Understanding the capabilities of Power BI
Reporting and visualization capabilities are the core functionalities of Power BI. After sourcing data and modeling the data, you are now well positioned to take full advantage of it.
Imagine you want to show your boss gross revenue by state by product item group. You could create a table of data, much like what you would see in Excel.
Figure 9.1 – Data represented as a table
This is a decent way to show data, but it is not compelling. We could instead use the data storytelling capabilities in Power BI and create something like this:
Figure 9.2 – Data represented as a bar chart
Notice how you get a much better "feel" for the data when it is visualized like this. It's less confusing and drives your eyes and brain to understand how gross profit changes between states.
Or, even better, we could use the map visualization and have something such as this:
