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Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide
Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide: The ultimate beginner's guide to data modeling, visualization, digital storytelling, and more , Third Edition

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Profile Icon Devin Knight Profile Icon Bradley Schacht Profile Icon Erin Ostrowsky Profile Icon Schacht Profile Icon Mitchell Pearson +1 more Show less
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.5 (49 Ratings)
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Profile Icon Devin Knight Profile Icon Bradley Schacht Profile Icon Erin Ostrowsky Profile Icon Schacht Profile Icon Mitchell Pearson +1 more Show less
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Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide

Connecting to Data

Power BI may very well be one of the most aptly named tools ever developed by Microsoft, giving analysts and developers a powerful business intelligence and analytics playground while still packaging it in a surprisingly lightweight application. Using Microsoft Power BI, the processes of data discovery, modeling, visualization, and sharing are made elegantly simple using a single product. These processes are so commonplace when developing Power BI solutions that this book has adopted sections that follow this pattern. However, from your perspective, the really exciting thing may be that development problems that would have previously taken you weeks to solve in a corporate BI solution can now be accomplished in only hours.

Using the Power BI Desktop application enables you to define your data discovery and data preparation steps, organize your data model, and design engaging data visualizations based on your reports. In this chapter, the development environment...

Getting started

Power BI is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering in the Azure cloud and, as such, the Microsoft product team follows a strategy of cloud first as they develop and add new features to the product. Power BI is also one of five members of Microsoft’s Power Platform:

Diagram  Description automatically generated

Figure 2.1: Microsoft’s Power Platform suite of tools

Each of the tools within the Power Platform solves distinctly different problems, but what they have in common is who their core user audience is intended to be. The Power Platform and all the tools included within it are designed and built so business users can solve and design solutions on their own rather than relying solely on their IT department. All five tools within the Power Platform leverage Microsoft’s cloud architecture and allow for seamless integration between the different tools. Leveraging the features of each Power Platform tool (Power BI, Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents...

Importing data

Choosing to import data, which is the most common option and default behavior, means that Power BI will physically extract rows of data from the selected source and store it in an in-memory storage engine within Power BI. Power BI Desktop uses a special method for storing data, known as xVelocity, which is an in-memory technology that not only increases the performance of your query results but can also highly compress the amount of space taken up by your Power BI solution. In some cases, the compression that takes place can even lower the required disk space by up to one-tenth of the original data source size. This data compression occurs automatically, meaning there is no required configuration step you must do to receive this benefit. The xVelocity engine uses a local unseen instance of SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to provide these in-memory capabilities.

There are consequences to using the Import option within Power BI that you should also consider....

DirectQuery

Many of you have likely been trying to envision how you may implement these data imports in your environment. You may have asked yourself questions such as the following:

  • If data imported into Power BI uses an in-memory technology, has my company provided me with a machine that has enough memory to handle this?
  • Am I really going to import my source table with tens of billions of rows into memory?
  • How do I handle the requirement of displaying results in real time from the source?

These are all excellent questions that would have many negative answers if the only way to connect to your data was by importing your source into Power BI. Fortunately, there is another way. Using DirectQuery, Power BI allows you to connect directly to a data source so that no data is imported or copied into Power BI Desktop.

Why is this a good thing? Consider the questions that were asked at the beginning of this section. Since no data is imported to Power BI...

Composite models

Occasionally, you may find it helpful for your data model to take a hybrid approach regarding how it stores data. For example, you want sales transactions to be displayed in near real time on your dashboard, so you set your SalesTransaction table to use DirectQuery. However, your Product table rarely has values that are added or changed. Having values that do not change often makes it a great candidate for the imported data storage method to take advantage of the performance benefits.

This describes a perfect scenario for utilizing a feature called composite models. Composite models allow a single Power BI solution to include both DirectQuery and import table connections within one data model. From the Power BI developer’s perspective, you can take advantage of the best parts of each data storage mode within your design.

