Learn Power BI - Second Edition: A comprehensive, step-by-step guide for beginners to learn real-world business intelligence

✍ Scribed by Greg Deckler

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 458
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Learn how to use Power BI to deliver the insights needed to help your enterprise survive and thrive

Key Features:

• Learn simple through to advanced Power BI features in a clear, concise way using real-world examples
• Develop powerful analytical models and reports that extract key business insights
• Publish, share and collaborate on impressive reports, dashboards, apps, and goals

Book Description:

To succeed in today's transforming business world, organizations need business intelligence capabilities to make smarter decisions faster than ever before. This updated second edition of Learn Power BI takes you on a journey of data exploration and discovery, using Microsoft Power BI to ingest, cleanse, and organize data in order to unlock key business insights that can then be shared with others.

This newly revised and expanded edition of Learn Power BI covers all of the latest features and interface changes and takes you through the fundamentals of business intelligence projects, how to deploy, adopt, and govern Power BI within your organization, and how to leverage your knowledge in the marketplace and broader ecosystem that is Power BI. As you progress, you will learn how to ingest, cleanse, and transform your data into stunning visualizations, reports, and dashboards that speak to business decision-makers.

By the end of this Power BI book, you will be fully prepared to be the data analysis hero of your organization - or even start a new career as a business intelligence professional.

What You Will Learn:

• Get up and running quickly with Power BI
• Understand and plan your business intelligence projects
• Connect to and transform data using Power Query
• Create data models optimized for analysis and reporting
• Perform simple and complex DAX calculations to enhance analysis
• Discover business insights and create professional reports
• Collaborate via Power BI dashboards, apps, goals, and scorecards
• Deploy and govern Power BI, including using deployment pipelines

Who this book is for:

If you're an IT manager, data analyst, or BI user new to using Power BI for solving business intelligence problems, this book is for you. You'll also find this book helpful if you want to migrate from other BI tools to create powerful and interactive dashboards. No experience of working with Power BI is expected.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Section 1:The Basics
Chapter 1: Understanding Business Intelligence and Power BI
Exploring key concepts of business intelligence
Domain
Data
Model
Analysis
Visualization
Discovering the Power BI ecosystem
Core and Power BI-specific
Core and non-Power BI-specific
Non-core and Power BI-specific
Natively integrated Microsoft technologies
The extended Power BI ecosystem
Choosing the right Power BI license
Shared capacity
Dedicated capacity
Introducing Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service
Power BI Desktop
The Power BI service
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 2: Planning Projects with Power BI
Planning Power BI business intelligence projects
Identifying stakeholders, goals, and requirements
Procuring the required resources
Discovering the required data sources
Designing a data model
Planning reports and dashboards
Explaining the example scenario
Background
Identifying stakeholders, goals, and requirements
Procuring the required resources
Discovering the required data sources
Designing a data model
Planning reports and dashboards
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 2:The Desktop
Chapter 3: Up and Running with Power BI Desktop
Technical requirements
Downloading and running Power BI Desktop
Downloading Power BI Desktop
Running Power BI Desktop
Touring the desktop
Header
Views
Panes
Canvas
Wallpaper
Pages
Footer
Ribbon
The Formula Bar
Generating data
Creating a calculated table
Creating calculated columns
Formatting columns
Creating visualizations
Creating your first visualization
Formatting your visualization
Adding analytics to your visualization
Creating and using a slicer
Creating more visualizations
Editing visual interactions
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 4: Connecting to and Transforming Data
Technical requirements
Getting data
Creating your first query
Getting additional data
Transforming data
Touring the Power Query Editor
Transforming budget and forecast data
Transforming People, Tasks, and January data
Merging, copying, and appending queries
Merging queries
Expanding tables
Disabling queries from being loaded
Copying queries
Changing sources
Appending queries
Verifying and loading data
Organizing queries
Checking column quality, distribution, and profiles
Loading the data
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 5: Creating Data Models and Calculations
Technical requirements
Creating a data model
Touring the Model view
Modifying the layout
Creating and understanding relationships
Exploring the data model
Creating calculations
Calculated columns
Measures
Checking and troubleshooting calculations
Boundary cases
Slicing
Grouping
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 6: Unlocking Insights
Technical requirements
Segmenting data
Creating groups
Creating hierarchies
Understanding RLS
Buttons
Question and answer (Q&A)
Bookmarks
Advanced analysis techniques
The Analyze and Summarize features
Top-N filtering
Gauges and KPIs
What-if parameters
Conditional formatting
Quick measures
Report tooltip pages
Key influencers
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 7: Creating the Final Report
Technical requirements
Preparing the final report
Planning the final report
Cleaning up
Using a theme
Creating a page template
Using Sync slicers
Adjusting the calendar
Adding report filters
Creating the final report pages
Creating the Executive Summary page
Creating the Division Management page
Creating the Branch Management page
Creating the Hours Detail page
Creating the Employee Details page
Creating the Introduction page
Finishing up
Testing
Cleaning up
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 3:The Service
Chapter 8: Publishing and Sharing
Technical requirements
Getting an account
Office 365
Power BI trial
Introducing the service
Touring the service
Header
Navigation pane
Canvas
Publishing and sharing
Creating a workspace
Publishing
Sharing
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 9: Using Reports in the Power BI Service
Technical requirements
Viewing and using reports
File menu
Export menu
Share
Chat in Teams
Subscribe
Ellipsis (…)
Reset
Bookmark
View
Refresh visuals
Comment
Add to Favorites
Editing and creating reports
Editing reports
Creating a report
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 10: Understanding Dashboards, Apps, Goals, and Security
Technical requirements
Understanding dashboards
Creating a dashboard
Working with dashboards
Working with tiles
Creating and using apps
Creating an app
Getting and using apps
Working with goals
Creating scorecards and goals
Using scorecards and goals
Understanding security and permissions
Workspace permissions
App permissions
Object permissions
RLS
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 11: Refreshing Content
Technical requirements
Installing and using data gateways
Downloading and installing a data gateway
Running a data gateway
Configuring a data gateway
Managing a data gateway
Refreshing datasets
Scheduling a refresh
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 4:The Future
Chapter 12: Deploying, Governing, and Adopting Power BI
Technical requirements
Understanding usage models
Anarchy
Centralized
Distributed
Golden datasets
Hybrid
Governing and administering Power BI
Tenant settings
Deploying Power BI content
Adopting Power BI
Adoption strategies
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 13: Putting Your Knowledge to Use
Technical requirements
Understanding the business intelligence opportunity
Understanding the types of business intelligence jobs and roles
Growing your job and career
Understanding the employment and career opportunities
Job search strategies
Interviewing tips
Negotiating benefits and compensation
Continuing your journey
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index