Power BI Made Simple

James Serra
Big Data Evangelist
Microsoft
[email protected]
About Me
 Business Intelligence Consultant, in IT for 30 years
 Microsoft, Big Data Evangelist
 Worked as desktop/web/database developer, DBA, BI and DW architect and developer, MDM
architect, PDW/APS developer
 Been perm, contractor, consultant, business owner
 Presenter at PASS Business Analytics Conference and PASS Summit
 MCSE: Data Platform and Business Intelligence
 MS: Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions
 Blog at JamesSerra.com
 Former SQL Server MVP
 Author of book “Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012”
Agenda
 Power BI Defined
 Tool Purposes
 People who benefit
 Excel 2016
 Power Query
 Power Pivot
 Power View
 Power Map
 Power BI Desktop
 Power BI Dashboard
 My Workspace
 Power BI Q&A
 Power BI for mobile
 Access on-prem data
 Just Released
The opportunity
is bigger than Capture
Diverse
you may think data

$1.6T
Utilize
How? New
Faster
analytics
speeds
data dividend available
Deliver to
to businesses that embrace data
over the next four years
More
people
Data is the new currency!
Data source: Microsoft and IDC, April 2014
146.03K
146.06K
145.96K
145.84K 39.99K
38.84K
40.08K
40.33K
Tools Defined
• Front-end (Excel) or Power BI Desktop
• Data shaping and cleanup, self-service ETL (Power Query)
• Data analysis (Power Pivot)
• Visualization and data discovery (Power View, Power Map)
• Dashboarding (Power BI Dashboard)
• Publishing and sharing (Power BI sites)
• Natural language query (Power BI Q&A)
• Mobile (Power BI for Mobile)
• Access on-premise data (DMG, Analysis Services Connector)
• Updated weekly: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/tags/weekly+update/

Power BI website

Power BI Power BI
Desktop Dashboard
Power BI Power BI
Q&A for mobile
Power Power Power
Query Pivot View

Power
Map
Flow of creating a report

Power BI Site

Power BI
Desktop Power BI Power BI Power BI
Dashboard Q&A for mobile
Power Power Power
Query Pivot View

Power
Map
• Power BI Dashboard: Web-
version
• Pin previously created reports
• Create dashboards and
reports from organizational
contact packs, online services,
files, or SQL Database, SQL
DW, SSAS, Spark on HDInsight
• Q&A built-in
• Can pin Excel ranges (charts,
tables, Pivot tables, Pivot
charts) to dashboard, SSRS
reports (SQL Server 2016)
• Report creator - Such as a data analyst, data or BI consultant, or a mainstream Excel user. Use Power BI’s self-service BI features
in Excel often. Will use online services to distribute interactive reports and share workbooks
• Data steward – A data administrator or an IT professional. Provide specific and secure access to data resources. Enable the
identification, selection, and secure distribution of on-premise and public data feeds
• Report consumer - Anyone from an aspiring students to a CEO. You can collaborate, share securely, and interact with reports
using Power BI for smarter, insightful, and more nimble decisions
• Front-end
• Center of the Universe, but not required if using Power BI Desktop
• On-prem only
• Power Map (now called 3D Maps) and Power Query now integrated
• For Power View use Power BI Desktop (but still supported in Excel)
• New option, File > Options > Advanced > Enable Data Analysis add-ins: Power Pivot, Power View, and Power Map activates the
COM Add-ins
• Data shaping and cleanup
• Excel 2016 integrated
• 32-bit or 64-bit
• On-prem only
• Online search
• Public data sources
• External data sources
• Mash with local data
• Filter, shape, clean data
• Load to data model
• Share queries
• Share queries
• Appear in search results
• Specify who to share with
• Metadata gets stored in
cloud
• Data analysis
• Excel 2016 integrated
• 32-bit or 64-bit
• On-prem only
• Create calculations
• Aggregate sums
• Create relationships
• Hierarchies
• KPIs
• Hide columns
• Does not have Excel’s million
row limit
• In-memory, so fast
• Create data model
• Reporting
• Excel 2016
• 32-bit or 64-bit (activate)
• Recommend to use Power
BI Desktop instead
• SharePoint version
• On-prem (Excel and
SharePoint), SharePoint
Online (read-only) and
Power BI Dashboard
(limited functionality)
• Create report
• Legend
• Slicers
• Map
• Play axis, scatter chart
• Interactive
• Presentation-ready
• Easy to use
• Reporting
• Excel 2016 integrated
• On-prem only
• Create interactive tours
• 3D data visualization
• Uses Bing maps
• Power BI Desktop: Standalone
on-prem app in off-line state
(Excel not needed). Create
reports with integrated versions
of Power Query, Power View
and Power Pivot data model,
then upload to Power BI (on-
prem SharePoint not
supported). 64-bit download
• Uploaded via Get Data ->Files -
> .pbix (Power BI Desktop File)
• Uploaded is Datasets and Power
View reports (Q&A built-in)
• Can import Excel workbooks
that contain Power Query,
Power Pivot, and Power View

Note: Desktop reports can’t be

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-desktop-latest-update/
• Publishing and
sharing
• Cloud only
• SharePoint not
required
• Natural language query
Cloud only
• Power BI Site
• Goes against uploaded
Excel workbook that
contains Power Pivot model
or reports in Power BI
Dashboard
• English queries
• Can create synonyms
• Public preview
• Requires Windows 10
November update or
higher, and add a Power BI
account to Windows 10
within account settings
• Pick Power BI data source
and enable “Enable
Cortana to access this
dataset”
• User Power BI Q&A
• Access reports on your
mobile device
• Power BI App for iOS,
Android, Windows 10
(explore Power BI
dashboards and reports,
data alerts, invite colleagues
to view data, share insights
over email)
Connect live to your on-premises data
Live Query & Scheduled Data Refresh
• Power BI Groups to enable collaboration on a jointly owned set of datasets, reports and dashboards
• Open source Power BI visualization stack to enable Developers to starting building custom
visuals/graphs
http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/bd-p/DataStoriesGallery
• Have a new dataset and not
quite sure where to start? Need
to build a dashboard fast? Want
to quickly look for insights you
may have missed?
• Run Quick Insights to generate
interesting interactive
visualizations based on your
data
• Power BI uses various algorithms
to search for trends in your
dataset
• In the left navigation pane,
under Datasets select the
ellipses (...) and choose Quick
Insights, then in a view seconds
choose View Insights
• The visualizations display in a
special Quick Insights canvas
with up to 32 separate Insight
Cards. Each card has a chart or
graph plus a short description.
• In beta
 Get more from existing Reporting Services investments

Power BI

Reporting Services
Integrate Power BI reports into
your web or mobile applications
so you don't need to build
custom solutions to visualize
data for your users
Resources
• Power BI Desktop: http://bit.ly/1BI8aNd
• Using Power BI to access on-premise data: http://bit.ly/1BI8mMl
• Power BI for Office 365 video: http://bit.ly/1gGT02c
• Power Query load settings: http://bit.ly/1gGTgOD
• Power BI for Office 365 FAQ: http://bit.ly/1gGTllo
• Power BI for Office 365 requirements: http://bit.ly/1gGTt4q
• Power BI first impressions: http://bit.ly/1gGTyF3
 Q&A ?
James Serra, Big Data Evangelist
Email me at: [email protected]
Follow me at: @JamesSerra
Link to me at: www.linkedin.com/in/JamesSerra
Visit my blog at: JamesSerra.com (where this slide deck will be posted)