Power Bi 78 Questions
Power Bi 78 Questions
Power Bi 78 Questions
2. Can you have more than one functional relationship between two tables in a
Power Pivot data model?
In a Power Pivot data model, you can indeed have more than one functional relationship
between two tables. Power Pivot allows you to create multiple relationships between
tables based on different columns, enabling you to build complex data models that
represent various business scenarios.
By default, when you create relationships between tables in Power Pivot, it assumes a
single active relationship between the tables. However, you can create additional
relationships as needed and then switch between them to determine which relationship
should be used for calculations and data analysis.
Bi-directional cross filtering is a feature in Power BI and other data modeling tools that
allows filtering to flow in both directions between related tables in a data model. In
traditional one-directional filtering, data from one table can filter data in another table,
but the reverse is not true. However, with bi-directional cross filtering, data can flow in
both directions, enabling more flexible and complex data relationships.
5. What are some familiar sources for data in the Get Data menu in Power BI?
Power BI provides a wide range of familiar data sources in the “Get Data” menu:
Files: Allows you to import data from files stored on your local machine or
network. Common file types include Excel workbooks, CSV files, XML, and text
files.
Databases: Provides options to connect to various databases, such as Microsoft
SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and more.
Azure: Allows you to connect to data sources in Microsoft Azure, including Azure
SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage, etc.
Online Services: Includes connectors for popular online services like SharePoint
Online, Dynamics 365, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and web APIs.
Power Platform: Connect to data from other Power Platform tools like Power
Apps or Power Automate (formerly known as Microsoft Flow).
Other: This category covers various data sources such as Web, OData Feed,
Hadoop File (HDFS), SharePoint Folder, and more.
In Power BI, data types are categorized into the following main categories:
Text: Data types that store textual information, such as names, addresses, descriptions,
etc.
Binary: Data types for storing binary data, typically used for images, files, or other non-
textual information.
Other: Data types that do not fit into the above categories.
In the context of data analysis and visualization, grouping refers to the process of
combining data into logical categories based on specific criteria. By grouping data, you
can organize and summarize large datasets, making it easier to understand and
analyze the information.
Grouping is particularly helpful when dealing with large datasets or when you want to
analyze data at a higher level of abstraction. It allows you to create more concise and
focused visualizations, such as charts, tables, or pivot tables, based on the grouped
data. This way, you can quickly identify trends, patterns, and comparisons within the
data, making it easier to communicate insights and support decision-making.
Responsive slicers in Power BI refer to the feature that allows slicers to automatically
adjust their layout and appearance based on the available space in a report or
dashboard. Slicers are visual controls that provide an interactive way for users to filter
data in a report. They allow users to choose specific values from a field and filter the
data displayed in other visuals accordingly.
Here’s how responsive slicers work in Power BI:
9. What is “M language.”
In Power Query, you use the M language to define the steps and operations that
transform raw data from various sources into a clean, structured, and usable format for
analysis. The M language provides a wide range of functions and capabilities to handle
data manipulation tasks such as filtering, merging, grouping, pivoting, and more.
13. What are the different stages in the working of Power BI?
The working of Power BI involves several stages, from data preparation to report
creation and sharing. Here are the different stages in the typical workflow of Power BI:
14. What gateways does Power BI have and why should you use them?
Power BI provides two types of gateways: On-premises data gateway and Power BI
Data Gateway – Personal mode
Business Reporting: Create interactive and visually appealing reports to track key
performance indicators (KPIs) and monitor business performance.
Data Analysis: Perform data analysis and exploration to gain insights into trends,
patterns, and correlations in large datasets.
Dashboards and Scorecards: Build dynamic dashboards and scorecards to
provide a consolidated view of critical business metrics and performance.
Data Visualization: Create compelling data visualizations like charts, graphs,
maps, and tables to communicate insights effectively.
Data Discovery: Use Power BI’s self-service capabilities to discover hidden
insights and trends within data without the need for advanced technical skills.
In Power BI, you can depict a story or narrative by using the “Bookmarks” and “Buttons”
features to create interactive and sequential presentations of your data visualizations.
