Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence tool developed by Microsoft. It allows the users to connect to a variety of data sources, transform and clean the data, and create interactive reports and dashboards. Power BI is widely used for data analysis and reporting, and it’s designed to help organizations make data-driven decisions.
Key features of Power BI include:
- Data connectivity: Power BI can connect to various data sources, including databases, cloud services, spreadsheets, and more. It supports popular data connectors like SQL Server, Excel, SharePoint, Azure, and various online services.
- Data transformation: One can use Power Query, a data transformation and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool, to clean, shape, and prepare the data for analysis.
- Data modeling: Power BI provides a robust data modeling environment where one can define relationships between different data tables, create calculated columns and measures, and build a data model that supports reporting needs.
- Data visualization: Power BI offers a variety of visualization options, including bar charts, pie charts, tables, maps, and custom visualizations.
Power BI comes in several versions, including Power BI Desktop (for report authoring and modeling), Power BI Pro (for sharing reports and collaboration), and Power BI Premium (for dedicated capacity and more extensive data distribution). Additionally, there’s a free version called Power BI Desktop, which is suitable for creating reports but lacks the sharing and collaboration features of the paid versions.
List of recommended resources #
For a broad overview #
A Complete Overview of the Best Data Visualization Tools
This blog post by Toptal gives a broad overview of the best data visualization tools, including Power BI, along with pros and cons of the popularly used tools.
Video Resource: Microsoft Power BI
This YouTube page by Microsoft gives video explanations and guides to various features of Power BI.
For in depth understanding #
Beginning Microsoft Power BI: A Practical Guide to Self-Service Data Analytics
This beginner’s guide to Microsoft Power BI gives an in-depth understanding of the data visualization tool on how to build solid data models.
Microsoft Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence (2023)
This course on Udemy created by Maven Analytics, Chris Dutton and Aaron Parry gives an in-depth understanding of data modeling using Microsoft Power BI.
Case study #
Analysis and Design of Visualization of Educational Institution Database using Power BI Tool
This article deals with the interactive visualization of educational institution databases using Microsoft Power BI Tool with different modules. It focuses on process model, operations of Microsoft Power BI, types of data sources available in Tool and its different related types of visual insights or context.
Covid-19 Mapping with Microsoft Power BI
This paper by Steven M. Graves and Lauren He uses the data visualization tool of Microsoft Power BI to create a map and dashboard of the data collected on Covid-19.
