Getting Started with Power BI

Getting Started with Power BI Desktop

Getting started with power bi is actually a tutorial on power bi for new users who are using the service of power bi for the first time, like what is basically a power bi, it is a collection of different software’s such as apps and connectors to provide a visual for a data.

Power BI is a product of Microsoft and was launched in 2013. It is a business intelligence and data visualization tool to get the story behind the data via eye-catching visualizations. Power BI not only limited to use for visualizations but using this we can transform, manipulate and other tremendous things.

Power BI Versions

It has 4 types and those are.

• Power BI Desktop
• Power BI Services
• Power BI Pro License
• Power BI Premium.

Out of the above 4 “Power BI Desktop” is a free version with unbelievable features for a free version. To get started with Power BI “Desktop” version is enough.

Download Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is a free version and you can download this software from the below link.

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop/

Once you download the Desktop version install on your computer. After the installation, you are good to go with Power BI Desktop.

How to Get started with Power BI Desktop?

To open Power BI from your computer on the start button Type “Power BI”, all the related searches comes up, choose “Power BI Desktop”.

• It will take time to load the Power BI and you will get a screen like the below one.

• Once the Power BI file opens up it will ask you to introduce yourself with Name, Designation, Company and etc… things.

• This is not required to start the things off, so close this window and finally, we could be able to see the full view of Power BI.

• As we told you it will look like an advanced version of excel. We have a ribbon tab in excel.

And just below this, we have “three” icons.

• These are very important in Power BI, the first one is “Report Tab”, the second one is “Data Tab”, and the third one is “Relationship Tab” the screen.

Using “Report Tab” we will create reports and visualizations, using the “Data” tab we can see all the data tables, and using “Relationship Tab” we can actually define the relationship between multiple tables.

And on the right-hand side, we could see below things.

The first field is “Visualizations” this tab contains all the built-in visuals available for the Power BI but we can add custom visuals as well but that is a different thing.

And the last thing is “Fields” this is nothing all the uploaded data tables named and if you click on down arrow of each table we could see fields of the table.

At the bottom, we could see Page layout just like how we have the Sheet tab in MS Excel.

Create Reports in Power BI Desktop

To create reports we need some kind of data, isn’t it???

So, we can get the data from various data sources like Excel, Text, CSV, Web, SQL Server, Cloud, etc…. Now we will use how to upload the data from a text file. Below is the data we are using from the text file.

In Power BI file under Home tab click on “Get Data”.

• As you can see above we have many data source options. Since our data is in the form of text file choose “Text / CSV” as the file source.

• Now it will ask you to choose the file from the save folder location in your system. Click on Open to upload the file.

• Before you upload the data it will show you data preview.

As we can see above Power BI smart enough to find the delimiter i.e. column separator common thing which is a comma (,) in this case.

We can transform the data as we would like to buy click on the “Transform” button. Since Power BI already transformed the data just click on “Load” to upload the file.

Now under “Data Tab” we should see this data.

Now come back to “Report Page” to create reports.

On this page, we will create all our reports. For example, if we want to create a “City-wise” summary table then first we need to insert blank “Table” visual.

First, drag and drop the “City” column from the “Fields” of the table to the “Values” field of the Table visual.

Now drag and drop the “sales” column just below the “City” in the “Values” field.

This will create a simple summary table for us and below is the screenshot of the same.

Like this, by using Power BI we can create data or report insights quickly.

Things to Remember Here

• Power BI is like advanced excel for those who are from the advanced versions of excel.
• Power BI Desktop is a free version and it is more than enough to start Power BI learnings.
• Depending on the source of your data accordingly, you need to choose the data source option.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Getting Started with Power BI. Here we discuss how to get started with power bi desktop and steps to create a report with along examples. You may learn more about Power BI from the following articles –

• LOOKUPVALUE in Power BI
• Compare Power BI Dashboard and Report
• Slicers in Power BI
• Create Waterfall Chart in Power BI
• Power BI vs Qlik Sense