Business Intelligence With Power Bi | Why Your Team Needs Business Analytics Software

Fields of Power BI deployment:

Business Intelligence has many applications in:

• Logistics
• Marketing
• HR
• Finance
• Production
• Planning
• Warehouse
• Supply chain

It is worth to mention, that with Power BI it is possible to connect data used in different departments into one data model. Thus, it is possible to, e.g. correlate a product margin (sales) with dispatch cost (logistics) and packaging cost (warehouse). As a result, decision-makers get a tool that recommends the right approach for a discount rate at the customer/product level!

Components of Power BI

1. Power Query
   

   Power Query is the data transformation and mash up the engine. It enables you to discover, connect, combine, and refine data sources to meet your analysis need. It can be downloaded as an add-in for Excel or can be used as part of the Power BI Desktop.

2. Power Pivot
   

   Power Pivot is a data modeling technique that lets you create data models, establish relationships, and create calculations. It uses Data Analysis Expression (DAX) language to model simple and complex data.

3. Power View
   

   Power View is a technology that is available in Excel, Sharepoint, SQL Server, and Power BI. It lets you create interactive charts, graphs, maps, and other visuals that bring your data to life. It can connect to data sources and filter data for each data visualization element or the entire report.

4. Power Map
   

   Microsoft’s Power Map for Excel and Power BI is a 3-D data visualization tool that lets you map your data and plot more than a million rows of data visually on Bing maps in 3-D format from an Excel table or Data Model in Excel. Power Map works with Bing maps to get the best visualization based on latitude, longitude, or country, state, city, and street address information.

5. Power BI Desktop
   

   Power BI Desktop is a development tool for Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View. With Power BI Desktop, you have everything under the same solution, and it is easier to develop BI and data analysis experience.

6. Power Q&A
   

   The Q&A feature in Power BI lets you explore your data in your own words. It is the fastest way to get an answer from your data using natural language. An example could be what was the total sales last year? Once you’ve built your data model and deployed that into the Power BI website, then you can ask questions and get answers quickly.

Now, let’s dive into understanding the Power BI features.

Advantages of Power BI implementation

There are a few reasons behind the growing popularity of Power BI:

• Reporting Process automation
• Connecting different sources of data in one data model (one source of truth)
• Interactive, multidimensional reports, possibility to track correlation
• Quick and easy analysis
• Standardization and reliability (lower risk of “human error”)
• Collaboration and safe report sharing with any member of the organization

For effective deployment of Power BI in your organization, the right strategy (tailored to the organization’s size, number of users, and reporting functions) should be chosen. You can read more about Power BI strategies in the article Power BI implementation strategies – step by step deployment.

Create a data-driven culture with BI for all

• Turn your data into visuals with advanced data-analysis tools, AI capabilities, and a user-friendly report-creation tool.Create datasets from any source and add them to the OneLake data hub to create a source of truth for your data.Help users make better decisions by infusing insights into the apps you use every day, like those in Microsoft 365.Reshape how your organization accesses, manages, and acts on data by activating Microsoft Fabric in your Power BI experience.

• Transform petabytes with enterprise-grade ingestion and semantic modeling in a tool that can scale across thousands of users.Easily embed and share reports in your other Microsoft services, including Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, and Power Platform.Employ easy-to-use AI features that can find patterns in data, create reports instantly, provide answers, and more.Meet your requirements and gain end-to-end visibility with Microsoft governance, security, and compliance.

• Create reports in seconds, generate DAX calculations, create summaries, and get answers, all in conversational language.Quickly create and tailor reports by simply describing what you want or asking questions about your data.Quickly understand your data by adding insightful text summaries, and even tailor the tone, scope, and style of narratives.Create DAX calculations faster by asking Copilot in Power BI to suggest relevant code and entire functions.

• Enable users without paid licenses to interact with reports and access the rest of your Microsoft Fabric workloads.Establish an open data hub with OneLake to help data engineers connect and curate data from different sources.Employ the suite of Microsoft Fabric workloads to integrate, process, analyze, monitor, and visualize your data.Responsibly connect people and data using an open and scalable solution that gives data stewards additional control.

• License individual users with modern, self-service analytics for publishing reports and viewing content.Enable users to create reports and publish them to share with their coworkers, helping to foster self-service BI.Get Power BI Pro with other Microsoft 365 apps and industry-leading Microsoft security for one low price per user.

• Author reports for your own use or view Power BI content hosted in a Power BI Premium or Microsoft Fabric shared capacity.Use the free app to connect, model, and visualize data with an easy-to-use report canvas and hundreds of visuals.Sign up for the Microsoft Fabric free trial to explore the full suite of services—including everything Power BI has to offer.Get step-by-step guidance and explore key Power BI capabilities by taking Microsoft training courses.