Another effective use case for composite models is found when using the feature called aggregations. Leveraging aggregations...

Live connection

The basic concept of live connection is very similar to that of DirectQuery. Just like DirectQuery, when you use a live connection, no data is actually imported into Power BI. Instead, your solution points directly to the underlying data source and leverages the Power BI Desktop simply as a data visualization tool. So, if these two things are so similar, why give them different names? The answer is that even though the basic concept is the same, DirectQuery and live connection vary greatly.

One difference that should quickly be noticeable is the query performance experience. It was mentioned in a previous section that DirectQuery can often have poor performance, depending on the data source type. With live connection, you generally will not have any performance problems because it is only supported by the following types of data sources:

  • SQL Server Analysis Services database
  • Azure Analysis Services database
  • Power BI datasets

The...

Choosing a data connection method

Now that you have learned about the three different ways to connect to your data, you are left wondering which option is best for you. It’s fair to say that the choice you make will really depend on the requirements of each individual project you have.

To summarize, some of the considerations that were mentioned in this chapter are listed in the following table:

...

Consideration

Import Data

DirectQuery

Live connection

Best performance

Yes

No

Yes

Best design experience

Yes

No

No

Summary

Often, Power BI developers have questions concerning various data sources and what unique challenges come with each connection. The great news is once you have established a connection to your data source, regardless of which one it is, everything after that point typically follows that same pattern of steps. The point is don’t let any one data source overly intimidate you. Once you connect to it, the rest of your Power BI solution design will follow the same processes mentioned earlier in this chapter: data discovery, data modeling, data visualization, and sharing.

Power BI provides users with a variety of methods for connecting to data sources with natively built-in data connectors. The connector you choose for your solution will depend on where your data is located. Once you’ve connected to a data source, you can decide on what type of query mode best suits your needs. Some connectors allow for little to no latency in your results with options like DirectQuery...

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Key benefits

  • Learn faster with practical examples of the latest features of Power BI, including navigator buttons, column-level security, visualizing goals, and more
  • Migrate your existing Excel and data analysis skills to Power BI
  • Build accurate analytical models, reports, and dashboards, now in color

Description

Updated with the latest features and improvements in Power BI, this fast-paced yet comprehensive guide will help you master the core concepts of data visualization quickly. You’ll learn how to install Power BI, design effective data models, and build basic dashboards and visualizations to help you make better business decisions. This new edition will also help you bridge the gap between MS Excel and Power BI. Throughout this book, you’ll learn how to obtain data from a variety of sources and clean it using the Power Query Editor. You’ll also start designing data models to navigate and explore relationships within your data and building DAX formulas to make data easier to work with. Visualizing data is a key element of this book, so there’s an emphasis on helping you get to grips with data visualization styles and enhanced digital storytelling. As you progress, you’ll start building your own dataflows, gain an understanding of the Common Data Model, and automate dataflow refreshes to eradicate data cleaning inefficiency. You’ll learn how to administer your organization's Power BI environment so that deployment can be made seamless, data refreshes can run properly, and security can be fully implemented. By the end of this Power BI book, you’ll know how to get the most out of Power BI for better business intelligence.

Who is this book for?

This book is for aspiring business intelligence and data professionals with a basic understanding of BI concepts, who want to learn Power BI quickly. Complete beginners with no BI background can also get plenty of useful information from this book.

