Beginners Guide to

Power BI

Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3

What IS Power BI ............................................................................................................................ 6

The Difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI service............................................ 6

Power BI and Mobile Devices ..................................................................................................... 9

Key Power BI concepts ................................................................................................................. 12

Bringing data To Power BI ........................................................................................................... 13

Creating a Workspace and Report in Power BI ........................................................................... 18

Getting data from Excel ............................................................................................................... 18

Sharing data from Power BI ......................................................................................................... 26

Sharing data in Teams .............................................................................................................. 27

Sharing data in SharePoint ...................................................................................................... 29

Getting data from OneDrive for Business.................................................................................... 31

Turning your data into a map .................................................................................................. 36

Using Power BI Desktop ............................................................................................................... 38

Getting data from a SharePoint list ......................................................................................... 38

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 Getting data from Microsoft Forms ......................................................................................... 42

Getting data from the web ....................................................................................................... 44

Getting data from other sources ................................................................................................. 49

Data refresh .................................................................................................................................. 51

The top ten visualizations ............................................................................................................ 53

Bar charts .................................................................................................................................. 53

Donut charts ............................................................................................................................. 53

Scatter charts............................................................................................................................ 54

Waterfall chart .......................................................................................................................... 54

Maps .......................................................................................................................................... 55

Tree maps ................................................................................................................................. 55

Q&A............................................................................................................................................ 56

Funnel chart .............................................................................................................................. 56

Gauge ........................................................................................................................................ 57

Key influencers ......................................................................................................................... 57

Key influencers visualizations ..................................................................................................... 58

Dashboards................................................................................................................................... 63

Creating a dashboard ............................................................................................................... 66

Ask a question about your data ............................................................................................... 70

Creating an App ............................................................................................................................ 72

How is Power BI Licensed? .......................................................................................................... 75

Next steps ..................................................................................................................................... 79

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Introduction
We’re living in the era of where data is everywhere. Most of our movements online are noted,
measured or categorised. We offer up data about ourselves in return for discounts and access
to services.

Those same services and organisations collect data about their own activities and operations.
They track efficiency and measure results at every level of business.

It’s not just large corporations. Small companies, individuals and groups collect and use this
data to reveal insights and help drive experiments, adaptations and behaviours.

There is every reason to care about data as a part of our day to day lives and even more to
explore how we can use it to benefit us.

We store data in many forms. Sometimes it’s just notes. In business, it’s often Excel files, or
we might save it to SharePoint lists; it could be in a SQL or an Access database. Wherever it is,
typically, it shares one thing in common: it’s unconnected and siloed.

This is fine if we don’t have a need to analyse or attempt to gain insights from this data. If it’s
just casual collection (say a list of items for an upcoming trip or presentation) the use tends to
be personal.

However, if we collect data because we want to use it to help reveal insights into behaviour or
activities taking place – across several different points where we capture the information,
having a joined-up view becomes more important.

This is where Power BI (business intelligence) comes in. A Microsoft product which integrates
into the Microsoft 365 range of apps, it brings together all your data into handy dashboards,
data models and reports.

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Ultimately, it’s main purpose is to allow you to analyse your data (from one or many sources)
while presenting it in a visually meaningful way. And by connecting and visualising your data,
individuals, teams and organisations can gain great insight into patterns and trends.
Crucially, you don’t have to be a data scientist or a programmer to use Power BI.

While you don’t have to be a data scientist or a programmer to follow this eBook, it would
help if you had some Microsoft 365 experience and/or with the following:

• Familiar with the way data files can be stored and shared - such as in OneDrive /
SharePoint or in Teams.
• As we will be exporting data to SharePoint online, knowledge of how to edit a
SharePoint page would help (but isn’t essential)
• A basic understanding column in Excel along with cells and types of data - such as
number, currency etc. but don’t worry – you won’t see any code or come across any
tricky Excel formulae!
• A broad familiarity with what Microsoft 365 offers in general as the Power BI service
sits neatly within this ecosystem

To get the most out of this eBook be sure to sign up to a trial version of the Power BI service
and to download the Power BI Desktop app. (more on how to do this later on)

Before you begin, we also want to mention that Power BI as a topic and a skill set is large.
This beginner level eBook only skims the surface to expose you to some of the concepts and
options to hand.

To cover the entire set of capabilities Power BI offers would take an encyclopaedia. However,
don’t be put off. You can achieve some very cool outcomes with very little learning needed.

This is where we hope this eBook can inspire you and help you with some of those first steps
and concepts.

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In doing so, we hope to give you a broad appreciation for the topic. One which also
complements and may benefit from taking either our Power BI JumpStart challenge (takes 90
mins or less) and/or our Power BI StepUp Challenge.

These items would form a great foundation to get you started into the world of Power
BI.

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What IS Power BI
Power BI consists of three main products:

Power BI Desktop

A Microsoft Windows desktop application. Download it here

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/
Power BI service

An online service (or SaaS – Software as a Service) which you use in the browser.

