Power BI: See Your Data
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform. It turns raw data into interactive dashboards, reports, and insights that anyone can understand.
What is Power BI?
Power BI turns numbers into pictures that tell a story.
Imagine Priya has a spreadsheet with 10 million rows of sales data. Nobody wants to read that. But a bar chart showing “Auckland outsells Wellington by 20%” — that’s useful. Power BI makes those pictures from the raw numbers.
It’s the final stage of the data journey: data is collected, stored, processed, and then visualised in Power BI so people make decisions.
Power BI components
| Component | What It Is | Who Uses It |
|---|---|---|
| Power BI Desktop | Free Windows app for building reports | Report authors (Priya) |
| Power BI Service | Cloud service for sharing and collaboration | Everyone |
| Power BI Mobile | iOS/Android apps for viewing on the go | Managers, executives |
| Power BI Embedded | APIs for embedding reports in custom apps | Developers |
The Power BI workflow
- Connect — Link to data sources (databases, files, cloud services)
- Transform — Clean and shape data using Power Query
- Model — Create relationships, define measures and calculations
- Visualise — Build charts, tables, maps on a report canvas
- Share — Publish to the Service, share dashboards, schedule refresh
Key capabilities
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| 100+ connectors | SQL, Excel, SharePoint, Fabric, Dynamics, SAP |
| Power Query | Transform data without coding — clean, reshape, merge |
| DAX | Data Analysis Expressions — a formula language for creating calculated measures (like SUM, AVERAGE) that respond to filters |
| Natural language Q&A | Ask questions in plain English and get a visual answer |
| Row-level security (RLS) | Restrict data so users only see rows relevant to their role (e.g., regional managers see only their region) |
| Scheduled refresh | Auto-update data on a schedule |
| Copilot in Power BI | AI-assisted report creation |
Dashboards vs reports
- Report: Multi-page canvas with interactive visuals. Created in Desktop.
- Dashboard: Single-page pinned tiles from reports. Created in the Service.
Reports are the detailed document. Dashboards are the executive summary.
Exam tip: Power BI capabilities
- “Transform data” → Power Query
- “Calculated measures” → DAX
- “Ask in plain English” → Q&A
- “Share with org” → Power BI Service
- “Restrict data by role” → Row-level security
Flashcards
Knowledge check
Priya builds an 8-page sales analysis. Executives want a one-page KPI summary. What should she create?
Regional managers should only see their region's data. Which feature?
Next up: Data Models in Power BI — the structure behind great dashboards.