Power BI for Business Professionals E-Book

Anthony Ainsley

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Digital Skills for Business Professionals
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 204

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Power BI for Business Professionals

Step-by-Step Techniques to Transform Data into Actionable Business Insights

In the rapidly evolving world of data-driven decision making, “Power BI for Business Professionals” stands as an essential guide for business professionals seeking to harness the full potential of Microsoft Power BI. This comprehensive book equips you with the skills necessary to transform raw data into meaningful insights, driving informed decisions and fostering business success.

Unlock the Power of Data

Dive into the fundamentals of data visualization and business intelligence with Power BI. Whether you are a seasoned analyst, a business manager, or new to data analytics, this book will guide you through every step of mastering Power BI—from installation and basic concepts to advanced data modeling and visualization techniques.

What You’ll Learn

Foundations of Power BI
Understand the core components of Power BI, including Power BI Desktop, the Power BI Service, and Power BI Mobile Apps. Get acquainted with creating your first visualizations and navigating the Power BI environment.

Advanced Data Modeling
Master the intricacies of data tables, relationships, calculated columns, and hierarchies. Learn to structure your data models efficiently to support robust data analysis.

DAX Mastery
Unlock the power of Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) to perform complex calculations and enhance your data analysis capabilities.

Visual Storytelling
Create compelling and interactive visualizations that communicate your data insights effectively. From basic charts to advanced visuals like KPIs and drill-throughs, learn to make your data speak.

Publishing and Collaboration
Discover how to publish reports, create interactive dashboards, manage workspaces, and share insights with stakeholders, fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making in your organization.

Data Management and Exporting
Ensure your reports are always up-to-date with the latest information. Learn about data refreshing, managing gateways, and exporting data from the Power BI Service.

Your Guide to Success

“Power BI for Business Professionals” is more than just a technical manual—it’s a roadmap to success in the modern business landscape. By mastering Power BI, you will be equipped to turn data into actionable business insights, support strategic decisions, and drive your organization forward.

Leseprobe

Power BI for Business Professionals

Step-by-Step Techniques to Transform Data into Actionable Business Insights

Anthony Ainsley

Copyright © 2024 Anthony Ainsley All rights reserved.

This book aims to provide accurate and trustworthy information regarding its subject matter. It is offered with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering professional services. If expert assistance is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. This content should not be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any form without the publisher's express written permission.

The information in this book is provided on an "as is" basis. The author and publisher disclaim any liability for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages or losses that may result from using or misinterpreting this information. All copyrights for material not held by the publisher belong to their respective authors.

This book is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute a contract, nor does it offer any guarantees. Trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are the property of their respective owners, who do not sponsor or endorse this book.

Contents

Introduction

Downloading the Exercise Files

Power BI for Business Professionals

Why This Book?

What You Will Learn

Conclusion

Chapter 1: Understanding the Power BI Product

The Quintessence of Data Visualization and Business Intelligence

Harnessing the Power of Business Intelligence

Why Learn Power BI

What is Power BI

What is Power BI Desktop?

Installing Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop Environment: A Glimpse

Navigating through the Canvas

Visualizations: Making Data Speak

What is the Power BI Service?

