Workspace yes
Edit original no (if provided) no no
Create their own
copies no yes no no
Colleagues:
Publish App yes
Share with others Others: no yes no no

Secure yes yes yes no

Share PDF/ Snapshot/ PPT

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Limitations & Restrictions

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Limitations & Restrictions

Free users have a maximum 1 GB data capacity.
Pro users of Power BI Pro have 10 GB maximum capacity.
Pro users can create groups, with a maximum 10 GB data capacity each. At the tenant level, total usage can’t
exceed 10 GB per Pro user across all Pro users and groups in the tenant.
There is a 1 GB limit, per dataset, that is imported into Power BI.
If you have chosen to keep the Excel experience, instead of importing the data, you will be limited to 250 MB for
the dataset.
Every user consuming Power BI Pro content requires a Power BI Pro License.
Power BI Q & A currently supports only English. (Support for Spanish language has been released as preview in
the April 2017 Update)
Power BI Reports are not updated automatically to reflect changes to model. For example, if a column is renamed,
it does not automatically reflect in reports that are already published and hence requires re-creation of such
reports. There is no option to disable a report once published. It can only be deleted.
Changes to model/ reports made on Power BI Site do not reflect in .pbix files.
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Limitations & Restrictions

Reports should be viewable on all HTML 5 supported browsers. But not all browsers seem to render all
visualizations correctly. For example, zooming visualization from within browser may crash safari on iPad. Similarly
not all R visuals are rendered correctly on all devices

Data Refresh using Gateway is not supported for all Data Sources.

If you use Data Management Gateways:

Installation account and service account that runs the data management gateway service requires full administrative access to
the server

Windows firewall must be enabled during installation and uninstallation.

OData feeds require incoming ports 8050 or 8051 to be opened by default

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Best Practices
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Best Practices (Modeling)

Visualizations in Power BI and Power View are heavily driven by meta-data. Optimize Power BI Semantic Model.
Provide tables, columns and measures with descriptive and meaningful names. Avoid applying same name to
columns in multiple tables.

Reduce data from model sources and work with columns, rows and data that is necessary. Hide columns that will
not be part of reports. Apply filters as necessary and reduce the quantum of data to be analyzed.

Make judicious use of Normalization and De-Normalization techniques when building dataset using the
Relationship view.

Make sure data types and formats are correctly assigned. Apply user friendly formatting for all data including
explicit measures.

Ensure relationship between tables is correct, especially after new objects are added to model.
 For Internal Use Only

Best Practices (Visualization)

Consider your audience. Consider key metrics and data they require and include them on dashboard. Consider
devices on which dashboard is viewed often. If it is mostly on a large monitor, you can include more content on it.
Otherwise include fewer tiles to make it more readable.

Design dashboards to allow readers to drill into reports. Avoid details as in tables unless necessary.

Place all essential content on dashboards to be available at a glance. Avoid scroll bars and have fewer tiles if
information seems cluttered.

Make most important information biggest and visible on top. If all visualizations on dashboard are of the same size,
readers will have a hard time focusing on what is most important. Use card visualizations to display important
numbers prominently.

Use right graphics for visualization. Use titles, labels, and other customization to help the reader. Be consistent with
scales, chart dimensions, ordering, data units and colors used within charts.

Do not clutter charts with data labels that are not required.
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Best Practices (Q n A)
When Power BI encounters Q&A query, it performs a keyword search and looks for answers in data sets that has a tile on
dashboard. Datasets not represented with a tile are not considered. Therefore, it's important to anticipate the types of questions
that may be asked and design the dashboard with tiles from datasets which may respond to user questions. The Q&A algorithm
then relies on the names of the tables, columns, and calculated fields. Make sure dataset, tables, column headings and calculated
field names are illustrative of their data.

Check if data types and relationship between entities are correct. This is essential for Power BI to interpret Q&A correctly. Use
normalization and de-normalization techniques.

Parse your data after an import. For example, break out name fields (first name last name), date fields (month year) and address
fields (streets, city, state, zip, country). This will improve performance and permit more specific questions to be answered.

Designate columns that should not sum with Do Not Summarize in Report View. Specify Data Category to append additional
semantic data. This can also help pick the right visualization.

To improve Natural Language Processing (NLP) results, add synonyms to queries and columns. However, do not add the same
synonym in multiple tables/ columns as it may dilute the response

Create a list of featured questions for Power BI Q&A.

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Demos
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Snapshots
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Demos
Instructions Sample data

1) Financial sample:
Model and design dashboards Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel
with Power BI Desktop Document
Worksheet

2) Query and reporting sample:

CSV File
Query and reporting sample
Prepare a data model and create a report Microsoft Word
Document

CSV File
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References
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References

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/guided-learning/

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_press/2016/06/16/free-ebook-introducing-microsoft-power-bi/

https://www.udemy.com/learn_power_bi_for_free/
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Thank You