Power BI Mobile

Smartphone app (download it from the above link).

This eBook is only covering an introduction to the Power BI service (SaaS) and some aspects
of the Power BI Desktop. To try these both out for yourself, try the Power BI JumpStart
challenge.

Furthermore, the data we are connecting to is an Excel file, a SharePoint list, a Microsoft
Form, and data pulled from the web, particularly a Wikipedia entry.

The Difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI service

Power BI Desktop is – put simply - more powerful as a ‘build’ tool than the Power BI service.
The Service is more capable as a Sharing tool.

So, if you just need to generate a report from some pre-existing data already in the cloud
service, you can use the Power BI service.

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If you are Report and Dashboard builder, creating a combined set of data tables from multiple
sources (called a Data Model) you will want to reach for the Desktop version first before
publishing to the Power BI service or a mobile app.

Build mostly in the Desktop, publish to the cloud service and share from there is how we think
of it.

The below Venn diagram is a neat summary of the major differences of the 2 products.

For more information, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-

bi/fundamentals/service-service-vs-desktop

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Below is Power BI Desktop.

Below is the home of the Power BI service, which sits in a browser. As this is a browser-based
product, it is connected to Microsoft 365 - hence the app launcher (9 dots) on the top left-
hand side.

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Power BI and Mobile Devices
Power BI has downloadable mobile apps which allow you to view and interact with content
you have created or have access to on your smartphone and other devices.

You create reports for mobile Power BI apps using the Power BI Desktop. It has an inbuild
designer specifically for mobile reports that you want to publish.

Device Highlights

iPhones go everywhere, and the Power BI mobile app for the iPhone
goes, too. Besides viewing your Power BI reports in a special mobile
layout view, you can add Power BI to your Apple Watch, and ask
iPhone
questions with the Q&A virtual analyst.

Get started with the Power BI mobile app for iOS.

On the iPad, the Power BI mobile app displays dashboards and reports
the way they were formatted for the Power BI service. Plus you can
view your Power BI Report Server and Reporting Services KPIs and
reports right on your iPad. You can set data alerts in the Power BI
iPad
mobile app to notify you when data in a dashboard changes beyond
limits you set.

Get started with the Power BI mobile app for iOS.

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 The Power BI mobile app for the Android phone brings Power BI to
your pocket, with up-to-date, touch-enabled mobile access to your
business information. You can filter a report by your geographic
Android phone location. You can scan QR codes with your Android phone and go
straight to a Power BI dashboard or report.

Get started with the Power BI mobile app for Android.

This mobile app runs on a number of different Android tablets,

bringing you up-to-date, touch-enabled mobile access to your business
information. On the Android tablet, the Power BI mobile app displays
dashboards and reports the way they were formatted for the Power BI

Android tablet service. You can mark your favourite dashboards and reports, so you
can get to them quickly, along with your favourite Power BI Report

Server and Reporting Services KPIs and reports.

Get started with the Power BI mobile app for Android.

The Power BI mobile app for Windows 10 runs on any Windows 10

device, including Windows 10 phones. Along with many of the
features of the other mobile apps, the Power BI mobile app for
Windows 10 offers special functionality. For example, you can pin a
Windows Power BI dashboard to the Windows Start screen from the Power BI
mobile app. Plus you can run Power BI in presentation mode on
Surface Hub and in the Power BI mobile app for Windows 10.

Get started with the Power BI mobile app for Windows 10 devices.

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 Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-
bi/consumer/mobile/mobilehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-
bi/consumer/mobile/mobile-apps-for-mobile-devicesapps-for-mobile-devices

The image below is a screenshot of a Power BI Android app:

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Key Power BI concepts
The following are some key concept or terms you will see a lot in relation to Power BI.

Term Definition

Workspaces are ‘containers’ for dashboards, reports, semantic

models, and dataflows. They allow organisation of these items
along with collaboration.
Workspaces
They are also the launchpad for sharing your content beyond just
yourself.

A Semantic Model is a collection of data that you have created,

imported or connected to. Some people refer to this as a Data
Model.

Power BI lets you connect to and import all sorts of data sources
and bring them all together into your Semantic Model.

Common terms you will hear in relation to models are:

Semantic Model • Sources – Data sources

• Tables - sets of data e.g. customer information
• Cardinality - the relationship between data in separate tables
e.g. 1 to many which is 1 customer in a table to many orders in
an order table)
• Dimension tables – Describes the business entities or things
you model e.g. products
• Fact tables – store observations or events about those entities
e.g. orders.

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 A Power BI report is one or more pages of visualizations such as
line charts, maps, and treemaps. Visualizations are also called
visuals.

You can:

Reports • Create reports from scratch within Power BI

• import them from dashboards that colleagues share with
you
• Power BI can create them for you when you connect to
data from Excel, Power BI Desktop, databases, and SaaS
applications.

Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/learn/modules/introductionhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/learn/modules/introduction-power-bi/2-what-power-bipower-bi/2-what-power-bi

Bringing data To Power BI

When you use Power BI. Typically, you will follow an ETL process. This means:

• Extract – gather data from the locations you need by connecting to it

• Transform – ensure the information is well formatted, free of errors and has been
prepared to make sure it makes sense and can be read by Power BI.
• Load – Data has been added to your Data Model

Once this is done, you can create visualisations and prepare them for Publishing.

Before embarking on the Extract process, here are a few tips to ensure that your data is
suitably prepared.

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While you don’t have to be a data scientist to use Power BI, the quality of the results and
trends you might observe from your data will only be as good as the data itself.

The tips below for the preparation of an Excel file but may be used for other data sources, too.

While Power BI allows you to clean up your data once it has been imported during the
Transform step (and this is necessary if you are bringing in data from, for example, the web
and you have no control over the creation of the data), it’s a good idea to try to have the
cleanest data as possible from the start.

• All the data in each source column should be of the same type of data, for example, it
must be a number, or text, date or a currency. A source tool like Excel will help you do
this but if you don’t have control, don’t worry too much. You’ll check during the
Transform step.
• Think hard about what the purpose of your data is.
o Do you need all the information?
o What columns can you remove?
o Perhaps you want to add a column from elsewhere.
• In short, reduce your data to its absolute minimum before you use it. Note: if you
connect your Excel file to Power BI via OneDrive, if you update the OneDrive file, it will
be updated in Power BI
• Where you have pivot tables or matrix style tables, put your data into a list with
repeating values - rather than the pivot table for example where it is cross referenced
• Don’t have any totals rows in your data source
• If your data is not actually a ‘table’ turn it into a table by selecting Format as a table in
Excel. This will put a header above each column which will, in turn, be understood as
the column name in Power BI when you perform the load step
• Within Excel, name your table and leave out spaces in the table name

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Below is a good example of what is called “clean” data copied from an Excel file.

Each column is its own data type with simple, functional columns.

You can copy and paste it into Excel to follow our example. Save it somewhere you can
access easily.

OrderDate Region Rep Item Units Unit Cost Total

1/6/19 East Jones Pencil 95 £ 1.99 £ 189.05

1/23/19 Central Kivell Binder 50 £ 19.99 £ 999.50

2/9/19 Central Jardine Pencil 36 £ 4.99 £ 179.64

2/26/19 Central Gill Pen 27 £ 19.99 £ 539.73

3/15/19 West Sorvino Pencil 56 £ 2.99 £ 167.44

4/1/19 East Jones Binder 60 £ 4.99 £ 299.40

4/18/19 Central Andrews Pencil 75 £ 1.99 £ 149.25

5/5/19 Central Jardine Pencil 90 £ 4.99 £ 449.10

5/22/19 West Thompson Pencil 32 £ 1.99 £ 63.68

6/8/19 East Jones Binder 60 £ 8.99 £ 539.40

6/25/19 Central Morgan Pencil 90 £ 4.99 £ 449.10

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 7/12/19 East Howard Binder 29 £ 1.99 £ 57.71

7/29/19 East Parent Binder 81 £ 19.99 £ 1,619.19

8/15/19 East Jones Pencil 35 £ 4.99 £ 174.65

9/1/19 Central Smith Desk 2 £ 125.00 £ 250.00

9/18/19 East Jones Pen Set 16 £ 15.99 £ 255.84

10/5/19 Central Morgan Binder 28 £ 8.99 £ 251.72

10/22/19 East Jones Pen 64 £ 8.99 £ 575.36

11/8/19 East Parent Pen 15 £ 19.99 £ 299.85

11/25/19 Central Kivell Pen Set 96 £ 4.99 £ 479.04

12/12/19 Central Smith Pencil 67 £ 1.29 £ 86.43

12/29/19 East Parent Pen Set 74 £ 15.99 £ 1,183.26

1/15/20 Central Gill Binder 46 £ 8.99 £ 413.54

2/1/20 Central Smith Binder 87 £ 15.00 £ 1,305.00

2/18/20 East Jones Binder 4 £ 4.99 £ 19.96

3/7/20 West Sorvino Binder 7 £ 19.99 £ 139.93

3/24/20 Central Jardine Pen Set 50 £ 4.99 £ 249.50

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 4/10/20 Central Andrews Pencil 66 £ 1.99 £ 131.34

4/27/20 East Howard Pen 96 £ 4.99 £ 479.04

5/14/20 Central Gill Pencil 53 £ 1.29 £ 68.37

5/31/20 Central Gill Binder 80 £ 8.99 £ 719.20

6/17/20 Central Kivell Desk 5 £ 125.00 £ 625.00

7/4/20 East Jones Pen Set 62 £ 4.99 £ 309.38

7/21/20 Central Morgan Pen Set 55 £ 12.49 £ 686.95

8/7/20 Central Kivell Pen Set 42 £ 23.95 £ 1,005.90

8/24/20 West Sorvino Desk 3 £ 275.00 £ 825.00

9/10/20 Central Gill Pencil 7 £ 1.29 £ 9.03

9/27/20 West Sorvino Pen 76 £ 1.99 £ 151.24

10/14/20 West Thompson Binder 57 £ 19.99 £ 1,139.43

10/31/20 Central Andrews Pencil 14 £ 1.29 £ 18.06

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Creating a Workspace and Report in Power BI
When you think about a Power BI workspace, think of a container which houses dashboards,
reports, datasets, and dataflows. There are two types of workspaces:

• My workspace
• Workspaces.