Power BI Mobile Apps

The Power BI Tenant

Power BI Licensing

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Data Modelling Fundamentals

Understanding Data Tables

Introduction to Calculated Tables

Understanding Data Columns

Introduction to Calculated Columns

Introduction to Relationships

Introduction to Measures

Understanding Hierarchies in Data Models

Understanding the Data Model

Chapter 3: Creating a Main Fact Table

Introduction to the Star Schema

Creating the Fact Table

Disabling Load for the Invoices Query

Loading the Data

Chapter 4: Date Tables

The Importance of Date Tables

Disabling Auto Date/Time

Using an External Date Table

Creating a DAX Date Table

Mark as Date Table

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Understanding Relationships

Exploring Automatic Relationship Creation

Creating Relationships Manually

Creating a Date Column Relationship

Creating Concatenated Column Relationships

Chapter 6: Hierarchies and Groups

Creating a Date Hierarchy

Creating Business Hierarchies

Creating Groups

Introduction to Creating Bins in Data Analysis

Creating Informal Hierarchies

Chapter 7: Leveraging DAX

Calculated and Computed Columns

Hierarchy Creation and the RELATED Function

DAX Measures

Creating a Table for Measures

Implicit Measures

Creating a Revenue Measure

Using the AVERAGEX Function

Comparing Actual Sales with Target Sales

Calculating Gross Profit Margin

Comparing Margin to Industry Average

The CALCULATE Function

Aggregating Virtual Tables

Final Thoughts

Chapter 8: Big Picture Visuals

Opening the Completed Report

Setting Up Basic Branding with a Theme

Overview of Power BI's Big Picture Visuals

Card Visual Creation

Using the KPI Visual

Creating a Horizontal Slicer

Creating Gauges

Chapter 9: Drill Down and Drill Through

Branch Focus Drill-Through

Adding Drill-Down to a Visual

Creating Table Visuals

Creating the Top Six Customers Table

Creating a Treemap Visual

Creating a Bar Chart for Product Sales

Configuring Visual Interactions

Preparing a Drill-Through Page

Creating a Drill-Through Button

Configuring a Tooltip Page

Chapter 10: Publishing to the Power BI Service

Preparing a Power BI Report for Publishing

Understanding Workspaces in Power BI

Editing in the Power BI Service

Chapter 11: Understanding Power BI Dashboards

Understanding Dashboards and Reports in Power BI

Creating and Branding a Dashboard in Power BI

Creating Interactive Dashboards

Chapter 12: App Workspace Permissions

About Workspaces

Overview of Collaboration in Power BI

Understanding App Workspace Permissions

Chapter 13: Publishing an App

Creating an App

The App Consumer Experience

Unpublishing an App

Conclusion

Chapter 14: Other Methods of Sharing

Sharing Individual Items in Microsoft Power BI

Publish to Web

Chapter 15: Refreshing Data

Introduction to On-Premises Data Gateway in Power BI

Adding a Gateway to an Existing Cluster

Managing Gateways in the Power BI Service

Adding a SQL Server Data Source to a Gateway in Power BI

Chapter 16: Exporting from the Power BI Service

Configuring Export Settings

Tenant Settings

Experimenting with Export Settings

Analyze in Excel

Conclusion

Recap of Key Learnings

Applying Your Skills in the Real World

The Future of Power BI in Business

Introduction

Downloading the Exercise Files

The first thing that you will need to do, before diving into this book, is to download the exercise files which are required to complete the step-by-step tutorials. To do this, visit the following link:

https://gcomsolutions.co.uk/books/powerbi-fbp

If you experience any difficulties, here is an alternative download URL:

https://gcomsolutions.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/PBIFBP01ee27fd369b37.zip

Once you've downloaded and unzipped the exercise files for this course, it is probably a good idea to delete the ZIP file, just to avoid confusion.

Next, head to the unzipped exercise folder, and here you will find everything that you need to complete the tutorials in this book.

Power BI for Business Professionals

In today's data-driven world, the ability to analyze and visualize data effectively is a critical skill for business professionals. Organizations across all industries rely on data to make informed decisions, drive growth, and gain competitive advantages. As a result, there is an increasing demand for professionals who can turn raw data into actionable insights. This is where Power BI comes in.

"Power BI for Business Professionals" is designed to equip you with the comprehensive skills necessary to harness the full potential of Power BI, Microsoft's powerful data visualization and business intelligence tool. Whether you are a seasoned analyst, a business manager, or a professional new to data analytics, this book will guide you through every step of mastering Power BI, from the basics to advanced techniques.

Why This Book?

Power BI is not just a tool for IT professionals or data scientists; it is an accessible and essential tool for anyone involved in business decision-making. Its intuitive interface, combined with robust capabilities, makes it the go-to solution for creating stunning visualizations and insightful reports. This book aims to demystify Power BI and make it approachable for business professionals who need to integrate data analysis into their daily work.

What You Will Learn

This book is structured to take you on a journey from understanding the fundamentals to mastering advanced features of Power BI. Here's a glimpse of what you'll explore:

Chapter 1: Understanding the Power BI Product

You'll start with the essentials, learning what Power BI is, its components, and how it fits into the broader context of data visualization and business intelligence. You'll install Power BI Desktop, navigate its environment, and get acquainted with creating basic visualizations.

Chapter 2: Data Modelling Fundamentals

Data modeling is the backbone of effective data analysis. You'll learn about data tables, calculated tables, columns, relationships, measures, and hierarchies—building a solid foundation for your data models.

Chapter 3: Creating a Main Fact Table

Here, you'll dive into the star schema, a fundamental concept in data warehousing, and learn how to create and load a main fact table.

Chapter 4: Date Tables

Understand the importance of date tables in time-based analysis, and learn how to create and utilize them effectively in your data models.

Chapter 5: Understanding Relationships

Explore the nuances of creating and managing relationships between data tables, both automatically and manually.

Chapter 6: Hierarchies and Groups

Learn to create date and business hierarchies, groups, and bins to organize your data logically.

