Introduction to Power BI

Course: PBIINT

Duration: 1 Day

This course delivers an instructor-led introduction to the fundamentals of Microsoft Power BI. Students will be taught how to design reports that will work with a variety of data sources. We will take users through a selection of well-crafted lessons to help them build new reporting capabilities for their business.

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Overview

This course delivers an instructor-led introduction to the fundamentals of Microsoft Power BI. Students will be taught how to design reports that will work with a variety of data sources. We will take users through a selection of well-crafted lessons to help them build new reporting capabilities for their business.

Audience

This course is for students that are looking to learn how to use the range of Microsoft Power BI
tools to refine and model their data into a visual and interactive format. Students considering
adopting this course are not required to have any prerequisite knowledge of Power BI or
experience working on data modelling related tasks.

Prerequisites

Delegates should have some exposure to a Windows operating system and Microsoft Office.

Module List

• Module 1: An Introduction to Power BI
• Module 2: Requirements Gathering
• Module 3: Designing Reports
• Module 4: Using Workspaces & Dashboards

Module 1: An introduction to Power BI

In this module we will give a brief overview of what Business Intelligence is and what Power BI
is. Power BI consists of multiple tools, which we will explore the purpose of and their core
features. We will also make you aware of some essential resources for user learning about
Power BI.

• What is business intelligence?
• Introducing Power BI
• Power BI tools and services
• Case studies
• Data stories
• Support and information

Module 2: Requirements gathering

Typically, a business intelligence project focuses on a variety of themes and understanding
them will help you take your first steps towards successfully completing a BI project. To start a
project, this module will help you understand grain statements, a way of understanding what
objectives your project is expected to achieve. This will evolve to understanding the full path of
a project including discovering, refining and modelling your data to producing reports and
dashboards. This may require you to use just the Power BI web service or the Power BI desktop
application based on the needs of your project. You will also learn about workspaces and see
how to use your personal workspace to take your first steps using the Power BI web service to
create a report. Throughout this course, we will be basing our discussions around a fictitious
company called House Rules Board Games to bring the training to life.

• Welcome to House Rules Board Games
• Beginning a Power BI project
• Grain statements
• Data discovery
• Refining information
• Modelling data
• Building reports
• Creating dashboards
• Choosing workspaces
• Create and share a report in Power BI

Module 3: Designing Reports

Often the part of the project that is seen by most is the report. The report uses information
refined and calculated in your data model to create a visual experience that is interactive and
tells a clear narrative. To do this, the report utilises a wide selection of visuals which we will
focus on in this module. Visuals range from bar charts to maps. This extensive range can be
enhanced by accessing the store, which is rich with custom visuals. You can use slicers and
filters to help users drill down through your data and navigational buttons to help users move
between your report pages.

• Adding pages and navigation buttons
• Using shapes, text and images
• Creating a theme
• Adding visualisations
• Using filters and slicers
• Adding drill throughs
• Adding custom visualisations
• Configure phone layouts
• Report tips

Module 4: Using Workspaces & Dashboards

Once you have finalised your report, it is ready to be published. In this module we will cover
the last stages of producing a report which covers publishing and configuring a published
project. Your ability to publish a project, and to what type of workspace depends on your
license, so this module will outline the types of license and workspaces you may encounter.
We will also cover dashboards, which are ways that you can share your content and as well as
ways you can restrict your content.

• Power BI licensing
• My workspaces
• App workspaces
• Premium capacity workspaces
• Publishing a project
• Parallels with Microsoft Excel
• Publishers and viewers
• Reconnecting with data sources
• Scheduling the data refresh frequency
• Introducing the on-premises data gateway
• Assigning security roles
• Creating and populating dashboards
• Customising dashboard tiles
• Creating tiles using Q&A and quick insights
• Creating a mobile dashboard
• Sharing reports and dashboards
• Publishing apps in a workspace
• Publishing content to websites