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Power BI – Quick Guide ”; Previous Next Power BI – Introduction Power BI is a Data Visualization and Business Intelligence tool that converts data from different data sources to interactive dashboards and BI reports. Power BI suite provides multiple software, connector, and services – Power BI desktop, Power BI service based on Saas, and mobile Power BI apps available for different platforms. These set of services are used by business users to consume data and build BI reports. Power BI desktop app is used to create reports, while Power BI Services (Software as a Service – SaaS) is used to publish the reports, and Power BI mobile app is used to view the reports and dashboards. Power BI Desktop is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. To download the latest version, you can use the following link − https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/ Power BI – Installation Steps To check the system requirements, installation files detail, users have to navigate to “Advanced download options”. Following are the system requirements to download Power BI tool − Supported Operating Systems Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2 Microsoft Power BI Desktop requires Internet Explorer 9 or higher Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms Users can select a language in which they want to install Power BI and following files are available for download. This is the link to directly download Power BI files − https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45331 PBIDesktop_x64.msi shows a 64-bit OS file. Select the file you want to install as per OS type and click Next. Save the installation file on the local drive. When you run the installation file, following screen is displayed. Accept the license agreement and follow the instructions on the screen to finish the installation. When Power BI is installed, it launches a welcome screen. This screen is used to launch different options related to get data, enrich the existing data models, create reports as well as publish and share reports. Power BI – Architecture Power BI includes the following components − Power BI Desktop − This is used to create reports and data visualizations on the dataset. Power BI Gateway − You can use Power BI on-premises gateway to keep your data fresh by connecting to your on-premises data sources without the need to move the data. It allows you to query large datasets and benefit from the existing investments. Power BI Mobile Apps − Using Power BI mobile apps, you can stay connected to their data from anywhere. Power BI apps are available for Windows, iOS, and Android platform. Power BI Service − This is a cloud service and is used to publish Power BI reports and data visualizations. Power BI – Supported Data Sources Power BI supports large range of data sources. You can click Get data and it shows you all the available data connections. It allows you to connect to different flat files, SQL database, and Azure cloud or even web platforms such as Facebook, Google Analytics, and Salesforce objects. It also includes ODBC connection to connect to other ODBC data sources, which are not listed. Following are the available data sources in Power BI − Flat Files SQL Database OData Feed Blank Query Azure Cloud platform Online Services Blank Query Other data sources such as Hadoop, Exchange, or Active Directory To get data in Power BI desktop, you need to click the Get data option in the main screen. It shows you the most common data sources first. Then, click the More option to see a full list of available data sources. When you click “More..” tab as shown in the above screenshot, you can see a new navigation window, where on the left side it shows a category of all available data sources. You also have an option to perform a search at the top. Following are the various data sources listed − All Under this category, you can see all the available data sources under Power BI desktop. File When you click File, it shows you all flat file types supported in Power BI desktop. To connect to any file type, select the file type from the list and click Connect. You have to provide the location of the file. Database When you click the Database option, it shows a list of all the database connections that you can connect to. To connect to any database, select a Database type from the list as shown in the above screenshot. Click Connect. You have to pass Server name/ User name and password to connect. You can also connect via a direct SQL query using Advance options. You can also select Connectivity mode- Import or DirectQuery. Note − You can’t combine import and DirectQuery mode in a single report. Import vs DirectQuery DirectQuery option limits the option of data manipulation and the data stays in SQL database. DirectQuery is live and there is no need to schedule refresh as in the Import method. Import method allows to perform data transformation and manipulation. When you publish the data to PBI service, limit is 1GB. It consumes and pushes data into Power BI Azure backend and data can be refreshed up to 8 times a day and a schedule can be set up for data refresh. Advantages of Using DirectQuery Using DirectQuery, you can build data visualizations on large datasets, which is not feasible to import in Power BI desktop. DirectQuery doesn’t apply any 1GB data set limit. With the use of DirectQuery, the report always shows current data. Limitations of Using DirectQuery There is a limitation of 1 million row for returning data while using DirectQuery. You can perform aggregation of more number of rows, however, the result rows should be less than 1 million to return the dataset. In DirectQuery, all tables should come from a single database. When a complex query is used in the Query editor, it throws an error.