How to: Prepare Power BI Reports
Introduction to Power BI:
Power BI is a Data Visualization and Business Intelligence tool that converts data from different data sources to interactive dashboards, and BI reports. Power BI suite provides various software, connector, and services - Power BI desktop, Power BI service based on SaaS, and mobile Power BI apps available for different platforms. These set of services are used by business users to consume data and build BI reports.
Power BI desktop app is used to create reports, while Power BI Services (Software as a Service - SaaS) is used to publish the reports, and Power BI mobile app is used to view the reports and dashboards.
To download the latest version, you can use the following link –
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/
How does Power BI Desktop work?
With Power BI Desktop, you connect to data (usually multiple data sources), shape that data (with queries that build insightful, compelling data models), and use that model to create reports (which others can leverage, build upon, and share).
When the steps are completed to your satisfaction – connect, shape, and report – you can save that work in Power BI Desktop file format, which is the .pbix extension.
Install and run Power BI Desktop:
You can download Power BI Desktop from the Power BI service, by selecting the gear icon, then select Power BI Desktop.
Power BI Desktop is installed as an application and runs on your desktop.
When you run Power BI Desktop, a Welcome screen is displayed.
You can Get Data, see Recent Sources, or Open Other Reports directly from the Welcome screen (from the links in the left pane). If you close the screen (select the x in the top right corner), the Report view of Power BI Desktop is displayed.
There are three views in Power BI Desktop: Report view, Data view, and Relationships view. Power BI Desktop also includes Query Editor, which opens in a separate window. In Query Editor, you can build queries and transform data, then load that refined data model into Power BI Desktop, and create reports.
The following screen shows the three view icons along the left of Power BI Desktop: Report, Data, and Relationships, from top to bottom. The currently displayed view is indicated by the yellow bar along the left. In this case, Report view is currently displayed. You can change views by selecting any of those three icons.
Connect to data
With Power BI Desktop installed, you’re ready to connect to the ever-expanding world of data. There are all sorts of data sources available in the Query window. The following image shows how to connect to data, by selecting the Home ribbon, then Get Data.
Analysing Data in Excel:
Create an excel with the data that is required for analysis and then, Import the Excel in the Power BI desktop
At this point we can edit the query before loading the table, by selecting Edit from the bottom of the window, or we can load the table.
Once the dataset is imported, you are ready to create the reports in Power BI.
Build reports
Additional changes can be made after the table is loaded, and you can reload a model to apply any changes you make. But for now this will do. In Power BI Desktop Report view, you can begin to build reports.
The Report view has five main areas:
- The ribbon, which displays common tasks associated with reports and visualizations
- The Report view, or canvas, where visualizations are created and arranged
- The Pages tab area along the bottom, which lets you select or add a report page
- The Visualizations pane, where you can change visualizations, customize colors or axes, apply filters, drag fields, and more
- The Fields pane, where query elements and filters can be dragged onto the Report view or dragged to the Filters area of the Visualizations pane
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. When modifying visualizations, you'll also see these arrows pointing up or down, which means you can expand or collapse that section, accordingly.
To create a visualization, just drag a field from the Fields list onto the Report view.
Click on the different visualization options to select what type of reports you would want to view.
Real-time Reports on Mobile:
Data Visualization to assist in Management Decisions:
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