What you will learn

  • Connect to data sources using import, DirectQuery, and live connection options
  • Use Power Query Editor for data transformation and data cleansing processes, and write M and R scripts and dataflows to do the same in the cloud
  • Design effective reports with built-in and custom visuals to optimize user experience
  • Implement row-level and column-level security in your dashboards
  • Administer a Power BI cloud tenant for your organization
  • Use built-in AI capabilities to enhance Power BI data transformation techniques
  • Deploy your Power BI Desktop files into Power BI Report Server

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Nov 25, 2022
Length: 330 pages
Edition : 3rd
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781804613498
Vendor :
Microsoft
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Product Details

Publication date : Nov 25, 2022
Length: 330 pages
Edition : 3rd
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781804613498
Vendor :
Microsoft
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Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
Gaining Data Literacy with Power BI Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Connecting to Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data Transformation Strategies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building the Data Model Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Leveraging DAX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Visualizing Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Digital Storytelling with Power BI Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using a Cloud Deployment with the Power BI Service Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data Cleansing in the Cloud with Dataflows Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
On-Premises Solutions with Power BI Report Server Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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(49 Ratings)
5 star 81.6%
4 star 6.1%
3 star 2%
2 star 2%
1 star 8.2%
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Ferdinand Apr 14, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Book is written with perfect sence for methodology
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Stuti Mar 28, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
As the name says this book definitely serves as a quickstart guide to Power BI with key aspects of PowerBI carefully categorized into relevant sections and concise practical explanation. Additionally I believe,the book also serves as a quick reference to brush up knowledge or to just to get a new way of lookingat concepts. I found the book quite helpful to refresh knowledge on topics such as Complexrelationships, visualization according to requirements & type of data and dataflow. Having images tocompliment explanations enabled me to visualize what is being done moreover, the ability to downloadfiles and do it yourself helped to grasp it easily.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Morgan Tarala Jan 18, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
The topics covered are a great starting point for a new developer. This covers the many uses and components of power bi that is great for getting a holistic view and a good place to review when you are trying to upskill in a new area of power bi.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Len Jan 25, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
As a MicroStrategy Business Intelligence professional, I was quite excited to get my hands on this book. With the words "Quick Start" in the title, it sounded exactly like what I needed.So, did this book live up to its promise to be my “Quick Start” introduction to the world of Microsoft PowerBI? 100% Yes!! I highly recommend it for anyone new to PowerBI, and people transitioning over from other BI tools.For those of you interested in a few more details, here are a few quick thoughts on the main topics in this book.- The range of topics is perfect for a Beginners Quick Start title like this.- The book covers the basics on how to Connect to the most popular data sources.- Once connected, it walks you through how some very nice, and powerful Data Transformations capabilities using the Power Query editor. This step allows you to get your data "cleaned up" prior to moving to the next steps.- Next up, it walks you through the process of modeling your data with several fitting examples on best practices etc. I even learned a few new things in this chapter.- The fun part is next when the book walks you through the main PowerBI visualization interface. The authors do a wonderful job explaining everything important that you will see on the UI.- Once comfortable with the UI layout, building your Data Visualizations is next. Again, the authors take you through the most important visualizations that you need to know about and explain how to use each in detail. There is even a little section on Data Storytelling with PowerBI that I found quite interesting.- The final few chapters are for Enterprise Users where the book goes into a nice amount of detail on how all the server side of PowerBI works. If you're planning to use PowerBI at work, then these Enterprise chapters will be a great introduction for you. While the book doesn't go into deep technical detail, I found that the authors provided just enough to "give you a taste" of the whole other PowerBI world in a large enterprise.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Thomas Rice Jan 23, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This weekend I finished reading Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide 3rd Edition and I am really impressed with the quality of this book! Devin and team have done a marvelous job communicating and presenting this beginner's guide.All 10 chapters are well written and provide a thorough discussion of principles and concepts with great graphics and samples. In chapter 2, you'll start connecting to data and walk away with the skills to connect to your own data models.Next in chapter 3 through 6, you'll learn strategies, working with data models, leveraging DAX, and get a good overview of visualizing data. Chapter 7 is a great summary of storytelling with Power BI. Chapters 8-10 finish with Power BI service, dataflows, and on-prem report server.I've had the privilege to read more than 20 Power BI books and find this one at the top of my recommended books list for 2023. If you are looking for a great foundation in Power BI and more, I highly recommend this book!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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