This allows you to guide the audience through a series of insights or data points in a
storytelling manner.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in Power BI are a type of visual that represents a
specific metric or measure critical for assessing the performance of a business, project,
or process. KPIs help organizations monitor progress toward their goals and objectives
and make informed data-driven decisions. In Power BI, KPIs are displayed as single
data points or small charts that provide a quick summary of performance against
predefined targets.
Parts of Self-Service BI
Ans: PowerBI is a cloud based Business Intelligence tool to analyze and visualize raw
data that can be fetched from a wide range of data sources. It consolidates business
analytics with data visualization and helps any organization to make business decisions
based on data.It is easy to work with and the data is processed in such a way that it is
easy to understand and reliable. It can be accessed from different platforms and can be
shared across on-cloud participants. Thus it is an effective solution.
Power Query: It is one of the most important components of PowerBI to transform data.
Power Query helps to extract data from different data sources like Oracle, SQL,
Text/CSV files, Excel, etc. and even delete data from different sources.
Power Pivot : It is used for data modeling that uses DAX ( Data Analysis Expression)
functions for the calculations. Relationships between different tables can also be
created here and we can get values that can be shown in Pivot Tables.
Power View: The Power View is used for providing an intuitive display of the data and
retrieving the metadata for data analysis. The views are interactive in nature and slicers
and filters can be used for slicing and dicing the data.
Power BI Desktop: Power Desktop is an integration tool for Power Query, Power View,
and Power Pivot. It helps to create advanced queries, data models, reports and
dashboards and helps in developing your BI skills for data analysis.
Power BI Mobile Application: It is available for the Operating systems Android, iOS
and even Windows. The App has an interactive display of the dashboards which can be
shared as well.
Microsoft PowerBI Free/ Desktop – It is for anybody who wants to see their business
insights from the data with visualizations.
Microsoft PowerBI Pro – It is the full version of PowerBI which enables unlimited
viewing, reporting and sharing of reports which PowerBI Desktop doesn’t support.
Ans: Power BI Desktop is a free desktop application that can be installed right on your
own computer. Power BI Desktop works cohesively with the Power BI service by
providing advanced data exploration, shaping, modeling, and creating reports with
highly interactive visualizations. You can save your work to a file or publish your data
and reports right to your Power BI site to share with others.
Ans: The list of data sources for Power BI is extensive, but it can be grouped into the
following:
Files: Data can be imported from Excel (.xlsx, xlxm), Power BI Desktop files
(.pbix) and Comma Separated Value (.csv).
Content Packs: It is a collection of related documents or files that are stored as
a group. In Power BI, there are two types of content packs, firstly those from
services providers like Google Analytics, Marketo, or Salesforce, and secondly
those created and shared by other users in your organization.
Connectors to databases and other datasets such as Azure SQL, Database and
SQL, Server Analysis Services tabular data, etc.
10). What are the different connectivity modes in Power BI?
Ans: There are three different connectivity modes in PowerBI which are:
Import Mode:
In PowerBI, Import Mode is the default mode since it is most frequently used and
delivers fast performance. It can integrate the data from a data source as shown.
Imported data is stored in the disk and it is fully loaded while querying or refreshing.
Composite Mode
This mode is an amalgamation of both Import and DirectQuery modes. This mode
supports calculated tables which DirectQuery doesn’t. It delivers the best of Import
Query and DirectQuery modes.
Ans: Primarily, PowerBI uses two repositories to store its data: Azure Blob Storage and
Azure SQL Database. Azure Blob Storage typically stores the data that is uploaded by
the users. Azure SQL Database stores all the metadata and artifacts for the system
itself.
Ans: The following are the Building Blocks (or) key components of Power BI:
Data Importing: The first step is to import the data and convert it into a standard format
and store it in a staging area.
Data Cleaning: After assembling the data, it requires transformation or cleaning to
remove unimportant values.
Data Visualization: Now the data is visually represented on the Power BI desktop as
reports and dashboards using powerful visualization tools.
Save and Publish: Finally when your report is ready you can save and publish these
reports that can be shared across users via mobile apps or web.
Ans: Content packs for services are pre-built solutions for popular services as part of
the Power BI experience. A subscriber to a supported service, can quickly connect to
their account from Power BI to see their data through live dashboards and interactive
reports that have been pre-built for them. Microsoft has released content packs for
popular services such as Salesforce.com, Marketo, Adobe Analytics, Azure Mobile
Engagement, CircuitID, comScore Digital Analytix, Quickbooks Online, SQL Sentry and
tyGraph.