Chapter 7: Leveraging DAX

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a powerful formula language in Power BI. This chapter covers calculated columns, measures, key functions, and advanced DAX techniques.

Chapter 8: Big Picture Visuals

Master the art of creating impactful visualizations, including cards, KPIs, slicers, and gauges, to present the big picture.

Chapter 9: Drill Down and Drill Through

Enhance your reports with drill-down and drill-through capabilities to provide deeper insights.

Chapter 10: Publishing to the Power BI Service

Learn how to publish and manage your reports in the Power BI service, preparing them for a wider audience.

Chapter 11: Understanding Power BI Dashboards

Distinguish between dashboards and reports, and learn to create interactive and branded dashboards.

Chapter 12: App Workspace Permissions

Understand how to manage permissions and collaborate within Power BI workspaces.

Chapter 13: Publishing an App

Discover how to create, publish, and manage Power BI apps for broader consumption.

Chapter 14: Other Methods of Sharing

Explore various ways to share your Power BI reports and dashboards, including web publishing.

Chapter 15: Refreshing Data

Learn to manage and refresh data, ensuring your reports are always up-to-date with the latest information.

Chapter 16: Exporting from the Power BI Service

Understand how to export data and reports from Power BI and configure export settings for different needs.

Conclusion

By the end of this book, you will have a deep understanding of Power BI and the skills to leverage it effectively in your professional role. You will be able to transform raw data into meaningful insights, create compelling visualizations, and make data-driven decisions with confidence. Welcome to your journey into the world of Power BI—let's get started!

Chapter 1: Understanding the Power BI Product

Power BI, a key player in Microsoft's suite of business applications, has remarkably democratized the data visualization and business intelligence sphere, turning raw data into insightful, comprehensible visuals. It’s not merely a tool but a comprehensive platform that allows professionals, like yourselves, to delve into data analytics without having to wrestle with complex coding.

The Quintessence of Data Visualization and Business Intelligence

In a data-driven world, understanding and employing data visualization and business intelligence tools has become a cornerstone for many businesses. Power BI embodies this by providing an environment where data from various sources can be transformed into visually appealing and informative reports and dashboards.

With Power BI, your data isn’t just numbers in a spreadsheet; it transforms into a compelling story illustrated through charts, graphs, and other visual elements. These visuals are not static; they are interactive and can be used to uncover trends, insights, and facilitate decision-making processes in your organization.

Harnessing the Power of Business Intelligence

The business intelligence tools embedded within Power BI pave the way for more than mere visualizations. By leveraging functionalities like Quick Insights, you can automatically unearth patterns, trends, and anomalies in your data, without having to manually sift through it.

DAX, Power BI's formula language, lets you craft new measures, perform calculations, and generate new insights from your existing data, offering the opportunity to delve deeper into data analysis without leaving the environment.

Why Learn Power BI

Learning Power BI offers a myriad of career benefits and opens doors to various job roles in the ever-evolving data-driven business environment. Here's a persuasive summary of the career advantages and the job roles that would benefit from Power BI proficiency:

Career Benefits of Learning Power BI:

High Demand for Data Skills: In today’s data-centric world, proficiency in data visualization and business analytics is in high demand. Power BI is one of the leading tools in this space, and learning it can significantly enhance your employability.

Improved Decision-Making Abilities: Power BI enables users to create rich data visualizations, providing clearer insights and facilitating more informed decisions. These skills are highly valued as they contribute directly to an organization’s strategy and performance.

Versatility Across Industries: Every industry can benefit from data analysis. Power BI’s ability to integrate with various data sources makes it an invaluable skill, irrespective of the sector—be it finance, healthcare, retail, or any other.

Better Earning Potential: As businesses increasingly rely on data, individuals with the ability to interpret that data and translate it into actionable insights can command higher salaries and more advanced positions.

Access to a Growing Community: Microsoft’s Power BI has a robust community and frequent updates, offering continuous learning opportunities and the ability to stay at the forefront of business intelligence technologies.

Career Advancement: For those already in the business or IT field, adding Power BI to your skillset can help you advance to roles with more responsibility, such as management positions that require a strong understanding of data.

Job Roles Benefiting from Power BI:

Business Analysts: They leverage Power BI to interpret data and provide actionable insights, which helps in strategic planning and improving business processes.

Data Analysts/Scientists: These professionals use Power BI to visualize and analyze data, create reports, and share insights that can drive the decision-making process.

Project Managers: With Power BI, project managers can create dashboards to track project progress, resources, and budgets in real-time, leading to more efficient project delivery.

