Learn Power BI - Second Edition

Learn Power BI - Second Edition

by Greg Deckler
Released February 2022
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781801811958

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Book description

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.

Publisher resources

Download Example Code

Table of contents

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

Product information

  • Title: Learn Power BI - Second Edition
  • Author(s): Greg Deckler
  • Release date: February 2022
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781801811958