50 Power BI Interview Questions with Answers

1. What is Power BI?

Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence tool by Microsoft that enables users to

create reports and dashboards.

2. What are the components of Power BI?

Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service (Cloud), Power BI Mobile, Power BI Gateway, Power BI Report

Server.

3. What is Power BI Desktop?

A Windows application to build data models, transform data, and create visuals before publishing to

Power BI Service.

4. What is Power BI Service?

An online cloud-based platform to view, share, and collaborate on Power BI reports and

dashboards.

5. What is Power Query?

Power Query is used to connect, clean, and transform data before loading it into the data model.

6. What is DAX?

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a formula language used in Power BI to perform calculations

and build custom measures or columns.

7. What are measures and calculated columns?

Measures are dynamic calculations based on report filters. Calculated columns are static and added

as part of the data model.

8. What are visualizations in Power BI?

Graphs, charts, maps, cards, and other visuals used to represent data in reports and dashboards.

9. What is the difference between dashboard and report?

Dashboard is a single-page summary created in Power BI Service. A report has multiple pages and

is built in Power BI Desktop.

A slicer is a visual filter that allows users to interactively filter data in a report.

11. What is a Power BI Gateway?

A bridge between on-premises data and Power BI Service. It enables scheduled data refresh.

12. Can Power BI connect to real-time data?

Yes. Power BI supports real-time dashboards using streaming datasets or APIs.

13. What are data sources supported by Power BI?

Excel, SQL Server, SharePoint, Azure, Web APIs, CSV, Oracle, MySQL, and more.

14. What is data modeling in Power BI?

Data modeling is creating relationships between tables, defining measures, and structuring data for

analysis.

15. What is a star schema?

A data model with a central fact table connected to dimension tables. It simplifies reporting.

16. What is a fact table?

A table that stores quantitative data (like sales, profit) for analysis, often at a transactional level.

17. What is a dimension table?

Tables that describe attributes related to fact data, like customers, products, or dates.

18. What are relationships in Power BI?

Connections between tables using common fields. They can be one-to-many or many-to-one.

19. What is cross-filter direction?

It defines how filters are passed between related tables single or both directions.

20. What is row-level security (RLS)?

RLS restricts data access for users based on filters defined in the data model.

21. What is drill through in Power BI?

A feature allowing users to click on a data point and navigate to a detailed page about it.

22. What is drill down?

Drill down lets users explore data hierarchy, such as going from year to month to day.
23. What is the difference between import and direct query?

Import loads data into Power BI. Direct Query keeps the data in the source and queries it in

real-time.

24. What are tooltips?

Tooltips show extra info when you hover over visuals. You can customize them in Power BI.

25. What is a KPI visual?

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) visual shows a metric compared to a target value.

26. How do you refresh data in Power BI?

Manual refresh in Desktop, scheduled refresh in Power BI Service using Gateway.

27. What is a bookmark in Power BI?

Bookmarks capture the state of a report page to enable navigation or storytelling.

28. How do you publish a report to Power BI Service?

Click 'Publish' in Power BI Desktop and sign in to your Power BI account.

29. Can Power BI be embedded into websites or apps?

Yes, using Power BI Embedded service and REST APIs.

30. What are custom visuals?

Custom visuals are user-created visuals imported into Power BI from marketplace or built using

TypeScript.

31. What is Q&A in Power BI?

A feature that allows users to ask natural language questions and get answers as visuals.

32. What is the filter pane?

A section where report-level, page-level, and visual-level filters are applied.

33. What is a hierarchy?

A structured relationship in fields like Year > Quarter > Month > Day used for drill-down analysis.

34. What is the sync slicer feature?

Syncs slicers across multiple pages in a report for consistent filtering.

35. What is conditional formatting?

36. What is a matrix visual?

Like a pivot table in Excel. It displays data in rows and columns with summaries.

37. Can you schedule report refresh in Power BI?

Yes, in Power BI Service using a data gateway for on-prem sources.

38. What is a tooltip page?

A custom report page designed to show as a tooltip when hovering over visuals.

39. What is Get Data in Power BI?

The feature that lets users choose and connect to various data sources.

40. What is the difference between DAX and M language?

DAX is used for measures and calculations. M is used in Power Query for data transformation.

41. What is dataflow in Power BI?

Reusable data transformation logic stored in the Power BI Service.

42. What is incremental refresh?

Loads only new or changed data instead of the entire dataset. Improves performance.

43. What are roles in Power BI Service?

Roles manage user access, permissions, and security (view, edit, admin).

44. How do you share a report?

You can share through Power BI workspace, publish to web, or export to PDF/PowerPoint.

45. What are apps in Power BI?

Packaged content (dashboards, reports, datasets) shared within an organization.

46. What is a workspace in Power BI?

A collaborative environment to manage, publish, and share content.

47. What are datasets in Power BI?

Datasets are collections of data loaded into Power BI from one or more sources.

48. What is the Performance Analyzer?

A tool to analyze and improve visual rendering and DAX performance.

Correct data types ensure accurate calculations and optimal model performance.

50. What are limitations of Power BI Free?

Limits include 1 GB dataset size, no sharing, and limited refresh options compared to Pro/Premium.