Organizational content packs provide users, BI professionals, and system integrator the
tools to build their own content packs to share purpose-built dashboards, reports, and
datasets within their organization.
We know that Power BI visual has an interactions feature, which makes filtering a report
a breeze. Visual interactions are useful, but they come with some limitations:
The filter is not saved as part of the report. Whenever you open a report, you can
begin to play with visual filters but there is no way to store the filter in the saved
report.
The filter is always visible. Sometimes you want a filter for the entire report, but
you do not want any visual indication of the filter being applied.
Ans: A PowerBI dashboard is a canvas which creates a story with templates and
visualizations for better understanding of the data. It is a single-page report and
contains the highlights of the data.
17). What are the available views?
Report View : It is the default view which shows the visualization of the data in reports.
You can create multiple report pages here with a wide range of templates and
visualizations.
Data View : Data view shows the transformed data in a table format with columns and
rows. It also allows you to create new calculated columns for further insights.
Model View : Also called, Relationship View, helps to create relationships between data
models. All the models created in the data can be seen in this view and accordingly you
can compare or create diagrams based on subsets of the model.
Power BI desktop: You can download and install PowerBI Desktop on your personal
computer, where you can connect to the data source, transform your data, analyze and
visualize it with templates.
Ans: In PowerBI, we can represent the data in graphs and visualizations. The
visualization can be of any type, for example:
Bar and Column Charts: It is a standard visualization for looking at a specific value
across various categories.
Area Charts( Basic and Stacked ) : It is based on the line chart and the area under the
line. It depicts the magnitude of change over time.
Card: Card shows aggregate value of a certain datapoint, can be one or more but one
per row.
Doughnut and Pie Charts: They show the relation in parts of a whole. Doughnut charts
have a hollow in the centre while pie charts don’t.
Matrix: It’s a type of table with easier display that shows aggregated data
There are other visuals like Combo Charts, Decomposition Tree, Funnel charts, Gauge
charts, KPIs, Line Charts, Ribbon Chart, Scatter, Q&A, Tables, Treemaps, etc.
Ans: In PowerBI you can create your own visualizations from the library of custom
visualizations. A development project has to be created then test the visual in PowerBI
service. Once the visualization is customized, it is thoroughly checked and tested before
posting. After testing, the visualization is saved in .pbiviz file format before sharing. But
you need to be a PowerBI Pro user in order to make custom visualizations.
21). Why and how would you use a custom visual file?
Ans: A custom visual file is used when none of the pre existing visuals fit the business
needs. Custom visual files are generally created by Developers which can be used in
the same way as prepackaged files.
22). What are the various type of users who can use Power BI?
Ans: PowerBI can be used by anyone for their requirements but there is a particular
group of users who are more likely to use it:
Report Consumers: They consume the reports based on a specific information they
need
Report Analyst: Report Analysts need detailed data for their analysis from the reports
Self Service Data Analyst: They are more experienced business data users. They
have an in-depth understanding of the data to work with.
Basic Data Analyst: They can build their own datasets and are experienced in
PowerBI Service
Advanced Data Analyst: They know how to write SQL Queries and have hands-on
experience on PowerBI. They have experience in Advanced PowerBI with DAX training
and data modelling.
24). What is the maximum data limit per client for the free version of
Power BI?
Ans: With a Power BI Free licence a user can use 10 GB of storage in the cloud for
hosting Power BI reports. The maximum size a Power BI report can be used in the
cloud is 1GB.
Ans: The data can be refreshed in the Gateway in PowerBI by scheduling refresh.
Complex in nature:
One major drawback of PowerBI is it is designed in a complex manner. One needs
complete knowledge of PowerBI in order to start working with PowerBI.
Large data:
PowerBI cannot handle large supply of data and might time out while processing a large
data.
PowerBI cannot process data more than 1 GB.
Ans: To do basic calculation and data analysis on data in power pivot, we use Data
Analysis Expression (DAX). It is a formula language used to compute calculated column
and calculated field.
