2. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Cecilia Brusatori
ready
Founder and CEO of Magna Data inc
Data Analytics Solutions and Corporate Training
University Graduate Degree in Computer Science
& Engineering
Tech Community Leader & Organizer in South
Florida US
Proudly Nerd - Always Learning - Naturist –
Love Animals, good Books & the Beach
Entrepreneur - Consultant, Trainer, Speaker
Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area
3. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Agenda
Introduction to Power BI
Demo
Next Steps with Power BI (for Data Analysts)
Sharing (if time allows)
Scope: Power BI Desktop
Goal of Session: Send you in the right direction to get started along
with heads-up on important aspects.
Level: Beginner / New Users
6. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Intro to Power BI
More than Power BI Desktop
Self-Service for Business Analytics Small Solutions
OR Enterprise Analytics Platform OR BOTH
Integration with :
Power Platform
Microsoft Fabric
SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
Azure Analysis Services
Microsoft Cloud: Azure & Office 365
Microsoft Excel
Public Cloud, Private Cloud (Government) and On-Premise Platform
Embedding for Custom Applications
7. MagnaDataSolutions.com
ANALYZE & AUTHOR VISUALIZE
Synapse Analytics
Data
Warehouses Data Lakes
Data Factory
(ETL/ELT)
Machine Learning
Semantic Models –
Analysis Services
More
M , DAX, SQL
Power BI supported Languages
*
More
Creating Content
14. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Performance
tips
Do not bring columns that you won’t be using.
Choose the right data types
Avoid creating unnecessary calculated columns
Design Star Schema for your Data Model
Use Explicit Measures
Disable AutoDateTime. Use Calendar Tables
Try to use the smaller number of items per page.
Performance
& Design
Tips
16. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Sharing
Pbix File
Direct Link
Workspaces
Apps
Embedding
Website (Public/Secure)
Custom applications/software
Intranet (Sharepoint)
Power Point
Teams
17. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Sharing - Workspaces
Environments where content is uploaded and/or created.
Main purpose: collaboration within a team
UX Interface is more complex and not intended for consumers.
Can be assigned to a shared capacity or premium capacity
Different roles can be assigned to members
18. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Sharing - APPs
Content type that combines related dashboards and reports, all in
one place.
UX Interface is simplified for easier navigation.
Apps are created by Power BI designers who distribute and share
them with consumers(generally a big audience).
Optimal option for sharing and distributing content
19. MagnaDataSolutions.com
Sharing - Embedding
Allows developers to embed fully interactive reports and dashboards
into your organization’s own branded applications.
SDKs, Rest APIs
Consumption price model
21. MagnaDataSolutions.com
There is not only one way to do things,
look for what is available to you in terms of resources and
your skills/knowledge,
then choose the Most Convenient for your Specific Challenge.
Let’s start by talking about the Data Model in Power BI, some of you have probably heard already about this concept, but what is it ?
When working in Power BI Desktop, you will find 3 tabs on your left, one shows your Report Canvas, the second one shows the actual data and the last one, CLICK will show your data model when you click on it. CLICK
In Power BI terminology, the Data Model refers to a set of entities (tables), Relationships and Measures.
Where do all this objects come from? The tables and its content it’s brought into your power BI desktop when you connect to a data source. Your data source could be another power bi data model that is ready for you to use and shared in the Power BI Service.
It could be that you need to create one from scratch, when connecting to excel files, databases, datawarehouses, etc. In this case, high chances are that you need to apply some or several transformations to come up with a design that serves your report.
1:30
Let’s see how a typical Power bi development lifecycle looks like
As a data analyst, your first step will be getting data from a source. You can bring data from on-premise or local sources, as well as from the cloud.
Your next step will be building reports using Power BI Desktop
Once you are done, if you need to share your content across your organization, you will publish and distribute your content to the Power BI Service in the cloud.
Finally, your audience will access the content through different channels: that could be: the web browser, mobile power bi applications, Microsoft excel, hololens, Microsoft Teams, etc
Today, we are going to focus on how we build this reports. Let’s take a closer look at the what takes place in this task.
(2:50)When we build reports in power bi desktop, the first step taking place will be connecting to our data, our data can live in the cloud or on premises. We can connect to files like excel, json, csv or flat files, databases, websites and more.
Our next step will be to Prepare data, where we may want to do some data shaping, applying transformations and/or combining data from different sources
In the perfect world, we connect to data that is beautiful and ready to use, but we all know that is almost never the case, unless someone else in the organization has done this step for us, we will have some work here.
Once we connected to all the data sources we needed and we are done cleansing our data - and everything looks clean and good-. The data is loaded in power bi in the form of one or more tables, and each table will contain one or more columns. With all this tables or we shall call them entities, we are creating what in power bi is known as the data model. With the data insided the data model, we then proceed to create relationships between those tables that we brought, and we also create calculations when we need them. NOW, unless your report is going to be a one time super small project with little data, you should pay extra attention to this is the step , most professionals struggle with, not only this affects performance (meaning how quick you and your audience will see results) you could get misleading or wrong results. And not to mention, that good data models, make your life super easier to do the rest of your work.
Next step we start visualizing and analyzing data. This is where Data Analysts and Business Analysts must shine, these are the people who understands the business and statistical methods, and the ones doing the magic by creating visual content to convey a message for their audience.
Once you are done with your Report, you will save it as File with a pbix format.
This pbix is ready to share.
Metion about the 3 first steps, depending on your company, this can be already done for you
Ok let’s move to our demo and go to power bi desktop
Ok so we opened power bi, and this is how it looks like if you have the latest version. We are going to look at the most relevant sections once we bring in some data.
(3 min) Now, I get this question all the time, Data and Business Analysts want to know what aspects they need the most to advance their career using Power BI.
This is a fair question, because there is so much to learn about, specially when you are trying to get a position requiring power bi.
I would start by saying that regardless the tool that you decide to go for, the 3 core skills that any successful data or business analyst must have are
The business acumen, understand well the industry and the business for the company you are applying to or currently working for.
You need at least some basic statistics, and this can include from formulas to know when to use what graphinc to represent your dataXXXXXXXX
And the last one but not least important, the visual design skills, and this is not only about making beautiful designs, which would be a plus, this is about coveying the message, telling the story in a way that your audience can easily understand it.
Now let’s go to Power BI: I would start with data modelling basics, you need to understand this concepts including star schemas (which comes from datawarehousing), and how relationships work , because most likely you will have to create, modify or work on top of a Power BI Data model.
Next, DAX, at least the basics to allow you to do simple calculations such us a measure to summarize a total for example. And the understanding of Filter Contexts is key. please please do your best to understand this concept and how it works. I have a video from a Guru, Marco Russo in my youtube channel when he explains this very simple, watch it!
And last Power Query and M basics, it’s enough, until you know the requirement for your projects, the basics will jump start you when you need to increase your expertise here because there is a new challenge that requires it.
Understanding the foundations will have you ready to take on new challenges. Power BI is a constantly changing platform, there are new features being implemented super frequent, don’t stress too much, just keep yourself updated with the power bi blog to be aware of what’s new for when you need it.
Skills you should work on to excel
