Power BI — 7 Pillars for Mastering Power BI
A very helpful tool for Corporate Executives, business Managers to make informed business decisions
What is Power BI, Why Power BI is important and whether you should learn Power BI or not ? Power BI is a popular Business Intelligence and Data Visualization tool which is used in Data Science world to convert data from various sources into interactive dashboards and business intelligence reports. As Power BI provides multiple software connectors and services, it has an ability to integrate with R and Python.With the help of Power BI we can create interactive visualizations, dashboards and other business intelligence goodies, which helps corporate executives, business managers, and other users to make informed business decisions.
Before starting out our discussion directly on 7 pillars for mastering Power BI, we are going to dive first into things like What is Power BI, What areas we can use Power BI, Comparison of Power BI with Excel and How to download and install Power BI and finally we will learn the 7 important pillars for mastering Power BI.
What is Power BI and Business Intelligence ?
Power BI is a Microsoft’s cloud-based, business analytics service tool to create analysis (Data Analysis), and BI (Business Intelligence) is a process for collecting, analyzing and monitoring information that we would like to compare/track in organization to track KPI’s, measures, matrix and so on.
Main Goal — The main goal of Power BI/BI is to help and guide corporate executives, business managers, and other users to make better decisions, because it gives insights about the business to take better decisions.
Different Power BI version like Desktop, Service-based (SaaS), and mobile Power Bi apps are used for different platforms.
Power BI provides multiple software connectors and services.
What areas we can use Power BI ?
There are no restrictions to any area in order to apply/use Power BI, we can build the way we want and how we want. All we need is data, if we have data, we can and we should use Power BI. Like to develop fully interactive dashboards for Sales, HR, Sales vs Target, Production, Engineering, Medical units and Logistics and many more. We can have an overall information and detailed information in the same dashboard, and also make simulations!
Who uses Power BI ?
Here are some of the professionals who uses Power BI —
1. Data Scientist
2. IT Professionals
3. Developer and Database Administrator
4. Business and Data Analyst
5. Project and Portfolio Manager
6. Consumer for End User Report
And Many more …
How much is Power BI ? 100 % Free !!!
There are two ways to share your dashboards —
With a Pro license ($9.90 month/user) when you need to share reports on the cloud in a safe way.
FYI: Power BI Service, Cloud and Online are all the same, okay?
or publishing as public. This way anybody can access the information for free (not really a safe way). You need to share reports on the cloud in a safe way.
How to Download Power BI ?
Power BI is very easy to download and very easy to install. There are 2 options: By using Microsoft Store or on the website.
Go to https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/ → “Products” → “Power BI Desktop”
If we have Windows 10, Go by Microsoft Store.
Excel VS Power BI — Head to Head Comparsion
A really common doubt, right? Both tools are really good for different purposes.
Excel is a report-based tool. Simple to use but too many “copy and paste” techniques.
Power BI is a model-based tool that one can create reports on top of data model. Once the model is defined, we can build different reports with the same data. We can automate processes.
Head to Head Comparsion —
1. Power BI offers beautiful branded reports while excel reports are normal and ordinary.
2. Power BI provides advanced features in cross filtering between charts which excel does not provide.
3. In Power BI data can be refreshed while excel does not allow dashboard refreshment.
4. Power BI offers high level analytics while excel offers simple analytics.
5. In Power BI we can easily relate separate tables to one another while in excel it is difficult to do this.
6. Power BI is capable of handling large data sets while excel handles only limited datasets.
7. In Power BI user can build up customized dashboards while in excel user have limited features to build the reports.
So overall Power BI is a powerful tool and easy to use comparing with excel.
Excited?! Now let’s get started to have a look on 7 Pillars for Mastering Power BI !!! Yay!
7 Pillars for Mastering Power BI —
The 7 pillars for Mastering Power BI (We need to learn this in order to build reports and dashboards in a robust way, we need to understand these 7 pillars to master Power BI). Let’s check —
- Extraction — Step where we get information from the dataset from the sources (like database, web, etc …). This step is performed on Power BI desktop. Different data source —
— > Connecting directly in the transactional database (OLTP)
— > Connecting to a Data Warehouse (DW)
— > Through an Excel file connected to the database
— > Extracting reports from the ERP system
— > Filling out spreadsheet manually - Transformation — Step where we clean and treat the data, is performed in Power Query that is the Power BI desktop environment. What should be the correct structure of a table? It should be always columnar. In Power BI in general we cannot have in a single column, two different types of information (Each column must represent a unique type of information).
So, it is extremely important to TRANSFORM it before loading into the model. Power Query is our best friend for this. It is the tool to prepare, transform and put the data into the right shape. - Modeling (create table relationships) — Step where we create the relationships between database tables and is done in Power BI Desktop. These data models are used to build reports later, actually we build reports on top of Data Model. So this is a very important and crucial step.
We have to decide what tables are gonna be lookup tables, and what tables are gonna be fact tables or data tables.
And yes when we are working on Modeling phase (when we are creating our data model) many times we have to go back to the Transformation Phase and transform the tables again.
For examples — In order to build a lookup table sometimes we have to join the tables or may be to split the tables. So the process is not linear, we have to go back. - Calculation (create measures and we build KPI’s) — Step where we create the measures (to track KPI’s) using the DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) language for analytics and is performed on Power BI desktop. The DAX language is kind of similar to the excel functions, it is a functional language.
- Visualization — Step where we create the storytelling and present the information and insights created in amazing dashboards and is permformed on Power BI.
Once we finish this we have to go to the cloud to share our newly created dashboard.
Recommendations for Good Visuals —
— Be concerned about design — Really Important
— Identify your audience
— Draw a skecth
— Choose the right theme and keep consistency
— Change the background (WOW Effect)
— Use Icons and Images to add context
— Align all visuals properly
— Choose the right visuals
— Use visualization features from Power BI - Distribution (publishing) — Step where we share the reports created with end users and customers and is performed on the Power BI Online Platform (using Power BI Service). For this we must have an account with Pro license to share the reports and dashboards.
- Automation — Step where we update the dataset automatically and programme it and it is performed on the Power BI Online Platform.
From 1 to 5 we use Power BI Desktop and it is 100% FREE. This is our Development Environment.
From 6 to 7 we use Power BI Service.
Closing Thoughts and Conclusions —
Power BI is built on the foundation of Microsoft Excel, and the learning curve from Excel to Power BI is not that steep; anyone who can use Excel can use Power BI, but the latter is far more powerful than its spreadsheet counterpart.
Power BI is a advanced version of analytics tool with large number of features to play with data. So overall Power BI is a powerful tool and easy to use.
