Beginners Guide to

Power BI

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

How is Power BI Licensed? ..................................................................................................... 5

Power BI – the three parts ........................................................................................................ 10

Difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI service ............................................. 11

The mobile app ..................................................................................................................... 13

Key Power BI concepts ......................................................................................................... 17

Preparing your data for Power BI ............................................................................................ 18

Creating a workspace and report in Power BI ......................................................................... 21

Getting data from Excel ........................................................................................................ 21

Sharing data from Power BI ................................................................................................. 28

Sharing data in Teams .......................................................................................................... 30

Sharing data in SharePoint .................................................................................................. 31

Getting data from OneDrive for Business ............................................................................ 33

Turning your data into a map ............................................................................................... 37

Getting data from a SharePoint list ..................................................................................... 39

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 Getting data from Microsoft Forms ...................................................................................... 41

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

Getting data from the Dataverse .......................................................................................... 50

Getting data from other sources .......................................................................................... 50

Data refresh ........................................................................................................................... 53

The top ten visualizations ........................................................................................................ 55

Key influencers visualizations ..................................................................................................... 60

Dashboards................................................................................................................................... 65

Creating a dashboard ............................................................................................................... 67

Ask a question about your data ............................................................................................... 71

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

Next steps ..................................................................................................................................... 75

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Introduction
You’ve heard the cliché – we’re living in the era of Big Data. And while this is certainly true for
many large corporations, even small companies are swimming in data. This data could be in
Excel files or saved to SharePoint lists; it could be in a SQL or an Access database – yet
wherever it is, typically, it shares one thing in common: it’s unconnected and siloed.

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

Ultimately, it allows you to analyse your data while presenting it in a visual and meaningful
way. And by connecting and visualising your data, organisations can get a great overview of
their data and crucially, you don’t have to be a data scientist or a programmer to use Power
BI.

3
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, with the following:

• Familiar with the way files are shared such as in OneDrive / SharePoint

• As we will be exporting data to SharePoint online, knowledge of how to edit a

SharePoint page would help
• Have a basic understanding of how columns work in Excel in terms of how cells are
structured with specific 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!
• Familiar with Microsoft 365 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 also to download the Power BI Desktop app.

4
How is Power BI Licensed?
There are three kinds of Power BI service per-user licenses: Free, Pro and Premium Per User.

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

users who have a Premium Per User

license

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

license-type

And here are the differences within the Power BI Pro and premium plans. Please note,
according to Microsoft, a capacity ‘is a dedicated set of resources reserved for exclusive use. It

5
enables you to publish dashboards, reports, and datasets to users, without having to
purchase per-user licenses.’

Power BI Power BI
Power
Feature Premium Premium
BI Pro
Per user Per capacity

Collaboration and analytics

Mobile app access ✓ ✓ ✓

Publish reports to share and collaborate ✓ ✓

Paginated (RDL) reports ✓ ✓

Consume content without a per-user license ✓

On-premises reporting with Power BI Report

✓
Server

Data prep, modelling, and visualization

Model size limit 1 GB 100 GB 400 GB

Refresh rate 8/day 48/day 48/day

Connect to 100+ data sources ✓ ✓ ✓

6
Create reports and visualizations with Power
✓ ✓ ✓
BI Desktop

Embed APIs and controls ✓ ✓ ✓

AI visuals ✓ ✓ ✓

Advanced AI (text analytics, image detection,

✓
automated machine learning)

XMLA endpoint read/write connectivity ✓

Dataflows (direct query, linked and

computed entities, enhanced compute ✓
engine)

Analyze data stored in Azure Data Lake

✓
Storage

Governance and administration

Data security and encryption ✓ ✓ ✓

Metrics for content creation, consumption,

✓ ✓ ✓
and publishing

Application lifecycle management ✓ ✓

7
 Multi-geo deployment management ✓

Bring your own key (BYOK) ✓

Auto scale add-on availability (preview) ✓

10
Maximum storage 100 TB 100 TB
GB/user

Table source: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

8
The following are the prices on a per month basis.

Power BI Pro Power BI Premium

Per user Per user Per capacity

from

$4,995
$9.99 $20
Per capacity/month
Per user/month Per user/month 2
License your organization with
License individual License individual users capacity to accelerate access to
users with modern, to accelerate access to insights with advanced AI,
self-service analytics insights with advanced unlock self-service prep for big
to visualize data with AI, unlock self-service data, and simplify data
live dashboards and prep for big data, and management and access at
reports and share simplify data enterprise scale— without per-
insights across your management and access user licenses for content
organization. at enterprise scale. consumers.