My workspace is a personal workspace where you can work on your own content whereas
Workspaces can be collaborative spaces which are used to work on Power BI content with
other people ideally.

Getting data from Excel

For our first Workspace and report, we are going to use the above data which has been copied
to create an Excel file – you can store locally wherever is convenient.

Go ahead and make this file now

We’re going to upload it to the Power BI service and present the data in a visually appealing
way. Furthermore, we’ll export the data to Teams and SharePoint online.

Head to app.powerbi.com and sign in to you Microsoft 365 account. You may need to create a
trial to follow these steps (generally you will see on screen prompts inviting you to do this is
you are not licenced already).

Within the Power BI Service, Select Workspaces → Create a workspace.

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You have the option to upload an image, give it a name and a description. We’re going to
upload an image of stationary and call it EbookWorkspace.

(Note: with the image below, from time-to-time Power BI screens will change, new features are
added and older ones removed.

You may need to use a little lateral thought over time if something does not quite look the same,
however at the time of writing, Workspace menu remains very similar to the image below).

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When our workspace is created, it will be empty. We’re going to select New and Semantic
Model to Create a data to use in a report.

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Click Excel to import your data from an excel workbook.

Select Upload file and choose your Excel file we made earlier (we called ours Sales Data).
You may need to sign in to your Microsoft account at this stage.

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You’ll now see the Power Query interface, where you’ll find a list of sheets and tables that
exist in your Excel workbook. (If no tables exist – it will automatically try and create one for
you). For this eBook, we are going to select the Sheet1 from the Excel workbook folder and
click Create.

After a few moments you’re data will be processed and you’ll see a new interface where we
can create visualizations.

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First, let’s look at Fields which is on the right hand-side of the screen (You may need to
expand the data to see the fields). Here you will see the data as referenced in the original
Excel file:

If we select (tick) Region, Rep and Total, we see the raw data in a table within the canvas area:

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However, we can make this more interesting by using the many options that appear in
Visualizations. With the table selected, try clicking another visualisation and watch the table
change. (Tip: Hover over the visualisation to see its name)

Below we have used a Stacked bar chart and have enlarged the chart in order to see all the
reps. To make any chart bigger, just stretch it from the bottom corner.

It’s always wise to save your report by selecting the Save icon (top right) or using File ->
Save.

24
The next visualization we’ll do is a Clustered bar chart and we’re selecting the Item and

Total (You’ll need to ensure the previous visualization is unselected before creating a

new visualization).

Once you save your report, you can perform various actions such as export it, share it with
others or even publish to what’s called an App. An App is essentially a browser version of your
report ready for others to interact with. Each workspace may have up to 1 App.

We won’t create an App yet but it’s worth being aware that it is a step you may take when you
publish.

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Sharing data from Power BI
Now that we have created our first report based on our Excel file, we can export it or share it.
It can be exported to PowerPoint, as PDF or back to Excel.

From your workspace, you can click the +New > report and see it in your browser.

Notice there is a Share button at the top.

Under the options for Share, there are the familiar sharing options from other Microsoft 365
products such as OneDrive and SharePoint.

However, if you click into the Options, the settings include the following:

➔ Allow recipients to build content with the data associated with this report (by default it is
deselected).

Please note the following conditions when it comes to sharing:

• You can share with people who are inside and outside of your organisation
• When you share a report, generally they can view it, they can hover over the
visualisations to glean more data, but they cannot edit it
• You can allow people in your organisation to share with other people in your
organisation
• You can share from Favourites, Recent, My Workspace and from other workspaces if
you have the permission
• When you share you must have a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User license. Also,
the people that you share with also need the same license. To see your report, they
must sign into Power BI. External people can’t edit content

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For more about sharing, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-share-
dashboardsbi/collaborate-share/service-share-dashboards

Sharing data in Teams

You can share your report to your colleagues within Teams & Channels.

Our suggested approach would be to navigate to the Teams Channel you would like to add
your report to and add a new tab by selecting the + icon at the top of the teams interface.

Search for and select the Power BI app from the interface. (Once selected you will need to
save your tab first before being able to configure it with a report). You can also rename your
tab by selecting the small drop-down arrow next to it and clicking Rename.

You’ll now be able to paste a Power BI link into the input box or navigate to it by Browse
workspaces, finding the workspace that your report was published to and selecting it from
the list, the click Add.

