Power BI is an analytics tool that allows you to turn multiple unrelated data streams into visually attractive and coherent insights, turning your data into valuable information for your business.
These data streams can come from many different sources such as Excel spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL databases or online forms, allowing you to discover important information and share it with anyone you want.
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What is Power BI?
Power BI is a collection of applications and cloud services that all work together, there are:
What is Power BI Desktop?
Power BI Desktop is a desktop application that you install locally. It allows you to connect your data from hundreds of different on-premise and cloud bases sources. Enabling you to create different insights into a broad range of scenarios. The desktop application is free to install and can be downloaded directly from Microsoft at: powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop/
What is Power BI Service?
Power BI Service is also referred to as Power Bi Online. Accessed through the web at app.powerbi.com, the SaaS (Software as a service) can be used to generate or display reports built in the Power BI Desktop, or you can connect data and generate reports directly in the web platform.
What is Power BI Mobile?
Power BI Mobile allows you to securely access and view your Power BI dashboard and reports directly through your Windows, IOS or Android mobile device.
You can also create reports directly in the Power BI Service. Power BI has many different integrations with different software as a service app’s (SaaS) and can auto-generate meaningful dashboards for you.
What is DAX?
Power BI alone is a powerful tool, but understanding and learning DAX will open up a new world for you. That being said, if you are here as you want to start learning Power BI from scratch, you can probably leave DAX for now. But if you are interested, keep reading…
DAX stands for Data Analysis Expressions and is a language developed by Microsoft for creating formulas in Power BI and other services such as Analysis Services and Power Pivot in Excel.
DAX formulas are used in calculated columns, calculated tables, row-level security and measures. It will allow you to dynamically generate this data in a meaningful and smarter way, both by reducing the number of headaches you may encounter and the time taken to generate the data.
When using Power BI you will not find any options for DAX directly within the UI. Instead, you must install DAX Studio from daxstudio.org (Only download software from official sources!). Once you have installed DAX Studio, make sure Power BI Desktop is open, then open DAX Studio from your desktop. You will be presented with a connection dialogue box where you can select your Power BI project.
Free Power BI Training Materials
OurCloudNetwork Azure Training Material: https://ourcloudnetwork.com/complete-azure-training-and-online-learning-guide/ – We compile a list of all our favourite, free and paid online Azure training materials
Microsoft Learn: Introduction to Power BI – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/introduction-power-bi/
Microsoft Learn: Create and use analytics reports with Power BI – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/paths/create-use-analytics-reports-power-bi/
Microsoft Learn: Get Started with Microsoft data analytics – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/paths/data-analytics-microsoft/
Microsoft Learn: Use DAX in Power BI Desktop – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/dax-power-bi/
YouTube: Microsoft Power BI channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/MSPowerBI/videos
Summary
Power BI alone is a hugely powerful data analytics tool. Skills are high in demand and you could find yourself getting a good pay bump by learning this new skill and switching jobs. Make sure you check out some of the free learning paths above to get started.