See what you can do with Power BI

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Infuse data experiences everywhere

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BI Reporting Examples

The term business intelligence reporting can refer to a wide range of use cases in BI—from static reports to interactive dashboards to embedded analytics. While your immediate need may be one specific use case, it’s important to plan your BI strategy with the bigger picture in mind. For example, static reports may also need alerts when KPIs pass a threshold. This may lead to requiring real-time dashboards. Dashboards may lead to the need for full self-serve BI so that any user can explore the data to quickly answer questions themselves.Here are the primary business intelligence reporting capabilities and use cases:

Self-service BI enables users to easily analyze data without writing code. Further, modern BI platforms that use an associative engine allow users to explore data freely in any direction, recalculating analytics and highlighting data relationships after each click.

Dashboards and data visualization are used to improve understanding, allow collaboration and share information across an organization. Interactive dashboards that include rich data visualizations of charts, graphs and maps make it easier for stakeholders to understand and collaborate. Modern BI tools make it simple for any user to easily interact with the data themselves and create their own custom dashboards with drag-and-drop tools.

Static reports and alerting are also important ways for stakeholders to stay on top of their business and take quick action. BI software should allow users to easily build and share static reports in popular document formats and to set up data-driven, real-time alerts when KPIs pass a threshold. It’s important to understand the difference between analytics vs reporting.

Augmented analytics uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enhance human intuition with suggested insights and analyses, automation of tasks, search & natural language interaction, and real-time advanced analytics.

Embedded BI integrates business intelligence capabilities within applications, products, portals or processes. This lets employees, partners, customers and suppliers quickly access data and insights in their workflows rather than switching to a separate application. In this way, embedded BI helps people find insights and make better decisions faster.

Mobile BI

Business analytics tools and why they matter

With a comprehensive business analytics tool, your company can analyse historical and real-time data, trends, and patterns to inform decisions that affect your organisation positively.

Power BI Architecture

Power BI architecture is a service built on top of Azure. There are multiple data sources that Power BI can connect to. Power BI Desktop allows you to create reports and data visualizations on the dataset. Power BI gateway is connected to on-premise data sources to get continuous data for reporting and analytics. Power BI services refer to the cloud services that are used to publish Power BI reports and data visualizations. Using Power BI mobile apps, you can stay connected to their data from anywhere. Power BI apps are available for Windows, iOS, and Android platforms.

What is Power BI?

Power BI is a business analytics service provided by Microsoft that lets you visualize your data and share insights. It converts data from different sources to build interactive dashboards and Business Intelligence reports.

As you see above, we have some sales data in an excel sheet. Using this data, Power BI helps you build different charts and graphs to visualize the data.

Now that you have learned what is Power BI, let us now understand why Power BI is required.

Features of Power BI

Following are some of the features of Power BI –

1. Power BI Desktop
   

   Power BI Desktop is free software that you can download and install, and it allows you to build reports by accessing data easily. For using Power BI desktop, you do not need advanced report designing, or query skills to build a report.

2. Stream Analytics
   

   Power BI’s primary advantage is its support stream analytics. From factory sensors to social media sources, Power BI assists in real-time analytics to make timely decisions.

3. Multiple Data Sources
   

   Support for various data sources is one of the vital features of Power BI. You can access various sources of data such as Excel, CSV, SQL Server, Web files, etc. to create interactive visualizations.

4. Custom Visualization
   

   While dealing with complex data, Power BI’s default standard might not be enough in some cases. In that case, you can access the custom library of visualization that meets your needs.

Who Uses Power BI Applications?

Power BI is used by a wide range of industries and organizations, including healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing. Users of Power BI applications include business analysts, data analysts, data scientists, and other professionals who need to analyze and visualize data.

Now, to better understand what is Power BI, and how does it helps, let us look at a case study on how Meijer, which is one of the United States’ largest supermarket chains, used Power BI to solve its business problems.

Does the pricing structure work for my budget and business model?

Software pricing structures can range from per-user plans to subscription models. As you look at your budget, consider how many users you currently have and how your business will grow in the future.

Keep in mind that additional capabilities and updates could cost more—make sure you know which features your organization must have and which ones are negotiable.

The goal is to find a cost-effective solution that provides business intelligence tools to your organization at the scale you need and has flexibility to grow with your organization.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you would have understood the need for Power BI in Business Intelligence, what is Power BI, and the various features of Power BI. You also learned about Power BI Service, how to create a Dashboard in Power BI, and how the architecture looks like. Finally, you explored the different features of Power BI Desktop by creating different visualizations to analyze finance sample data.

If you wish to prove your expertise in Power BI, we have your back. Our Data Analytics Certification Training Course will help you learn Power BI concepts like Microsoft Power BI Desktop layouts, BI reports, dashboards, Power BI DAX commands, and functions. In this course, you will explore to experiment, fix, prepare, and present data quickly and easily.

Business Intelligence is a process of transforming raw data into information and knowledge which support taking business decisions. MS Power BI is a suite of tools that make this process fast and easy thanks to intelligent, automated reports.

(Test an interactive Power BI report on-line: “Alcohol consumption trends” or see a short video on Power BI report functionalities).

It all starts with raw data that that unless processed is not valuable. Like the crude oil that was not sourced and refined.

Raw data have to be correctly sourced and processed (cleansing, aggregation, etc). Then they can be transformed into information (e.g. the most costly part of the portfolio) and knowledge (the reasons behind this). Knowing the causes of the problem we can take appropriate actions. The more efficient the process is the better-taken decisions are.

