Getting Started with Power BI
Course info
Course info
Description
In this course, Getting Started with Power BI, you will gain a fundamental understanding of the capabilities of Power BI. You'll start out with seeing how you can quickly and easily gather data from a variety of sources, and then cleanse and transform that data with just a few clicks. Next, you'll also learn how you can enhance the results by integrating disparate data sources and adding simple calculations. Then, you'll learn how to explore your data with visualizations and simple dashboards. Finally, you'll learn what steps are necessary to keep your data up-to-date. By the end of this course, you'll have a firm understanding of the basic skills required for using Power BI to acquire and transform data, enhance the data for analysis, and produce reports and dashboards.
About the author
Stacia Misner Varga is a consultant, instructor, author, mentor, BI Partner for SQLSkills, and principal of Data Inspirations specializing in Microsoft business intelligence technologies for over 10 years. She is a frequent speaker at the PASS Summit, IT/Dev Connections conferences, and various SQL Saturday and Microsoft-related events worldwide.
More from the author
Section Introduction Transcripts
Course Overview
Hi everyone. My name is Stacia Varga and welcome to my course, Getting Started with Power BI. I'm a business intelligence consultant and instructor at Data Inspirations, a company I started back in 2006 to help people understand what their data is telling them. Speaking of understanding your data, Power BI is a fantastic tool from Microsoft that helps you do just that with interactive, easy to use visualizations that make it easier to see patterns and relationships. In this course we're going to explore the main features of Power BI so that you can get an idea of what it can do for you and learn how to work with its various components, even if you've never used a reporting tool before. Some of the major topics that we'll cover include mashing together data from different sources, fixing up data to make it easy to explore, building reports and dashboards, and keeping your data up to date. By the end of this course you'll know enough about Power BI to your own simple data mashups and reports. You don't need to be a programmer or have any special skills to work with Power BI. If you've ever built a simple spreadsheet that uses formulas, you're definitely ready to experience the power of Power BI. From here you should feel comfortable diving into courses that include Power Pivot or Data Analysis Expressions, the language known as DAX. I hope you'll join me on this journey to learn Power BI basics with the Getting Started with Power BI course at Pluralsight.
Introducing Power BI
Hi, I'm Stacia Varga and welcome to Introducing Power BI, the first module in the Getting Started with Power BI course, which is designed for the business professional who knows a thing or two about working with data, but wants to use Power BI to explore and use that data more effectively. In this module I'll start by showing you Power BI using the data set and interactive reports that you build in later modules so that you can see what's possible and what you can learn to build in this course. And then I'll explain the various tools that are part of the Power BI family, so that you can choose which development tool is right for you.
Getting Data
Hi I'm Stacia Varga and welcome to Getting Data, the second module in the Getting Started with Power BI course. In this module I'll start by showing you different ways to get data to use in Power BI. There are many different types of data available and our tools to get data into Power BI makes it very easy to get at that data. The list of the kinds of data sources that Power BI supports automatically is pretty extensive and includes the following groups. First you can get data from databases stored on-premises in your organization. Most of the time this data is copied into a Power BI data set, which you need to refresh periodically. But in some cases you can create a live connection to work with the data directly. You can also get data from files that are on your computer or your company's network or even from files stored in OneDrive. Or you can get data that's accessible from a web URL or an OData feed, just to name a couple of options. If you have data in Azure, Power BI makes it easy to use that data as well. And if you're using Software as a Service, such as Salesforce for Google Analytics, you can connect with Power BI to get that data for analysis. In this module I'll describe the first three options in more detail, then at the end of this module I'll point you to resources for working with Azure or Software as a Service sources.
Transforming Data
Hi I'm Stacia Vargo and welcome to Transforming Data. You have a lot of data loaded into the model now, but it's not usable in its current state for reporting. Fortunately, you have a lot of options for transforming that data. You can give objects friendlier names, combine two or more queries to work with the results as if it were a single query, fix up metadata such as column names or data types, filter out rows, remove columns that you don't need, or add in new columns in a few different ways. There are a whole lot more transformations, but in this module I'll focus on showing you these six basic types.
Modeling Data for Analysis
Hi, I'm Stacia Varga and welcome to Modeling Data for Analysis. Your query has actually become tables in a Data Model, but the Power and Power BI is the ability to create connections between these tables, relationships, and you use those relationships to explore your data from a variety of perspectives. You can also define new columns to create new data points that are useful for reporting or to connect your queries together. If you're not working with a data warehouse you probably need a table to store dates. You need this when you want to compare changes in your data over time.
Enhancing the Data Model
Hi I'm Stacia Varga and welcome to module 5, Enhancing the Data Model. In this module you continue working with your Data Model to make it even better for exploring your data. For example, you learn about defining hierarchies and also you learn how the model includes more than data, it also contains properties for every table and column in a table. You'll learn how to configure these properties to control the experience and the visualizations that you learn to create in the next module, and last, you learn about creating measures, which are the summarized values that you use to explore your data.
Visualizing Data
Hi I'm Stacia Vargo and welcome to Visualizing Data. In modules 2 and 3 you learned how to get data from various sources to create a data model and enhance that data model in a variety of ways to ensure that dashboard and reports work correctly. Now you're ready to explore your data through visualizations. In this module you learn how to work with different types of visuals and how different types of filters affect what you see on a page or in a report. You also learn how to fine tune the appearance of your visuals by setting properties, and last you learn how to work with hierarchical data in a visual.
Refreshing Data
Hi, I'm Stacia Varga and welcome to Refreshing Data, the last module of Getting Started with Power BI. In this module I show you how to keep your work up to date in the Power BI Service. I'll start by reviewing what happens when you publish your data sets and then I'll explain your options for refreshing your data. Next I'll cover what you need to know about the Power BI Gateway - Personal, to stay connected to data sources on your computer or your company network, and then I'll explain Power BI Gateway - Enterprise, which in some cases might be a better option and your IT department can set it up for you.