27
It appears in the Teams channel as a tab and can be shared and viewed by people in your
organization

28
Sharing data in SharePoint
Go to the SharePoint site where you want to publish the report. Create a page and then add
the Power BI webpart:

You will be prompted to add a report by inserting a link. You can retrieve this back in Power BI
by selecting File -> Embed report -> SharePoint Online on the report you want to embed.

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For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-
bi/collaboratehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-embed-
report-sposhare/service-embed-report-spo

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Getting data from OneDrive for Business
For this example, we’ve downloaded a sample file form Microsoft
(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/sample-financial-download)
which has a lot of dummy data. It’s a great file to use as it’s from a trusted source and has lots
of data in it. You’ll need to save this to a location in your OneDrive account.

On our EbookWorkspace workspace, we’re uploading it by selecting New -> Semantic Model
and select Excel in the center of your screen.

This time we’re going to select a file which sits in your OneDrive, or you have the permission
to access in another user’s OneDrive. This has the advantage over uploaded from your PC as
Power BI will check the file periodically to see if there are any changes; and if there are, the
changes will be updated to Power BI.

31
Select the Link to file option, then select the Browse OneDrive button where you’ll be
granted with a familiar OneDrive interface where you can choose files from your personal or
SharePoint OneDrive locations.

Choose the Financial Sample and Select the Next.

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Just as we’ve done before, you’ll need to select the Workbook from the Power Query screen.
In this case, select the financials workbook and click Create.

Once it’s in our workspace, we can return to our Power BI workspace. Find the ellipsis next to
our Financial Sample Semantic Model and select Get Quick Insights.

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In the top right corner your insights will be generated and after a short period you’ll be able to
View insights.

Quick Insights will bring back up to 40 different visualizations structure in a way that Power BI
deems best fits the data provided to it. Beneficial for those looking for “Quick Insights” into
their data.

34
35
If you click on any of the visualizations, it will be enlarged thus giving a more detailed and
interactive view.

Turning your data into a map

In the next example, we’re going to create a map to detail our sales on a world map.

Find your Financial Sample Semantic Model in your workspace, select the ellipsis and click
Create report.

Select Map from the list of visualizations and using the handles, scale it to fit your report
boundaries.

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As you can see, it’s still a blank map as have yet to select the Country field. Once we do, our
map comes alive, and we see where our units are being proportionately sold; they appear as
blue circles over Canada, US, Mexico, France, and Germany.

Next, we’re going to add a legend which gives our countries a different colour.

37
Once you have it saved, it can be shared in the same way as our previous example i.e. to
Teams, SharePoint Online, or exported as a PDF, Excel file or a PowerPoint presentation.

Using Power BI Desktop

Getting data from a SharePoint list
Although SharePoint lists are an ideal place to store data, within SharePoint itself it’s not a
particularly visual medium.

For example, below is a screenshot of a SharePoint list containing the financial data we
downloaded earlier.

Before proceeding, import this data into a SharePoint list. There are plenty of tutorials on
how to do this. This Academy session shows how to do this or do a quick search on google for
“Import data Into A SharePoint Online list”

https://members.collab365.com/c/beginners-library/an-introduction-to-sharepoint

38
While the data is structured and easy to update, if we bring it into Power BI we can present it
in a more appealing way.

To help with this example, we are going to use Power BI Desktop for the first time. This
opens new additional features for us that we may not have experienced in the Power BI
Service.

Open Power BI Desktop and select Get data from other sources. Search for SharePoint
and connect to a SharePoint Online List with your SharePoint Site URL (Use the Microsoft
Account connection to authenticate).

39
Select your Financial Sample and click Load

40
Select your visuals just as we have done before. The below example is a Stacked bar chart - a
nice visual which details the Count of Gross Sales by Country and Product. (You may need to
transform your data using the option under the Home tab. This is where you can rename
columns and change the data type assigned to them)

41
Getting data from Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is another product which collects exportable data. In the below example, we
have a short survey of 10 responses.

To get the data into Power BI, we have two options. Export the data to Excel and then import
it to Power BI or create a SharePoint list based on the Excel file, and then import or link it to
Power BI.

We’re going to use option one, export to Excel.

Select Open in Excel. The data comes in structured in columns with column headers – this
makes it easy to organise the data once in Power BI.

42
In Power BI Desktop, select Import data from Excel and choose your Excel file.

Select the required table, then click Load.

Below, we’re using a column chart to detail the results of our survey.

43
Another option worth mentioning if you want this to be automated, is to create a Power

Automate flow that triggers each time a survey response is received, that then copies the
response into a SharePoint list. Then you base your Power BI reports on that SharePoint list
data.

Getting data from the web

You can import data from the web just like we did with SharePoint. Search for web, select it

and click Connect.

For this example, we’re going to use a Wiki page entry on the bestselling automobiles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_automobiles

When prompted, insert the URL. Next, it brings up many tables that we can import.

However, we’re sticking to just one – Brand bestsellers[Edit].