Power BI Pro is Includes all the features Requires a Power BI Pro license
included in Microsoft available with Power BI for publishing content into
365 E5. Pro. Power BI Premium capacity.

Enable auto scale with your

Azure subscription to
automatically scale Power BI
Premium capacity.

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

bi/fundamentals/servicefeatures-license-type

9
For information on pricing, see here https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

Power BI – the three parts

Power BI consists of three main products:

1. Power BI Desktop

A Microsoft Windows desktop application. Download it here

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

a. An online SaaS service which you use in the browser.

3. Power BI Mobile

a. Smartphone app (download it from the above link).

There are also other tools and apps – see below (this page is the above download link):

10
This eBook is only covering an introduction to the Power BI service (SaaS) and aspects of the
Power BI Desktop. Furthermore, the data we are connecting to is an Excel file, a SharePoint
list, a Microsoft Form, and data pulled from the web, in particular, a Wikipedia entry.

Difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI service

Power BI Desktop is more powerful than the Power BI service. The below Venn diagram is a
neat summary of the major differences.

For more information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerbi/fundamentals/service-

service-vs-desktop

Image Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-service-vsdesktop

11
Below is Power BI Desktop.

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

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The mobile app
Power BI has downloadable mobile apps which allows you to view content on your
smartphone and other devices. The key distinction with Power BI’s mobile apps is that it
allows you to consume content created on the platform without having to develop a separate
mobile app. In many ways, the mobile app just renders pre-existing content.

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.

13
 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 10 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.

14
Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/mobile/mobileapps-
for-mobile-devices

15
The image below is a screenshot of the Power BI Android app:

16
Key Power BI concepts
The following are some key concepts within Power BI.

Term Definition

Workspaces are containers for dashboards, reports, datasets, and

Workspaces
dataflows.

A dataset is a collection of data that you import or connect to.

Datasets Power BI lets you connect to and import all sorts of datasets and
bring all of it together in one place.

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 create reports from scratch within Power BI,
Reports
import them with dashboards that colleagues share with you, or
Power BI can create them when you connect to datasets from
Excel, Power BI Desktop, databases, and SaaS applications.

Table source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/introductionpower-

bi/2-what-power-bi

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Preparing your data for Power BI
Before using Power BI to interact with your data, here are a few tips to ensure that your data
is suitably prepared. While you don’t have to be a data scientist to use Power BI, the overall
analysis of 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 (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 column should be of the same type of data, for example, it must be
number, text, currency etc.
• Think hard about what the purpose of your data is. Do you need all of the information?
What columns can you remove? Or perhaps you want to add a column from
elsewhere. In short, reduce your data to its absolute minimum before you use it. And
remember – if you connect your Excel file to Power BI via OneDrive, if you update the
OneDrive file, it will be updated in Power BI
• Flatten all data which appears in a pivot table or matrix format

• 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
• Name your table and leave out spaces in the table name

Below is a good example of clean data which is copied from an Excel file. Each column is its
own data type with simple, functional columns. You can cut and paste it into Excel to follow
our example.

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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

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

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 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

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

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 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

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 and
workspaces.

My workspace is a personal workspace where you can work on your own content whereas
workspaces are collaborative spaces which are used to work on Power BI content.

Getting data from Excel

For our first workspace and report, we are going to use the above data which is in an Excel
file.

21
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.

1. Select Workspaces → Create a workspace. 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
Stationary review.

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

22
3. On the Get Data page, select Create new content and Files.

4. You have the option of selecting Local File, OneDrive-Business, SharePoint-Team Sites,
and also Learn about importing files. Choose the first option – Local file. We’re selecting
an Excel file called Sales Data.

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5. You have two options - Upload your Excel file to Power BI. It now appears in the Stationary
review workspace.

6. Next, we’re going to use Sales Data to create a report by selecting +New → Report and
Pick a published dataset → SampleData and Create. The following page appears:

7. First, let’s look at Fields which is on the right hand-side of the screen. Here you will see the
data as referenced in the original Excel file:

24
8. If we select Region, Rep and Total, we see the raw data:

9. However, we can make this more interesting by using the many options that appear in
Visualizations.

25
10. 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.

11. It’s always wise to save your report by selecting File → Save this report.

26
12. The next visualization we’ll do is a Clustered bar chart and we’re selecting the

following fields: Item and Total.

