Weekend with Microsoft Power BI — A beginners guide from data to actionable insights.

When tasked with data, you must have wondered which analytical tool to use to effectively handle large amounts of data, create insightful visuals and interactive reports to summarize and give actionable insights that add value to a business ?

Microsoft Power BI application a highly rated Data Analytics and Business Intelligence tool can help you achieve that.

This article is a weekly tutorial series crafted to equip you with the right information you need to harness Power BI in all it’s glory, to go from data to actionable insights.

In this series we’ll be focusing on getting to know Power BI.

Great right!! So let’s get started

WHAT IS POWER BI ALL ABOUT ?

Power BI is a suite of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence tools( the BI stands for “business intelligence” created by Microsoft as an easy to use powerful data exploration and visualization application with a drag and drop interface that delivers actionable insights throughout your organization.

It has the ability to connect and draw data from different data sources; Databases — on premises import or direct connections, Files stored locally or in one drive, Web — url sources, OData feeds etc, PowerBI datasets & dataflows, Azure and Online services.etc

Using Power BI to Connect to this data sources can be for a number of reasons which include; pull data , data preparation and clean up, perform robust analysis, create meaningful visuals from the result of the analysis which speaks to the business needs and share insights gotten from your data with others.

Components of Power BI

Power BI is made up of 3 main components:

• Power BI Desktop : A report authoring tool that enables you connect to your data , create data models, create your analysis and visuals.
• Power BI Service (Cloud based): An Online sharing tool that enables you to publish and share your reports within your organization, to stakeholders or to the public, Also you can create PowerBI reports and dashboards in the browser, it consists of 3 main subscription components ; free version, pro and premium.
• Power BI Mobile: A mobile tool that enables you interact with dashboards and reports on the go.

NB: There’s an an additional component called Power BI Report Server(On-premises or hosted cloud) it’s an on-premises report server with a web portal in which you manage and display reports and KPIs consisting of one main subscription type; premium

Now Let's get to understand the interface!!!!

In this intro we will make use of Power BI Desktop version, You can download it by visiting https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/

First! Launch Power BI desktop , close the all pop-ups on the screen.

Click on File at the top left of the ribbon panel- Click on options and settings — Select preview features then check the boxes of features you want included.

This is to ensure you have full access to use the monthly available features update made by the Microsoft Power BI Team — Restart Power BI desktop then you’re good to go!

Second! Understanding the Interface

On the top you have all the tabs and ribbons (home, insert, modelling, view and help).

On the left side you have the 3 different views of Power Bi; Report View - which has a blank canvas(the white area on the interface) that enables you create dashboards and reports, The Data view is the next showcases your data tables , The Model view which creates a data model that creates connection and relationships between data tables.

On the right side of the interface you have 3 panels/panes ” The filters panel on the left side is used to filter a report or chart, Visualization panel is where you choose the type of visual you want to include your report and the Field Panel basically contains a list of data headings you want to work on.

They all come in play once we load in our data!!!!!

Conclusion

In this tutorial series, we’ve got acquainted with the capabilities, components ,main features and in all the interface of Power BI.

In our next series we’ll introduce a case study that’ll enable us deep dive and practice data importation from different sources and data transformation with Power BI Query Editor before performing our analysis and visualization.