44
However, once we bring in the data, we must ensure that the columns are correctly labelled.

We’re going to rename and/or remove columns to showcase the following data:
• Brand
• Automobile
• Production
• Units Sold

We’re going to remove the column for Notes.

45
Under fields, select each column and rename it in line with the original column name in
Wikipedia.

Once arranged, our data looks like the following.

As the data in the Units Sold column is unstructured – it contains numbers and words – we’re
going to clean it up by selecting Transform data under the Home tab and Replace Values for

46
some of the items in that column. We want to remove references to footnotes and other
miscellaneous text. Right click the column in the Power Query editor and select Replace
Values. (You will have to do this manually for each item. You could also attempt to use
Copilot or ChatGPT to handle this for you and replace the record fields as necessary).

47
Next, make sure that your values are in the order that you want them to appear. You don’t
have to number them, but we have; what’s important is that they appear in the order that you
want them to appear in.

Next, we’re going to turn our data in a Treemap. When we select the Treemap visualization,
our data is displayed in boxes.

When we hover over a box, we get the data relating to each car brand.

48
Once we have our data saved, we’re going to Publish it to a workspace in the Power BI service
by selecting Publish and choosing a workspace that we’ve created called Car Sales.

Getting data from other sources

There are many different data sources that you can connect to, and you can connect to
multiple data sources at the same time.

Here is a list of file sources that you can connect to and experiment with:

• Excel
• Text/CSV
• XML
• JSON
• Folder
• PDF
• Parquet
• SharePoint folder

49
Here is a list of all databases that you can connect to:

• SQL Server database

• Access database
• SQL Server Analysis Services database
• Oracle database
• IBM Db2 database
• IBM Informix database (Beta)
• IBM Netezza
• MySQL database
• PostgreSQL database
• Sybase database
• Teradata database
• SAP HANA database
• SAP Business Warehouse Application Server
• SAP Business Warehouse Message Server
• Amazon Redshift
• Impala
• Google BigQuery
• Google BigQuery (Microsoft Entra ID)(Beta)
• Vertica
• Snowflake
• Essbase
• AtScale Models
• Actian (Beta)
• Amazon Athena
• AtScale cubes
• BI Connector
• Data Virtuality LDW
• Denodo
• Dremio Software
• Dremio Cloud
• Exasol
• Indexima
• InterSystems IRIS (Beta)
• Jethro (Beta)
• Kyligence
• Linkar PICK Style / MultiValue Databases (Beta)
• MariaDB
• MarkLogic

50
 • MongoDB Atlas SQL (Beta)
• TIBCO® Data Virtualization
• Exact Online Premium (Beta)

Data refresh
Depending on how you connect your data, it will refresh differently.

According to Microsoft, ‘A Power BI refresh operation can consist of multiple refresh types,
including data refresh, OneDrive refresh, refresh of query caches, tile refresh, and refresh of
report visuals.’

51
Here is a quick guide:

OneDrive Query Report

Storage mode Data refresh Tile refresh
refresh caches visuals

Yes, for If enabled

Scheduled
connected on Automatically and
Import and on- No
semantic Premium on-demand
demand
models capacity

Yes, for
Not connected Not Automatically and
DirectQuery No
applicable semantic applicable on-demand
models

Yes, for
Not connected Not Automatically and
LiveConnect Yes
applicable semantic applicable on-demand
models

Not
Not Not Automatically and
Push No
applicable applicable on-demand
practical

Table source and more information, see here

https://docs.microsoft.com/enhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-
data/refresh-dataus/power-bi/connect-data/refresh-data

52
The top ten visualizations
There are many visualizations that come out-of-the-box with Power BI. Also, there are many
being created by third parties, too. Here are our top ten…

Bar charts
Call us old fashioned, but there’s something elegant and straight forward about a simple bar
chart.

Donut charts
Another classic, and for a very good reason – it gives you a clear, unambiguous view of who is
devouring most of the data.

53
For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-
doughnut-chartsbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-doughnut-charts

Scatter charts
Dots floating around in clear, clean space presents data in an original and simple way.

For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-
scatterbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-scatter

Waterfall chart
Although the waterfall may at times look like something out of Minecraft, it has a certain
charm – and solid data presentation.

54
For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-
waterfall-chartsbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-waterfall-charts

Maps
It’s hard to get a better way of reporting country-by-country data than a map.

For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/desktop-shape-
mapbi/visuals/desktop-shape-map

Tree maps
What could be nice than an interactive wall of beautifully colour data bricks?

55
For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-
treemapsbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-treemaps

Q&A
Driven by AI, this does exactly what it’s called – query your data as if it’s your very own data
analyst.

For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-q-and-
abi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-q-and-a

Funnel chart
Another simple and effect way of presenting data – check what’s in your linear funnel.

56
For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-funnel-
chartsbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-funnel-charts

Gauge
What’s more visual than a rev-counter data visual that displays your data against a targeted
goal?

For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-radial-
gauge-chartsbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-radial-gauge-charts

Key influencers
Last, but not least, this one of the finest AI driven visualizations on the market today that
allows you to Q&A your data – more on this in the next chapter of this eBook.