13. Once you save your report, you can then export it. When it is saved, it looks like this:

27
14. When you select Home, we can see it has a Favourites and frequents, and also is where we
select Workspaces.

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.

Under Share, there are the familiar sharing options from other Microsoft 365 products such as
OneDrive and SharePoint. However, the settings include the following option: Allow
recipients to build content with the data associated with this report (by default it is
deselected).

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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, too o To see your report, they
must sign into Power BI o External people can’t edit content

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

Sharing data in Teams

You can share your report to your colleagues within Teams.

1. In Power BI, select Chat in Teams and when you start writing the name of your Team, it
will appear. We’ve created a team called Stationary review in Teams, which we select, and
then Share.

2. It appears in the Team as a conversation on the General channel. Once clicked, you have a
similar interface as the Power BI service. Also, you will be prompted to add Power BI as an
app to Teams.

30
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 option:

31
On this SharePoint page, you will be prompted to add a report by inserting a link.

Back in Power BI, you will get the link by selecting File → Embed in SharePoint Online.

The Details pane in SharePoint will appear and this is where you paste your link.

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Please note, according to Microsoft, ‘Embedding a report in SharePoint Online doesn't
automatically give users permission to view the report - you need to set view permissions in
Power BI.’

Also, ‘Users viewing a report in SharePoint need either a Power BI Pro or Premium Per

User (PPU) license or the content needs to be in a workspace that's in a Power BI

Premium capacity (EM or P SKU).’

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

bi/collaborateshare/service-embed-report-spo

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.

On our Stationary review workspace, we’re uploading it by selecting + New → Upload a file.

33
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.

As the Power BI service is part Microsoft 365, it automatically signs in has access to your
OneDrive files.

Select Import Excel data into Power BI.

34
Once it’s in our workspace, there are a number of options when we select More options:

1. Get quick insights.

Promptly, quick insights brings back just under 40 different visualizations. It’s a great
place to start as long as you have enough data in your file to generate all the
visualizations.

35
36
 If you click on any of the visualizations, it will be enlarged thus giving a more detailed and
interactive view. Below is the full screen version of the visualisation.

Turning your data into a map

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

1. Select + New → Create report:

37
3. Stretch out the map so it fits nicely on your screen. 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.

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

38
5. 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.

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
financial data, and 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.

39
1. Open Power BI Desktop and select Get data → More → Online Services. The first option
is a SharePoint Online List. Enter the root URL of the SharePoint site for the
SharePoint list and select OK.

2. If prompted to use you Microsoft account, sign in. Select the table which is - in effect –
the SharePoint list.

40
 3. Make sure you have selected Report – see below:

4. Select your visual. The below example is a Stacked bar chart - a nice visual which
details the Count of Gross Sales by Country and Product.

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.

41
In order 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.

1. 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.

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

Select the required table → Load.

42
 3. Below, we’re using a Line and stacked column chart to detail the results of our survey.

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

43
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 by selecting Get data → Web and import it into Power BI

Desktop.

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.

1. We’re going to rename and/or remove columns in order to showcase the following data:
a. Brand

b. Automobile

c. Production

d. Units Sold

We’re going to remove the column for Notes.

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

3. Once arranged, our data looks like the following.

46
4. As the data in the Units Sold column is unstructured – it contains numbers and words –
we’re going to clean it up by selecting Transforming data and Replace Values for some of
the items in that column. Basically, we want to remove references to footnotes and other
miscellaneous text.

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5. 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.

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6. 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.

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

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

Getting data from the Dataverse

As Microsoft’s Dataverse stores and manages data in tables, it’s ideal to connect to Power BI.

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

us/powerapps/maker/dataplatform/data-platform-powerbi-connector

Please note, as the above link states, you’ll need the following items:

1. Download and install Power BI Desktop. Download Power BI desktop here.

2. Dataverse environment with maker permissions to access the portal and read
permissions to access data within tables.
3. You must have the appropriate Power BI license to build and share Power BI reports.

4. To use the Dataverse connector, the Enable TDS endpoint setting must be enabled in your
environment. More information: Manage feature settings

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.