For the measure named Total Sales, calculate (=) the SUM of values in the
[SalesAmount] column in the Sales table.
A- Measure Name
B- = – indicate beginning of formula
C- DAX Function
D- Parenthesis for Sum Function
E- Referenced Table
F- Referenced column name
Ans: Below are some of the most commonly used DAX function:
Syntax: Syntax is the formula which includes the functions. If a Syntax is incorrect, it will
result in an error.
Functions: Functions are arguments with specific orders to perform. It helps to calculate
any particular order as required.
Context: Context are of two types: Row Context and Filter Context. Row Context is used
when a formula has a Function that applies a filter to identify a row in a table. Filter
Context is used when one or more filters are used to get a value.
33). What are the purpose and benefits of using the DAX function?
Ans: DAX or Data Analysis Expression is a functional language which can create
calculated columns and/or measures for smarter calculations to limit the data the
dashboard has to fetch and visualize.
Ans: The FILTER function returns a table with a filter condition applied for each of its
source table rows. The FILTER function is rarely used in isolation, it’s generally used as
a parameter to other functions such as CALCULATE.
FILTER is an iterator and thus can negatively impact performance over large
source tables.
Complex filtering logic can be applied such as referencing a measure in a filter
expression.
o FILTER(MyTable,[SalesMetric] > 500)
Ans: The CALCULATE function measures the sum of a column from any table and can
be modified with Filters.
Syntax:
CALCULATE ( <Expression> [, <Filter> [, <Filter> [, … ] ] ] )
Ans: These are the only functions that allow you modify filter context of measures or
tables.
Limitations:
Ans: SUMMARIZE()
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS
New group by function for SSAS and Power BI Desktop; more efficient.
Specify group by columns, table, and expressions.
Ans: DAX or Data Analysis Expression is a functional language which can create
calculated columns and/or measures for smarter calculations to limit the data the
dashboard has to fetch and visualise.
39). How would you create trailing X month metrics via DAX against a
non-standard calendar?
CALCULATE(FILTER(ALL(‘DATE’),…….))
Ans: Power Pivot is an add-in for Microsoft Excel 2010 that enables you to import
millions of rows of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook. It lets
you create relationships between heterogeneous data, create calculated columns and
measures using formulas, build PivotTables and PivotCharts. You can then further
analyze the data so that you can make timely business decisions without requiring IT
assistance.
Ans: It is a model that is made up of data types, tables, columns, and table relations.
These data tables are typically constructed for holding data for a business entity.
Ans: The main engine behind power pivot is the xVelocity in-memory analytics engine.
It can handle large amount of data because it stores data in columnar databases, and in
memory analytics which results in faster processing of data as it loads all data to RAM
memory.
45). Can we have more than one active relationship between two tables
in data model of power pivot?
Ans: No, we cannot have more than one active relationship between two tables.
However, can have more than one relationship between two tables but there will be only
one active relationship and many inactive relationships. The dotted lines are inactive
and the continuous line is active.
With “Get Data” in PowerBI, you connect to different data sources to import data for
analysis and visualization. You can select from a range of various data sources to
import the desired data.
Eg. Text/CSV, Excel, PDF, JSON, Amazon Redshift, SQL Server database, Access
database, SAP HANA database, IBM, MySQL, Oracle database, Impala, Google
BigQuery,etc.
Ans: Power query is a ETL Tool used to shape, clean and transform data using intuitive
interfaces without having to use coding. It helps the user to:
Import Data from wide range of sources from files, databases, big data, social
media data, etc.
Join and append data from multiple data sources.
o Shape data as per requirement by removing and adding data.
Ans: There are two destinations for output we get from power query:
Ans: Query folding is when steps defined in Power Query/Query Editor are translated
into SQL and executed by the source database rather than the client machine. It’s
important for processing performance and scalability, given limited resources on the
client machine.
Ans: Yes, a SQL statement can be defined as the source of a Power Query/M function
for additional processing/logic. This would be a good practice to ensure that an efficient
database query is passed to the source and avoid unnecessary processing and
complexity
by the client machine and M function.
Ans:Query parameters can be used to provide users of a local Power BI Desktop report
with a prompt, to specify the values they’re interested in.
The parameter selection can then be used by the query and calculations.
