Power BI Introduction to Power BI

Hello, my name is Kristina

What is Power BI?
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What is Power BI?
Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights.

Power BI Success Stories with EPAM
EPAM has several success stories with Power BI implementation: Chevron, MSD Int., Kronos, HAVI, etc. A lot of widely used EPAM internal reports are also built in Power BI (staffing, PlusX, etc.).

Power BI Platform
Power BI consists of:
A Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop.
An online SaaS (Software as a Service) service called the Power BI service.
Power BI mobile apps for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

There are three views available in Power BI Desktop, which you select on the left side of the canvas.
Report: In this view, you create reports and visuals, where most of your creation time is spent.
Data: In this view, you see the tables, measures, and other data used in the data model associated with your report and transform the data for best use in the report's model.
Model: In this view, you see and manage the relationships among tables in your data model.
Power BI Desktop
The most common uses for Power BI Desktop are as follows:
Connect to data
Transform and clean that data, to create a data model
Create visuals, such as charts or graphs, that provide visual representations of the data
Create reports that are collections of visuals, on one or more report pages
Share reports with others by using the Power BI service

Power BI Service
Power BI Service (usually known simply as Power BI) is the full version of Power BI, and is hosted on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. There are two ways to license Power BI Service; Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium.
The Microsoft Power BI service (app.powerbi.com), sometimes referred to as Power BI online, is the SaaS (Software as a Service) part of Power BI. In the Power BI service, dashboards help you keep a finger on the pulse of your business. Dashboards display tiles, which you can select to open reports for exploring further. Dashboards and reports connect to datasets that bring all of the relevant data together in one place.

Other Products
Power BI Mobile
Power BI reports and dashboards are available in the Power BI mobile apps, whether they're on premises or in the cloud. Try viewing and interacting with them on your mobile device, be it iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Apple Watch), Android phone or tablet, or Windows 10 device.
Power BI report Server
Power BI Report Server is an on-premises report server with a web portal in which you display and manage reports and KPIs. Along with it come the tools to create Power BI reports, paginated reports, mobile reports, and KPIs. Your users can access those reports in different ways: viewing them in a web browser or mobile device, or as an email in their in-box.

Azure Gateway
The on-premises data gateway acts as a bridge to provide quick and secure data transfer between on-premises data (data that isn't in the cloud) and several Microsoft cloud services. These cloud services include Power BI, PowerApps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure Logic Apps. By using a gateway, organizations can keep databases and other data sources on their on-premises networks, yet securely use that on-premises data in cloud services.
There are two different types of gateways, each for a different scenario:
On-premises data gateway allows multiple users to connect to multiple on-premises data sources. You can use an on-premises data gateway with all supported services, with a single gateway installation. This gateway is well-suited to complex scenarios with multiple people accessing multiple data sources.
On-premises data gateway (personal mode) allows one user to connect to sources and can’t be shared with others. An on-premises data gateway (personal mode) can be used only with Power BI. This gateway is well-suited to scenarios where you’re the only person who creates reports, and you don't need to share any data sources with others.

Power BI Components
The Power BI product is made up of a number of apps, each with their own features and uses. These include:
Power Query: a data connection tool that lets you transform, combine, and enhance data from several sources
Power Pivot: a data modeling tool for creating data models
Power View: a data visualization tool that generates interactive charts, graphs, maps, and other visuals
Power Map: another visualization tool for creating immersive 3D visuals
Power Q&A: a question and answer engine that lets you ask questions about your data in plain language

Power Query
Power Query is data transformation and mash up engine. Power Query can be downloaded as an add-in for Excel or be used as part of Power BI Desktop. With Power Query you can extract data from many different data sources. You can read data from databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, and many other databases. You can fetch data from files such as CSV, Text, Excel.
Power Query also uses a powerful formula language as code behind called M. M is much more powerful than the GUI built for it. There are many functionalities in M that cannot be accessed through graphical user interface. Screenshot below is a view of Power Query editor and some of its transformations.

Power Pivot
Power Pivot is data modelling engine which works on xVelocity In-Memory based tabular engine. The In-Memory engine gives Power Pivot fast response time and the modelling engine provides the possibility to build the star schema, calculated measures and columns, build relationships through entities and so on. Power Pivot uses Data Analysis eXpression language (DAX) for building measures and calculated columns. DAX is a powerful functional language, and there are heaps of functions for that in the library. We will go through details of Power Pivot modelling and DAX in future chapters.

Power View
Power Pivot is data modelling engine which works on xVelocity In-Memory based tabular engine. The In-Memory engine gives Power Pivot fast response time and the modelling engine provides the possibility to build the star schema, calculated measures and columns, build relationships through entities and so on. Power Pivot uses Data Analysis eXpression language (DAX) for building measures and calculated columns. DAX is a powerful functional language, and there are heaps of functions for that in the library. We will go through details of Power Pivot modelling and DAX in future chapters.

Power Q&A
Power Q&A is a natural language engine for questions and answers to your data model. Once you’ve built your data model and deployed that into Power BI website, then you or your users can ask questions and get answers easily. There are some tips and tricks about how to build your data model so it can answer questions in the best way. Users can simply ask questions such as: Number of Stores by State, and Power Q&A will answer their question in a bar chart.

Homework
PBIX file with your progress
Word/Power Point file with screenshots and comments
* Additional steps described in the homework