Power BI: Chapter 1 – Getting Started with Power BI

🎯 What You’ll Learn

By the end of this chapter, you’ll be able to:

• Understand what Power BI is and why it’s used
• Identify the main components of the Power BI ecosystem
• Install and launch Power BI Desktop
• Navigate all key views inside Power BI
• Compare Power BI to Excel in a business context

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1️⃣ What is Power BI?

Power BI is Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) platform used for:

• Connecting to various data sources (Excel, databases, websites, etc.)
• Cleaning and transforming raw data
• Creating interactive dashboards and visuals
• Sharing insights securely via the cloud

It helps users turn raw data into meaningful insights and business decisions without writing much code.

✅ Think of Power BI as Excel + Dashboards + Automation + Cloud Sharing.

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2️⃣ Power BI Components Overview

Component	Purpose
Power BI Desktop	Create reports and dashboards (free desktop app for Windows)
Power BI Service	Cloud-based platform to publish, view, and collaborate on reports
Power BI Mobile	View and interact with reports on mobile devices
Power BI Report Server	On-premises reporting solution for enterprises

🎯 For this course, we’ll mainly use Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service.

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3️⃣ Installing Power BI Desktop

To Install:

1. Visit https://powerbi.microsoft.com/desktop
2. Download from the Microsoft Store (recommended) or direct .exe file
3. Launch the app after installation

Minimum Requirements:

• Windows 10/11
• 64-bit system
• At least 4 GB RAM recommended

⚠️ Power BI Desktop is not natively available for Mac. You’ll need Windows via Parallels or Remote Desktop if using macOS.

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4️⃣ Power BI vs Excel

Feature	Excel	Power BI
Data Capacity	Up to ~1M rows	Handles tens of millions of rows
Dashboards	Limited interactivity	Rich, interactive, web-based visuals
Modeling	Manual linking	Auto-detect relationships, star schema
Automation	Limited	Scheduled refresh, DAX logic
Collaboration	Email or OneDrive	Web-based, versioned, and shared

🔍 Power BI is better suited for large datasets, live dashboards, and sharing insights with teams.

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5️⃣ Power BI Desktop: Views Explained

When you launch Power BI Desktop, you’ll interact with several key views:

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🧭 1. Report View

• Design your dashboards with visuals (charts, KPIs, slicers, etc.)
• Add multiple pages like a presentation
• Apply formatting and interactions

📍 Access: Left panel → top icon (chart symbol)

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📋 2. Data View (Table View)

• Shows your loaded tables like a spreadsheet
• You can inspect row-level data and add calculated columns using DAX

📍 Access: Left panel → middle icon (table symbol)

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🔗 3. Model View

• Displays the relationships between your tables
• Drag and connect fields to define one-to-many relationships
• Rename and hide tables, set data roles

📍 Access: Left panel → bottom icon (diagram symbol)

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🧮 4. DAX Query View (Advanced)

• Lets you write DAX queries to directly explore or summarize your data
• Useful for performance tuning and advanced users

📍 Access: Modeling tab → New DAX Query
🔧 May need to enable from File → Options → Preview Features

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🧪 Mini Activity: Explore Power BI Desktop

1. Open Power BI Desktop
2. Click Home → Get Data → Excel and load any sample dataset
3. Try switching between:
   • Report View (design)
   • Data View (see table rows)
   • Model View (relationship diagram)
4. Try dragging a field to create your first bar chart on the canvas

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📌 Chapter Summary

You Now Know…
✅ What Power BI is and what it’s used for
✅ The key components: Desktop, Service, Mobile
✅ How to install Power BI Desktop
✅ How Power BI compares to Excel
✅ The 4 main views inside Power BI and what each one does