PBIX files can be exported as Templates (PBIT files).
Templates contain everything in the PBIX except the data itself.
Parameters and templates can make it possible to share/email smaller template files
and limit the amount of data loaded into the local PBIX files, improving processing time
and experience.
Ans: A new programming language is used in power query called M-Code. It is easy to
use and similar to other languages. M-code is case-sensitive language.
54). Why do we need Power Query when Power Pivot can import data
from mostly used sources?
Ans: Power Query is a self-service ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool which runs as
an Excel add-in. It allows users to pull data from various sources, manipulate said data
into a form that suits their needs and load it into Excel. It is most optimum to use Power
Query over Power Pivot as it lets you not only load the data but also manipulate it as
per the users needs while loading.
Connect to Data: Get Data from various sources and Transform data.
Shape Data: Transform your data according to requirement to clean and shape it
Group Rows: You can group the values of many rows into one single value by
summarizing
Pivot Columns: Pivot columns and create a table with aggregated values
Create Custom Columns: You can use custom formulas to create new columns in your
table
Advanced Editor: You can make modifications to the data using Advanced Query Editor
with query.
Ans: Power Map is an Excel add-in that provides you with a powerful set of tools to help
you visualize and gain insight into large sets of data that have a geo-coded component.
It can help you produce 3D visualizations by plotting upto a million data points in the
form of column, heat, and bubble maps on top of a Bing map. If the data is time
stamped, it can also produce interactive views that display, how the data changes over
space and time.
57). What are the primary requirement for a table to be used in Power
Map?
Ans: For a data to be consumed in power map there should be location data like:
Latitude/Longitude pair
Street, City, Country/Region, Zip Code/Postal Code, and State/Province, which
can be geolocated by Bing
The primary requirement for the table is that it contains unique rows. It must also
contain location data, which can be in the form of a Latitude/Longitude pair, although
this is not a requirement. You can use address fields instead, such as Street, City,
Country/Region, Zip Code/Postal Code, and State/Province, which can be geolocated
by Bing.
Ans: The data can either be present in Excel or could be present externally. To prepare
your data, make sure all of the data is in Excel table format, where each row represents
a unique record. Your column headings or row headings should contain text instead of
actual data so that Power Map will interpret it correctly when it plots the geographic
coordinates. Using meaningful labels also makes value and category fields available to
you when you design your tour in the Power Map Tour Editor pane.
To use a table structure that more accurately represents time and geography inside
Power Map includes all of the data in the table rows, and use descriptive text labels in
the column headings, like this:
In case you wish to load your data from an external source:
1. In Excel, click Data > the connection you want in the Get External Data group.
2. Follow the steps in the wizard that starts.
3. On the last step of the wizard, make sure Add this data to the Data Model is
checked.
The more you use it, the better you’ll get at it. So, let’s get started.
Ans: Both PowerBi and Tableau are business intelligence tools for generating reports
and data visualization but they do have a few significant differences.
Data Source:
PowerBI does not have as wide access to data sources as Tableau when compared.
Tableau has a wider range of access to various data sources.
Data Capacity:
Maximum of 10 GB of data can be handled in each workspace in PowerBI or else it
needs to be stored in the cloud.
While in Tableau, we can fetch billions of rows for each column as it works on columnar
based structure which stores unique values.
Machine Learning:
PowerBI has integration with Microsoft Azure which helps in analyzing the data.
Tableau has in-built Python machine learning capacities which makes it efficient to
perform ML Operations on datasets.
Performance:
PowerBI can handle a limited amount of data while Tableau can work with a huge
volume of data with ease.
Pricing:
PowerBI is cheaper compared to Tableau. Tableau needs to be paid more when third
party applications are connected.
The following pages provide details about different visualizations available in Power
View:
Charts
Line charts
Pie charts
Maps
Tiles
Cards
Images
Tables
Power View
Multiples Visualizations
Bubble and scatter charts
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
Ans: It is a stand alone application where we can make Power BI reports and then
upload it to Powerbi.com, it does not require Excel. Actually, it is a combination of
Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View.
62). Can we refresh our Power BI reports once uploaded to cloud (Share
point or Powebi.com)?