50
Here is a list of file sources that you can connect to:

• Excel

• Text/CSV

• XML

• JSON

• Folder

• PDF

• Parquet

• SharePoint folder

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

51
 Databases

Amazon Redshift
SQL Server database
Impala
Access database
Google BigQuery
SQL Server Analysis Services
database Vertica
Oracle database
Snowflake
IBM Db2 database
Essbase
IBM Informix database
Actian (Beta)
(Beta) Linkar PICK Style /
AtScale cubes
IBM Netezza MultiValue Databases
(Beta)
BI Connector
MySQL database
MariaDB (Beta)
Data Virtuality LDW (Beta)
PostgreSQL database
MarkLogic
Denodo
Sybase database

Dremio
Teradata database
Exasol
SAP HANA database
Indexima
SAP Business Warehouse
Application Server
InterSystems IRIS (Beta)
SAP Business Warehouse
Jethro (Beta)
Message Server
Kyligence

52
 Table source and more information, see here: https://docs.microsoft.com/enus/power-
bi/connect-data/desktop-data-sources

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.’

53
Here is a quick guide:

OneDrive Query Report

Storage mode Data refresh Tile refresh
refresh caches visuals

If enabled
Scheduled Yes, for
on Automatically and
Import and connected No
Premium on-demand
ondemand datasets
capacity

If enabled
Yes, for
Not on Automatically and
DirectQuery connected No
applicable Premium on-demand
datasets
capacity

If enabled
Yes, for
Not on Automatically and
LiveConnect connected Yes
applicable Premium on-demand
datasets
capacity

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

Table source and more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/enus/power-

bi/connect-data/refresh-data

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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.

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

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

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

3. 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/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-scatter

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

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

us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-waterfall-charts

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5. 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/powerbi/visuals/desktop-shape-map

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

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

us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-treemaps

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

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 For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-q-and-a

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

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

us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-funnel-charts

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

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 For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-visualization-radial-gauge-charts

10. 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.

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

us/powerbi/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

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Key influencers visualizations
Key influencers is 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.

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

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

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3. Select the Key influencers visualization.

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.

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4. The above settings return the following:

a. Key influencers show us the top contributing factors to the selected item.
b. Top segment shows the top segments that contribute to the selected item.

c. In our example, the dropdown box is a binary choice between Increase and
Decrease.
d. On the right hand-side we see a graphic which is a visual interpretation.
e. The left pane contains the actual list of key influencers.

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5. 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.

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6. 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.
7. 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.

8. 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.

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For more information, see here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerbi/visuals/power-bi-
visualization-influencers

Dashboards
A Power BI dashboard is a single page which contains a number of 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 similar to a report, there are differences.

Capability Dashboards Reports

Pages One page One or more pages

One or more reports and one or more

Data sources A single dataset per report
datasets per dashboard.

Drilling down in Only if you pin an entire report page

Yes
visuals to a dashboard.

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

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 as Yes. Can set multiple reports as
Favourite
favourite’s. favourite’s.

Natural Yes, provided you have edit

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

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 Yes. Available for dashboard tiles in
Set alerts No
certain circumstances.

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/servicedashboards

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

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

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3. We are given the following choices:

a. Web content

b. Image

c. Text box

d. Video

e. Read-Time Data

4. 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.

5. Next, we’re going to bring in the data map from our previous example. Open up the data
map and select the Pin to a dashboard icon.

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

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7. We now have two tiles on our dashboard.

8. Let’s add some tiles based on the Excel file Financial Sample and quick insights.
We’ve added:
a. Average of Sale Price

b. Discounts

c. Units Sold

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 d. Average of manufacturing price

9. Lastly, if we select Chat in Teams, a link will be posted to a conversation.

70
Ask a question about your data
At the top of our dashboard – and also 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:

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

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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.

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-createdistribute-apps

So let’s create our first app.

1. As apps are created in workspaces, let’s open our Stationary workspace. You’ll see on the
right hand-side of the below screenshot, there’s the option to Include in app, and at the
top of the page, Create app.

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 What we are doing is adding the parts below to your app – we’re adding everything on
offer to give our app as much content as possible.

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

3. When you create your app, you’ll get a link to it.

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4. Below is our app.

Once your app has been published, you can share it in Teams, post a comment (with the @
you can mentioned somebody in your organisation), and see related content, among other
options. There’s also a full screen mode which is ideal if you want to highlight KPIs in your
physical office setting, such as a reception.

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Next steps
In this eBook we have touched on some of the most powerful features that Power BI has to
offer. However, as it’s a very powerful 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/powerbi/connect-data/service-datasets-hub
• Goals: For more information, see here
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/enus/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/enus/blog/distribute-to-large-
audiences-with-power-bi-apps/

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• 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-
pipelinesoverview?WT.mc_id=welcome_page

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