Fixing the structure of your data
The data you connect to in Power BI will appear in tabular format. For example, when we import data from an Excel file into Power BI, we can view it as a table with column headers and row values. Based on the data detected and the information gathered from the data source, Power BI will then also assign a data type to each column. You can change the data type for each column afterward, and this is necessary for some features you may want to use. To calculate certain summary statistics such as averages, as we have seen in Chapter 2, Exploring Data in Power BI, we need a column to have numerical data as the data type. To do time-series forecasting, as we will see in Chapter 4, Forecasting Time-Series Data, we need a column that has date/time as a data type.
In the following figure, you can see the design of a table as presented in Power BI and the important features:
Figure 3.1 – Design of a table in Power BI
As shown...