Marketing Professionals: They utilize Power BI to gauge campaign performance, customer engagement, and market trends, thereby crafting more effective marketing strategies.

Sales Analysts: Power BI helps in tracking sales metrics, forecasting performance, and identifying trends to optimize sales strategies and improve revenue.

Finance Professionals: From forecasting to budgeting, Power BI aids in financial modeling and analysis, providing deeper insights into financial data.

IT Professionals: IT teams use Power BI to monitor network performance, manage operations, and report on IT service levels.

HR Professionals: Human resources can benefit from Power BI by analyzing workforce data, tracking recruitment metrics, and understanding employee trends to improve workplace policies.

In conclusion, learning Power BI is not just about mastering a tool—it's about enhancing your capability to contribute to any organization in a meaningful way. It's a skill that signifies you can turn raw data into a compelling story, a story that can drive business growth and success. Whether you’re looking to start your career, pivot to a new field, or climb the corporate ladder, Power BI is a potent tool in your professional arsenal.

Power BI isn’t just a tool; it’s an ally that works to convert your data into actionable insights in a straightforward, accessible manner.

What is Power BI

Power BI is a self-service business intelligence platform. It consists of a collection of desktop and cloud based apps and services, which can be used to collate, transform, and analyse your organisational data, and build reports and dashboards based on it.

Because of its user-friendly interface, Power BI can be used not only by IT specialists, but also by business users.

Power BI consists of three parts: a Windows application called Power BI Desktop, an online software as a service platform called the Power BI service, and a suite of Power BI Mobile apps available for Windows, Android, and iOS devices.

What is Power BI Desktop?

Power BI Desktop (a free Windows application, available from Microsoft) is the workhorse of the three.

This is where you connect with your data, and where you perform data wrangling and data cleansing operations, to massage the data into the format that your reports require, and this is also where you construct your Data model and build your reports.

Most, if not all of the reports you build will initially be created in Power BI Desktop, and this is because only Power BI Desktop allows you to connect to the whole range of data sources with which Power BI is compatible.

Installing Power BI Desktop

There are two ways of installing Power BI Desktop. Firstly, you can install it from a downloadable executable file.

Secondly, you can install it as a Windows 10 app from the Microsoft Store.

The second method offers one key benefit over the first: it updates automatically, and this is particularly useful since Microsoft releases a new version of Power BI Desktop every month.

Power BI Desktop Environment: A Glimpse

Within the Power BI environment, you encounter a user-friendly interface with several essential areas:

Home: Here’s where the journey begins, and you can navigate through the most commonly used functionalities, like starting a new project or opening an existing one.

View: Switch between different views like Report, Data, and Model, depending on whether you’re working on visuals, handling data, or managing relationships between different tables.

Modeling: Jump into this section to define new measures using DAX (Data Analysis Expressions), managing relationships, and overall playing with your data model to ensure it is structured perfectly to meet your reporting needs.

External Tools: If you want to extend Power BI’s functionality, here's where you find connectors to applications and services outside the primary environment.

Understand that the 'ribbon' at the top, akin to other Microsoft products, hosts a majority of the functionalities you’ll engage with, and it’s all structured to be as intuitive as possible.

Navigating through the Canvas

Once you dive into creating a report, you’re welcomed by a canvas - a playground to create, innovate, and visualize data. This canvas can host a variety of visuals, texts, shapes, and more, offering a versatile space to craft insightful reports.

Power BI Desktop allows you to interact with three primary views - Report, Data, and Model.

Report View: Engage with your canvas, drag and drop visuals, design, and develop your report here".

Data View: A sneak peek into your data tables, where you can sift through the raw data and ensure that everything is in place.

Model View: Provides a high-level visual representation of the relationships between different tables in your data model.

Visualizations: Making Data Speak

A distinct feature that makes Power BI stand out is its robust visualization capabilities. From simple bar charts to intricate waterfall and scatter plots, it harbors an impressive array of visuals to choose from.

Not stopping at the native visuals, Power BI offers a marketplace – “Custom Visuals” – where numerous additional, sometimes specialized, visuals are available, crafted both by Microsoft and a versatile community of developers.

What is the Power BI Service?

The Power BI service is the cloud-based platform where collaboration and sharing takes place.

It is also the place where you create an optimised dashboards in the Power BI environment. A dashboard is a single page canvas which contains a summary of your business insights and metrics.

Whereas the report Provides detailed multi page content, which gives you the whole picture.

Dashboards can only be created and edited in the Power BI service, not in Power BI Desktop.

