Learning Microsoft Power BI

Chapter 4. Let’s Make Some Pictures (Visualizing Data 101)

Previously we discussed the basics of the Power BI user interface, touching on the Report, Data, and Model views, as well as Power Query. In the preceding chapter, we imported our first set of data from our Cool School University dataset.

In this chapter, we’re ready to go over some basic ideas about why we visualize data. Then, using our data from the preceding chapter, we’ll do a walk-through of the multiple visuals available by default in Power BI.

Why Visualize Data?

Imagine this. The year is 1950, and you’re an accountant at a small manufacturing firm in the Midwest. You served in World War II as an accountant at the Department of War, ensuring those war bond funds were spent efficiently to help the Allied war effort.

To do all your work, you had a ledger book. That was it. So, every day you’d log your transactions from one account to another, making sure all the money was where it was supposed to be.

One day, the floor manager of the plant comes to the accounting office to ask you a few simple questions. “Hey, I’m curious. Which of our products actually makes us the most money? What about on a per unit basis? And are they the same product?”

Now, as a 1950s accountant, would you willingly just hand over your ledger book? Absolutely not. Never. The ledger book was an accountant’s lifeblood, and back then someone would have had to pry it from your cold, dead hands before you’d part with it.

What you would do is, using ...