57
For more about visualizations, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-types-
for-reports-and-q-and-abi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-types-for-reports-and-q-and-a

Furthermore, for other Microsoft visualizations and those which have been created by third
parties, see here https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-
US/marketplace/apps?product=power-bi-visuals

Key influencers visualizations

Key influencers are an AI-driven visualization which tries to drill down into your data in order
to figure out the key reasons that are influencing aspects of your data. In summary, it tries to
understand the reasons why your KPIs are moving in one direction or another.

Please note: Key influencers can be used for both the Power BI service and the Power BI
Desktop. In this example, we’re using Power BI Desktop for a better experience.

In Power BI Desktop, select Get data and choose a file. We’re selecting our Financial Sample
Excel file and one specific sheet.

Once loaded, you can see the columns from the Excel sheet.

58
Select the Key influencers visualization.

59
When you select the Key influencers visualization, you must input fields in the Analyse section
and then add more fields to the Explain by section. In our example, we have added Profit to
the Analyse section; and we have put every other field in the Explain by section.

The above settings return the following:

• Key influencers show us the top contributing factors to the selected item.
• Top segment shows the top segments that contribute to the selected item.
• In our example, the dropdown box is a binary choice between Increase and Decrease.
• On the right hand-side we see a graphic which is a visual interpretation.
• The left pane contains the actual list of key influencers.

60
We can also filter the data by selecting Filters. In the below example, we have filtered our data
to only include references to Canada and France, and the visualizations adjusts accordingly.

61
Now that we have our key influencers report in Power BI Desktop, let’s save it to the Power BI
service. We have created a workspace called Key influencers; this is going to be the
destination for the above report.
On the Home section of the ribbon, select Publish. We’re given a choice as to where we’ll
publish to. In our case, we’re selecting Key influencers.

Once published to the Power Bi service, you have the option to get quick insights or to further
share within others as a link or in in Teams.

For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-
influencersbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-influencers

62
Dashboards
A Power BI dashboard is a single page which contains several visualizations. When used well,
they give the viewer a high-level summary of an organisation’s activity.

A dashboard is based on data which comes from reports. In essence, a dashboard can contain
multiple visualizations of data from many reports.

While a dashboard may sound like a report, there are differences.

Capability Dashboards Reports

Pages One page One or more pages

One or more reports and one or

Data sources A single dataset per report
more datasets per dashboard.

Drilling down in Only if you pin an entire report page

Yes
visuals to a dashboard.

Available in
Yes. Can build and view reports
Power BI No
in Power BI Desktop.
Desktop

63
 No. Can't filter or slice a dashboard. Yes. Many different ways to
Filtering
Can filter a dashboard filter, highlight, and slice.

tile in focus mode, but can't save the

filter.

Yes. Can set one dashboard as your

Featured No
featured dashboard.

Yes. Can set multiple dashboards Yes. Can set multiple reports as
Favourite
as favourites. favourites.

Natural Yes, provided you have edit

language Yes permissions for the report and
queries (Q&A) underlying dataset.

Yes. Available for dashboard tiles in

Set alerts No
certain circumstances.

64
 Yes. Can subscribe to a report
Subscribe Yes. Can subscribe to a dashboard.
page.

Can see
No. Can export data but can't see
underlying
tables and fields in the dashboard Yes
dataset tables
itself.
and fields

Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-

reports/servicehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/service-
dashboardsdashboards

65
Creating a dashboard
While in your workspace (in our example, our workspace is EbookWorkspace) select +New
and Dashboard. We’re going to name it World View.

Next, we’re going to add a tile be selecting Edit → Add a tile.

66
We are given the following choices:

• Web content
• Image
• Text box
• Video
• Read-Time Data

Let’s select Text box. We’re going to title our dashboard ACME Corporation – Global Sales.
Within the pane, you can resize and change the font too.

Next, we’re going to bring in the data map from our previous example. Open the data map
and select the Pin to a dashboard icon (You may need to expand the options on your toolbar
using the ellipsis).

When prompted, choose Existing dashboard and in our example, we’re pinning it to World
View.

67
We now have two tiles on our dashboard.

68
Let’s add some tiles based on the Excel file Financial Sample and quick insights.
We’ve added:
• Average of Sale Price
• Discounts
• Units Sold
• Average of manufacturing price

You can share your final Dashboard using the same methods expressed previously in this
eBook.

69
Ask a question about your data
At the top of our dashboard – and on other visualizations too – you will be prompted to Ask a
question about your data.

It helps if you have some knowledge of how your data is structured in terms of what columns
exist as basically, when you ask a question - and hope to get an answer – you are really
comparing data in one column to another or asking binary questions such as what the
highest or lowest price of data in another column is. If we start asking the following question
What is the… we get these options:

70
If we select What is the highest sale price, the answer appears:

Furthermore, there are predefined questions which act as a starting point. By default, our
predefined questions cover the average sale, count segments, maximum sale price and many
more.