As for reports, although it is technically possible to create reports in the Power BI service, it is not the norm. However, it is possible to edit reports in the Power BI service.

Having created the report in Power BI Desktop and then published it to the Power BI service.

The ability to edit reports in the Power BI service means that you can involve Mac and Linux users in the report creation, and as we all know, a lot of talented and creative people prefer using Macs.

However, bear in mind that only the visualisation aspects of your report can be edited in the Power BI service. If you need to make any modifications related to data, you will still need to download the report and use Power BI Desktop to make those changes.

Power BI Mobile Apps

Power BI Mobile apps are used to consume content. Apps are available for every major platform. So, it is very easy to ensure that your colleagues are kept up to date with the latest reports when on the move.

Although Power BI contains tools for optimising both reports and dashboards for mobile devices, the good news is that even without optimization, most reports and dashboards look pretty good on a mobile device.

The Power BI Tenant

The term Power BI tenant is used to describe the collection of Microsoft 365 services which are assigned to your organization enabling you to use the Power BI product. During setup, your Power BI administrator will normally associate your tenant with a domain name. The tenant acts as a central and isolated container for the various Power BI subscriptions which are assigned to user accounts within your organization.

To start using Power BI, simply visit the URL power bi.microsoft.com and then either sign up for a free trial by clicking on the try free button or go ahead and buy the Product by clicking the Buy Now button.

Here you will start by entering your email address, then click on Set Up Account. At Microsoft and recognise the domain in your email address, you will be invited to create a new account.

Here you will choose a region. The region that you choose at this point is quite important. This is the region in which your tenant will be located, and it cannot be subsequently altered.

If we would like to find out where your own tenant is based, having logged in, click on Settings and choose Help and Support and then about Power BI.

Here you will find confirmation of where your data is actually stored.

As we have seen, the environment in which Power BI resides is referred to as a tenant. The tenant is the basic organisational container for all the items you Produce in Power BI datasets, reports, dashboards, etc. In reality, there is no such thing as a Power BI tenant.

Strictly speaking, the tenant is always an office 365 tenant. When someone in an organisation first signs up for Power BI, they are asked to supply a corporate email address. If the domain associated with this email already has an office 365 tenant Power BI is simply added to this existing tenant.

Otherwise, the new office 365 tenant is created for the organisation containing only Power BI resources and the central office 365 tenant infrastructure unless an organisation purchases a premium licence, a Power BI tenant shares resources with other tenants. Much like renting a suite of offices in an office block. Only in this scenario, you never have any idea who your neighbours are.

Power BI Licensing

While Power BI Desktop is completely free, the Power BI service requires a subscription. There are three main licences relating to the Power BI Product. Power BI free, Power BI Pro, and Power BI premium.

Power BI Free and Power BI Pro

Power BI free and Power BI Pro are assigned to individuals. Power BI premium is assigned at the tenant level. For individuals therefore, the choice is between Power BI Pro, which costs $10 or seven pound 50 per month, and the completely free Power BI subscription.

The key difference between these two individual subscriptions is collaboration. Power BI free is really meant for solitary usage, which in turn implies simply learning the Product, creating reports and experimenting. If a user with a free licence attempts to perform any operation which requires a licence, a message pops up inviting them to upgrade to a Pro licence, or to take out a 60 day trial of the Pro licence.

If you want to enable Power BI collaboration within an organisation, you need to acquire a Pro licence for everyone who needs to participate. Regardless of how much they intend to use the Power BI service.

Power BI Premium

In larger organisations with a lot of users, the Pro licencing model often becomes far too expensive. Power BI premium is a Product designed for large enterprises, where the number of users runs into the late hundreds or 1000s. However, bear in mind that even with a premium subscription, any users who want to create and share reports will still need a Power BI Pro licence. It is only users who may be classed as report consumers who are having reports shared with them by other users, but who are not creating and sharing reports themselves. It is only this group of people that can use the free licence.

Whereas Power BI Pro and Power BI free work in a shared tenancy environment where resources are distributed between groups of Power BI users. Power BI premium Provides organisations with their own server environment, as well as increased data usage limits, and it is very easy to scale upwards Azure requirement and your consumption of resources increases.

Conclusion

As we close this chapter on getting started with Microsoft Power BI, we recognize its robust capability as a comprehensive business intelligence platform, accessible to both IT professionals and business users alike. With Power BI Desktop at its core, users can perform extensive data wrangling and report building in a user-friendly environment. The Power BI service enhances this experience by enabling collaboration and sharing through cloud-based dashboards, while the Power BI Mobile apps extend this functionality to users on the go, ensuring constant access to critical business insights.