Book Image

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide - Third Edition

By : Devin Knight, Erin Ostrowsky, Mitchell Pearson, Bradley Schacht
Book Image

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide - Third Edition

By: Devin Knight, Erin Ostrowsky, Mitchell Pearson, Bradley Schacht

Overview of this book

Updated with the latest features and improvements in Power BI, this fast-paced yet comprehensive guide will help you master the core concepts of data visualization quickly. You’ll learn how to install Power BI, design effective data models, and build basic dashboards and visualizations to help you make better business decisions. This new edition will also help you bridge the gap between MS Excel and Power BI. Throughout this book, you’ll learn how to obtain data from a variety of sources and clean it using the Power Query Editor. You’ll also start designing data models to navigate and explore relationships within your data and building DAX formulas to make data easier to work with. Visualizing data is a key element of this book, so there’s an emphasis on helping you get to grips with data visualization styles and enhanced digital storytelling. As you progress, you’ll start building your own dataflows, gain an understanding of the Common Data Model, and automate dataflow refreshes to eradicate data cleaning inefficiency. You’ll learn how to administer your organization's Power BI environment so that deployment can be made seamless, data refreshes can run properly, and security can be fully implemented. By the end of this Power BI book, you’ll know how to get the most out of Power BI for better business intelligence.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
11
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12
Index

Visuals from analytics

Up to this point all the visuals have been focused on visualizing the data in the data model. There are a couple of visuals that go one step further and provide information about the data that are not easily gained by a human looking at a report. These visuals leverage machine learning to provide actionable insight and allow the use of additional programming languages in Power BI.

Two of the most common programming languages in use today are R and Python. Power BI offers a built-in visual for each of these languages with an easy interface for bridging the gap between the Power BI data model and the programming language surface. Each of these requires a local installation for Power BI to use for processing. Simply add the fields you would like to use in your code to the Values bucket for the visual and reference them by name in your code. A few lines of sample code are generated to show the proper way to reference the fields as well. Adding the R or Python visual...