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2016 | Book

Introduction to Power BI Desktop Read chapter Read first chapter

Pro Power BI Desktop

Author: Adam Aspin

Publisher: Apress

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book shows how to deliver eye-catching Business Intelligence with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. You can now take data from virtually any source and use it to produce stunning dashboards and compelling reports that will seize your audience’s attention. Slice and dice the data with remarkable ease then add metrics and KPIs to project the insights that create your competitive advantage. Make raw data into clear, accurate, and interactive information with Microsoft’s free self-service business intelligence tool.

Pro Power BI Desktop will help you to push your BI delivery to the next level. You’ll learn to create great-looking visualizations and let your audience have fun by interacting with the elegant and visually arresting output that you can now deliver. You can choose from a wide range of built-in and third-party visualization types so that your message is always enhanced. You’ll be able to deliver those results on the PC, on tablets, on smartphones, as well as share results via the cloud. Finally, this book helps you save time by preparing the underlying data correctly without needing an IT department to prepare it for you. Power BI Desktop will let your analyses speak for themselves.

Simple techniques to make data into insight.Polished interactive dashboards to deliver attention-grabbing information.Visually arresting output on multiple devices grab the reader’s attention.What You Will Learn

Produce designer output to astound your bosses and peers.

Share business intelligence in the cloud

Deliver visually stunning charts, maps, and tables.

Make them interactive too!

Find new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before.

Adapt delivery to mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

Audience

Pro Power BI Desktop is written for any user who is comfortable in Microsoft Office. Everyone from CEOs and Business Intelligence developers through to power users and IT managers can use this book to outshine the competition by producing 21st Century business intelligence visualizations and reporting on a variety of devices from a variety of data sources. All of this is possible through leveraging your existing skill set with the same, common Microsoft tools you already use in your daily work.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction to Power BI Desktop
Abstract
If you are reading this book, it is probably because you need to use data. More specifically, you want to take a journey from data through to insight where quantities of facts and figures need to be shaped into comprehensible information and given clear and visual meaning.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 2. Discovering and Loading Data with Power BI Desktop
Abstract
Before you can present any analysis or insight, you need data. Your sources could be in many places and in many formats. Nonetheless, you need to access them, look at them, select them, and quite possibly clean them up to some extent. You may also need to join many separate data sources before you shape the data into a coherent model that you can use as the foundation for your dashboards and reports. The amazing thing is that you can do all of this using Power BI Desktop without needing any other tools or utilities.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 3. Transforming Datasets
Abstract
In the previous chapter, we saw some of the ways in which you can find and load data into Power BI Desktop Query, and from there into the Power BI Desktop data model. Inevitably, this is the first part of any process that you create to extract, transform, and load data. Yet it is quite definitely only a first step. Once the data is in Power BI Desktop, you need to know how to adapt it to suit your requirements in a multitude of ways. This is because not all data is ready to be used immediately. Quite often, you have to do some initial work on the data to make it more easily useable in Power BI Desktop.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 4. Data Cleansing
Abstract
Once a dataset has been shaped and filtered, it probably still needs a good few modifications to make it ready for consumption.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 5. Data Mashup
Abstract
In the previous two chapters, you saw how to hone your dataset so that you only used the rows and columns of data that you really need and then how to cleanse and complete the data that they contain. In this chapter, you will learn how to build on these foundations to deliver data that is ready to be molded into a structured and useable data model.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 6. Creating a Data Model
Abstract
You need only one thing to create stunning visualizations and that is good data. Specifically, you need data loaded into the Power BI Desktop data model where you can handle tens of millions of rows from multiple data sources and hone them into a coherent and powerful framework on which you can build your analyses and dashboards.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 7. Extending the Data Model with Calculated Columns
Abstract
Admittedly, not every data model in Power BI Desktop needs extensive calculations. Frequently, the data can speak for itself without much polishing. Yet business intelligence is, at its heart, based on figures. Consequently, sooner or later, you need to apply simple math, calculate percentages, or compare figures over time. You may even want to develop more complex formulas that enable you to extend your analyses and illustrate your insights. Fortunately, Power BI Desktop makes these—and many, many other calculations—amazingly easy. What’s more, if you are an Excel user, you will probably find most of the techniques explained in this chapter to be totally intuitive.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 8. Adding Measures to the Data Model
Abstract
Generally, you need to add a second type of formula to your tables when you have to look at subsets of the data.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 9. Analyzing Data over Time
Abstract
Most data analysis—and nearly all business intelligence—involves looking at how metrics evolve over time. You may need to aggregate sales by month, week, or year for instance. Perhaps you want to compare figures for a previous month, quarter, or year with the figures for a current period. Whatever the exact requirement, handling time (by which we nearly always mean dates) is essential in Power BI Desktop.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 10. Text-Based Visualizations
Abstract
You are now entering the final straight on your race to deliver clear, powerful, and visually compelling analysis. The time has come to transform data into attention-grabbing dashboards that capture the attention of your audience.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 11. Charts in Power BI Desktop
Abstract
It is one thing to have a game-changing insight that can fundamentally alter the way your business works. It is quite another to be able to convince your colleagues of your vision. So what better way to show them—intuitively and instantaneously—that you are right than with a chart that irrefutably makes your point?
Adam Aspin
Chapter 12. Other Types of Visuals
Abstract
While text-based visuals and charts can often make your point, there are times when you need to deliver your insights in ways that go beyond the more traditional data displays. This is where Power BI Desktop really comes to your aid.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 13. Filtering Data
Abstract
Power BI Desktop is built from the ground up to enable you, the user, to sift through mounds of facts and figures so that you can deliver meaningful insights. Consequently, what matters is being able to delve into data and highlight the information it contains quickly and accurately. This way, you can always explore a new idea or simply follow your intuitions without needing either to apply complex processes or to struggle with an impenetrable interface. After all, Power BI Desktop is there to help you come up with new analyses that could give your business an edge on the competition.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 14. Using Slicers
Abstract
With your filters in place, you now have some extremely powerful and insightful dashboards ready to be paraded in front of your colleagues, bosses, and clients. Yet static illustrations can only tell a story in a certain way. What you need to clinch the deal or convince an audience is some truly telling interaction with your facts and figures. Once again, Power BI Desktop is the tool of choice, as it highlights the key metrics in your presentation with a single click—and makes your point, simply and elegantly.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 15. Enhancing Dashboards
Abstract
After spending a little time working with Power BI Desktop, I can assume that you have analyzed your data. In fact, I imagine that you have been able to tease out a few extremely interesting trends and telling facts from your deep dive into the figures—and you have created the tables, charts, maps, and gauges to prove your point. To finish the job, you now want to add the final tweaks to the look and feel of your work so that it will come across to your audience as polished and professional.
Adam Aspin
Chapter 16. PowerBI.com
Abstract
You are now approaching the end of your journey into the world of self-service business intelligence with Power BI. Up until now in this book, you have seen how to use Power BI Desktop to prepare and visualize your data. Now, all that remains is to learn how to share your insights with your colleagues. This is where PowerBI.com comes into the frame.
Adam Aspin
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Pro Power BI Desktop
Author
Adam Aspin
Copyright Year
2016
Publisher
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4842-1805-1
Print ISBN
978-1-4842-1804-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-1805-1

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