Ans: Yes we can refresh our reports through Data Management gateway(for
sharepoint), and Power BI Personal gateway(for Powerbi.com)
63). What are the different types of refreshing data for our published
reports?
Ans: There are four main types of refresh in Power BI. Package refresh, model or data
refresh, tile refresh and visual container refresh.
Package refresh
This synchronizes your Power BI Desktop, or Excel, file between the Power BI service
and OneDrive, or SharePoint Online. However, this does not pull data from the original
data source. The dataset in Power BI will only be updated with what is in the file within
OneDrive, or SharePoint Online.
Model/data refresh
It refers to refreshing the dataset, within the Power BI service, with data from the
original data source. This is done by either using scheduled refresh or refresh now. This
requires a gateway for on-premises data sources.
Tile refresh
Tile refresh updates the cache for tile visuals, on the dashboard, once data changes.
This happens about every fifteen minutes. You can also force a tile refresh by selecting
the ellipsis (…) in the upper right of a dashboard and selecting Refresh dashboard
tiles.
Refreshing the visual container updates the cached report visuals, within a report, once
the data changes.
To know more about data refresh and understand how to implement data refresh, you
can check the following link.
Ans: No, Power BI is not available as a private, internal cloud service. However, with
Power BI and Power BI Desktop, you can securely connect to your own on-premises
data sources. With the On-premises Data Gateway, you can connect live to your on-
premises SQL Server Analysis Services and other data sources. You can also schedule
refresh with a centralized gateway. If a gateway is not available, you can refresh data
from on-premises data sources using the Power BI Gateway – Personal.
65). What are the data management gateway and Power BI personal
gateway?
Ans: Gateway acts a bridge between on-premises data sources and Azure cloud
services.
Personal Gateway:
On-Premises Gateway:
Ans: Power BI Q&A is a natural language tool that helps in querying your data and
getting the results you need from it. You do this by typing into a dialog box on your
Dashboard, which the engine instantaneously generates an answer similar to Power
View. Q&A interprets your questions and shows you a restated query of what it is
looking from your data. Q&A was developed by Server and Tools, Microsoft Research,
and the Bing teams to give you a complete feeling of truly exploring your data.
67). What happens when you click the Infocus mode of a tile on the
PowerBI dashboard on the browser?
Ans: When you click the Infocus mode of a tile on the PowerBI dashboard on the
browser, the selected tile expands and takes the full space
69). What are some ways that Excel experience can be leveraged with
Power BI?
Ans: Below are some of the ways through which we can leverage Power BI:
Ans: Calculated Columns are DAX expressions that are computed during the model’s
processing/refresh process for each row of the given column and can be used like any
other column in the model.
Calculated columns are not compressed and thus consume more memory and result in
reduced query performance. They can also reduce processing/refresh performance if
applied on large fact tables and can make a model more difficult to maintain/support
given
that the calculated column is not present in the source system.
Ans: Many to Many relationships involve a bridge or junction table reflecting the
combinations of two dimensions (e.g. doctors and patients). Either all possible
combinations or those combinations that have occurred.
73). Why might you have a table in the model without any relationships
to other tables?
Ans: There are mainly 2 reasons why we would have tables without relations in our
model:
A disconnected table might be used to present the user with parameter values to
be exposed and selected in slicers (e.g. growth assumption.)
o DAX metrics could retrieve this selection and use it with other
calculations/metrics.
A disconnected table may also be used as a placeholder for metrics in the user
interface.
o It may not contain any rows of data and its columns could be hidden but
all metrics are visible.
The user can manage the tiles – refresh them, remove them, in Excel.
Pinned items must be removed from the dashboard in the service (removing in
Excel only deletes the connection).
The Power BI Publisher for Excel can also be used to connect from Excel to
datasets that are hosted in the Power BI Service.
An Excel pivot table is generated with a connection (ODC file) to the data in
Azure.
The Publisher installs all necessary drivers on local machine to establish connectivity .
75). What are the differences between a Power BI Dataset, a Report, and
a Dashboard?
Report: An individual Power BI Desktop file (PBIX) containing one or more report
pages.
Built for deep, interactive analysis experience for a given dataset (filters,
formatting).
Each Report is connected to atleast one dataset
Each page containing one or more visuals or tiles.