71
Creating an App
Power BI allows you to create apps. When you think of a Power BI app, think of it as being
made up of reports and dashboards. The purpose of creating an app is to share it with a
broad audience within your organisation. When you share an app, users can:

• Look but cannot modify its content

• View it in the Power BI service a mobile app
• Get updated automatically or whenever you decide to update them

For more information on apps and how the licencing works, see here
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-
createhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-create-
distribute-appsdistribute-apps

So, let’s create our first app…

As apps are created in workspaces, let’s open our EbookWorkspace and select Create App in
the top right of the screen.

Give your app a name and a description. You can give the app a colour, too.

72
Next, we can add any of the content that exists in our Workspace to it by selecting the Add
content button. Select everything you want to add and click Add.

73
We can now create new audiences that have access to specific pieces of data, semantic
models, reports and dashboards and you can configure as necessary by using the on-screen
controls to set audience access.

When you are happy, select Publish App. This process may take between 5 and 10 minutes
before you can view your app, as security is being applied to your workspace and data. You’ll
then be able to Go to app, where you’ll be able to view the published application.

74
From here, you can share your app in Teams & SharePoint, giving your users the flexibility of
interacting with your dashboards and reports with a clean view and user friendly navigation.

How is Power BI Licensed?

Now you have had experience of some of the capabilities of Power BI, you’ll know it is a wide-
ranging subject with many avenues to explore.

We haven’t touched on many of these (e.g. DAX language, data modelling and more) in favour
or giving you a sample to what’s on offer.

One thing we do not want to leave out however is again, just an introduction to the world of
Power BI licences.

There are three main kinds of Power BI service per-user licenses at the time of writing: Free,
Pro and Premium Per User.

Important note: Licencing often Changes. Whilst the below is a rough guide, it’s always
worth checking the links or searching for Power BI pricing for the most up to date
information)

75
 Additional capabilities when
Capabilities when workspace is in
License type workspace is in Premium
shared capacity
capacity

Power BI Access to content in My Workspace.

Consume content shared with
Please note you cannot share content
them
(free) with this license

Publish content to other workspaces,

share dashboards, subscribe to Distribute content to users
Power BI Pro
dashboards and reports, share with who have free licenses
users who have a Pro license

Power BI Publish content to other workspaces,

share dashboards, subscribe to Distribute content to users
Premium Per dashboards and reports, share with who have free and Pro
users who have a Premium Per User licenses
User license

Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-

bi/fundamentals/servicehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-
bi/fundamentals/service-features-license-typefeatures-license-type

And here are some of the differences within the Power BI Pro and premium plans.

It is worth noting, the position on licences changes regularly so it is worth finding a trusted
advisor or partner for your licence questions if you plan to use Power BI a lot.

Note: according to Microsoft, a capacity ‘is a dedicated set of resources reserved for exclusive
use. It enables you to publish dashboards, reports, and datasets to users, without having to
purchase per-user licenses.’

76
 Power BI
Power
Free Power BI
Feature Premium
Account Embedded
BI Pro
Per user

Create reports with

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
desktop

Publish reports to share

✓ ✓ ✓
and collaborate

Advanced AI ✓ ✓

Advanced Dataflows ✓ ✓

Advanced Datamarts ✓ ✓

XMLA endpoint
✓ ✓
read/write

Consume Power BI
content without a paid ✓
per-user license

Access to Fabric
workloads

Copilot in Fabric

77
Model memory size limit 1 GB Varies Varies

Refresh rate for Power BI

8/day 48/day 48/day
datasets

Maximum storage (native

10 GB/user 100 TB Varies
storage

Data security and

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
encryption

For the most up to date information including costs, visit the table source here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

78
Next steps
In this eBook we have touched on just some of the most powerful features that Power BI has
to offer. However, as it’s a very powerful and wide-ranging tool, the examples which we have
covered are only a starting point for your Power BI journey.

For example, you can learn more about:

• Datasets: For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-

us/powerhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-datasets-
hubbi/connect-data/service-datasets-hub
• Goals: For more information, see here
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/enhttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/introducing-goals-in-power-bi/us/blog/introducing-goals-in-power-bi/
• Apps: There are many third-party apps which can connect to your version of Power BI.
These apps simply plug into Power BI in a similar way that apps plug into Teams. For
more information, see here
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/enhttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/distribute-to-large-audiences-with-power-bi-apps/us/blog/distribute-to-
large-audiences-with-power-bi-apps/
• Deployment pipelines: This feature allows you to manage and control the lifecycle of
your data and is based on three stages: The Deployment phase; the Test phase, and
the Production phase. For more information, see here
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/deployment-
pipelineshttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/deployment-
pipelines-overview?WT.mc_id=welcome_pageoverview?WT.mc_id=welcome_page

Our recommendation is to take the next step and go explore what we have shared in the
Academy as well as taking part in a workshop to begin to build your knowledge.

79