Below is a structured list of **Power BI Interview Questions** that you can use

to prepare for a Power BI-focused interview. You can copy this into a Word
document or Google Docs and save/export it as a PDF.

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# **Power BI Interview Questions**

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## **1. Introduction to Power BI**

### 1.1. What is Power BI?
- Power BI is a business analytics tool from Microsoft that allows you to
visualize data, share insights, and collaborate in a data-driven way. It enables
users to connect to different data sources, analyze data, and create reports and
dashboards.

### 1.2. What are the components of Power BI?

- **Power BI Desktop**: A desktop application for creating reports and data
models.
- **Power BI Service**: A cloud-based service for sharing and publishing reports
and dashboards.
- **Power BI Mobile**: An app for accessing and viewing Power BI reports on
mobile devices.
- **Power BI Gateway**: A bridge that allows data transfer between on-premises
data sources and Power BI cloud service.
- **Power BI Embedded**: A way to embed Power BI reports and dashboards into
other applications.

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## **2. Power BI Desktop and Reports**

### 2.1. What is the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service?
- **Power BI Desktop**: Used to create and design reports and data models on a
local machine.
- **Power BI Service**: A cloud-based platform used for sharing, collaborating,
and publishing reports. It also supports dashboards and real-time data.

### 2.2. How do you load data into Power BI Desktop?

- You can load data into Power BI from various sources such as Excel, SQL
Server, Web, APIs, Text files, OData, and others via the "Get Data" option in
Power BI Desktop.

### 2.3. What are the different types of visualizations available in Power BI?
- **Bar Chart**, **Line Chart**, **Pie Chart**, **Table**, **Matrix**, **Tree
Map**, **Funnel Chart**, **KPI**, **Gauge**, **Map**, **Scatter Plot**,
**Waterfall Chart**, etc.

### 2.4. Explain the concept of DAX in Power BI.

- **DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)** is a formula language used for defining
custom calculations in Power BI. It’s used for creating calculated columns,
measures, and calculated tables.

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## **3. Data Modeling in Power BI**

### 3.1. What is the difference between a calculated column and a measure in
Power BI?
- **Calculated Column**: Computed during data load and stored in the model. Used
for row-level calculations.
- **Measure**: Computed on the fly based on the context of the report or visual.
Used for aggregations like sum, average, count, etc.

### 3.2. What is a relationship in Power BI?

- A **relationship** defines how two tables are related to each other.
Relationships can be one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many and are used to
enable data models to work across multiple tables.

### 3.3. How do you create relationships between tables in Power BI?
- Go to the "Model" view in Power BI Desktop and drag and drop fields between
tables to establish relationships. You can also use the "Manage Relationships"
option.

### 3.4. What is a star schema and snowflake schema in Power BI?
- **Star Schema**: A simple schema where a central fact table is connected to
dimension tables.
- **Snowflake Schema**: A more normalized form of the star schema where
dimension tables are further divided into additional tables.

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## **4. Power Query and Data Transformation**

### 4.1. What is Power Query in Power BI?
- **Power Query** is a data connection and transformation tool in Power BI. It
allows users to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data into the Power BI model.

### 4.2. How would you clean and transform data in Power BI?
- Power Query provides a wide range of tools for data cleaning and
transformation, including:
- Removing duplicates
- Changing data types
- Filtering rows
- Merging tables
- Splitting columns
- Unpivoting data

### 4.3. What is the M language in Power BI?

- The **M language** is the query language used in Power Query to define the
transformation steps for the data. Users can write custom M code for complex
transformations if needed.

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## **5. DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)**

### 5.1. What are calculated columns and measures in DAX?
- **Calculated Column**: A new column created using a DAX expression, computed
during data refresh.
- **Measure**: A formula used to calculate aggregated values, like sums,
averages, counts, etc., calculated based on the context of the report.

### 5.2. What is the difference between CALCULATE and FILTER functions in DAX?
- **CALCULATE**: Used to modify the context in which a measure is evaluated
(filters, slicers, etc.).
- **FILTER**: Returns a table that represents a subset of data that meets a
specific condition.

### 5.3. What is a time-intelligence function in DAX?

- Time-intelligence functions allow users to perform calculations on time-based
data. Examples include **TOTALYTD**, **SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR**, **DATEADD**,
**PARALLELPERIOD**, etc.

### 5.4. What is the purpose of the DISTINCT function in DAX?

- The **DISTINCT** function returns a table that contains unique values from a
column, removing duplicates.

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## **6. Power BI Service and Collaboration**

### 6.1. How do you share a Power BI report?
- You can share a Power BI report via the **Power BI Service** by publishing the
report to a workspace and then sharing it with users or groups. You can also
create dashboards from reports and share them.

### 6.2. What are Power BI Workspaces?

- A **Workspace** is a container for storing and collaborating on Power BI
content. Workspaces allow team members to work together on creating and
publishing reports, dashboards, and datasets.

### 6.3. What is a Power BI Dashboard?

- A **Dashboard** is a single-page, interactive view of your most important data
visualizations and insights. It can include multiple tiles and reports from
different sources.

### 6.4. What are Power BI Apps?

- **Power BI Apps** are packaged collections of dashboards and reports that can
be shared with users. These are used to simplify content distribution and
management.

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## **7. Power BI Performance and Optimization**

### 7.1. How do you optimize the performance of a Power BI report?
- Optimizing Power BI reports can involve:
- Reducing the number of visuals on a report page.
- Using DirectQuery mode for large datasets instead of importing.
- Optimizing DAX expressions.
- Removing unnecessary columns from the data model.
- Aggregating data at the source.

### 7.2. What is DirectQuery mode in Power BI?

- **DirectQuery** is a mode in Power BI where the data is queried directly from
the source database rather than being imported into Power BI. This mode is used
for real-time reporting.

### 7.3. What is Power BI Gateway?

- **Power BI Gateway** is used to connect on-premises data sources to Power BI
in the cloud. There are two types: **Personal Gateway** (for individual use) and
**Enterprise Gateway** (for organizational use).

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## **8. Power BI Security and Governance**

### 8.1. How do you implement row-level security in Power BI?
- **Row-Level Security (RLS)** is implemented by defining security roles in
Power BI Desktop. Users are assigned to roles, and these roles determine which
rows of data are visible to each user.

### 8.2. What is the role of data classification in Power BI?

- Data classification helps in identifying sensitive data and applying
appropriate access controls. You can classify data based on its sensitivity
(e.g., Confidential, Public, Private).

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## **9. Power BI Troubleshooting and Advanced Topics**

### 9.1. How do you troubleshoot Power BI report performance issues?
- You can troubleshoot performance issues by using:
- The **Performance Analyzer** in Power BI Desktop.
- Reviewing query performance in the **Query Diagnostics** feature.
- Reducing the complexity of DAX formulas.
- Reviewing the data model for efficiency.
### 9.2. Explain the concept of incremental data refresh in Power BI.
- **Incremental Refresh** enables Power BI to refresh only a subset of data
(e.g., recent data) rather than refreshing the entire dataset, improving
performance and reducing load time.

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**End of Power BI Interview Guide**

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This PDF guide covers a broad set of Power BI topics that are commonly asked in
interviews. If you'd like any additional details on specific questions, feel
free to ask!