Microsoft Power BI is a suite of tools that supports the process of data processing – from sourcing to suggesting optimal decision.

Below the list of the most popular data sources, you can connect with using Power BI connectors:

• Files (e.g. excel .xlsx, .pdf, .csv, .xml, .json)
• Data Bases (e.g. MS SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, others)
• Folders (cloud-based e.g. SharePoint and locally-based)
• Azure Services (Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake, others)
• On-line Services (e.g. Microsoft Exchange, Dynamics 365, Salesforce Objects, Google Analytics)
• Other Sources (e.g. websites, OData feed, ODBC, Active Direcory, others)
• Indirect connection via other services (e.g. Microsoft Azure Data Factory)

The data is processed and transformed with Power BI queries (M language) to the so-called data model. Then, with the use of DAX formulas, the data objects formulas, the data objects (e.g. KPI’s, targets, etc.) that need to be part of a Power BI report are created (measures, calculated columns, parameters).

When a Power BI report is ready, you can analyse it using one of the Power BI versions:

• Power BI Desktop
• Power BI Service
• Power BI Mobile

Power BI Desktop

A desktop version of Power BI (free download from Microsoft website). It is the most complex version of Power BI that allows us to get data from different sources and process them. It also allows users to create dynamic reports that can be easily analysed. It creates .pbix files that contain the data model (aggregated data) and the report. It is a proper choice for people who work with raw data and prepare reports.

Power BI Service

It is a cloud version of Power BI. It allows us to get pre-processed data and prepare reports. It is not as complex as Power BI Desktop however it allows us to cooperate with others and share the reports with people without Power BI Desktop installed on their computers. You can easily transfer reports between a desktop version and a cloud version. If you would like to know more about the Power BI cloud version, licenses, and subscriptions, please read our article on Power BI licensing.

Power BI Mobile

It is a version dedicated to mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. It allows a convenient analysis of reports – any time and any place.

Does this tool work with my data?

Since the main function of BI is to help you analyze data for decision making, this is an important question. As you evaluate business intelligence tools, you’ll need to know details about your data. Is it structured or unstructured or both? Will your business intelligence software deploy your analytics on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of the two? What pre-built connectors does it offer?

Knowing these answers helps you evaluate if a BI tool can easily connect with all your existing systems and standardize data from different sources—saving you from having to purchase additional data management products in the future. This also ensures quick and accurate data access and analysis.

Who this course is for:

• Anyone looking for a hands-on, project-based introduction to Microsoft Power BI Desktop
• Data analysts and Excel users hoping to develop advanced data modeling, dashboard design, and business intelligence skills
• Aspiring data professionals looking to master the #1 business intelligence tool on the market
• Students who want a comprehensive, engaging, and highly interactive approach to training
• Anyone looking to pursue a career in data analysis or business intelligence

Power BI Dashboard

Power BI Dashboard is a single page visualization to tell a story. The visualizations on a dashboard are generated from reports, and each report is based on one dataset. A single page dashboard is known as a Canvas. Below is a Finance Dashboard published on Power BI Service.

The visualizations you see on the dashboard are called Tiles and are pinned to the dashboard by report designers.

Power BI allows you to create different reports on Power BI Desktop. These reports can be published on the Power BI dashboard using the Power BI service. A Power BI report created on Power BI Desktop can be published on to Power BI Service by clicking on the Publish button.

Let us now jump into learning the various components of Power BI.

What kind of training and customer service support is offered?

Any business intelligence tool requires training and support, initially and as new features are added. Explore what training options are available. Is training included or do you need to manage it in-house? If you need to deliver training to a distributed workforce at multiple locations, are online classes available? What kind of training is offered for software updates?

In addition to traditional training and education, user communities can provide tips and advice from peers and product experts. Before you select a business intelligence tool, look for forums, blogs, and user groups that help provide training and support.

Finally, make sure you understand how product support is provided. Find out if it’s free or paid, what hours and days it’s offered, and if it’s available online, via chat, or over the phone.

Route PL-300 (formerly DA-100)

The PL-300 (Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst) certification exam preparation course enables you to :

• Know the best methods for modeling, visualizing, and analyzing data via Power BI, in line with business requirements.
• Access and process data from different data sources (relational and non-relational data)
• Implement security standards and policies adapted to the Power BI environment
• Manage and implement dashboards for content sharing and distribution
• Create paginated reports in Power BI and publish them in a workspace.

What business analytics offers

The definition of business analytics is exactly what it sounds like: Any software or solution that discovers and evaluates business data with a combination of skills, technologies, and practices to conduct a statistical analysis.

IT analysts and business intelligence (BI) managers use business analytics with tools that review complex processes, algorithms, and broader data sets. Business analytics tools serve as any applications or software solutions that inspect and analyse business data while presenting any possible solutions.

Having the right business analytics tools helps your company gather the right information needed to understand past developments, predict future events and its subsequent possible challenges, and find a way to turn those hurdles into actionable items that result in positive business accomplishments. Some elements of business analytics include:

• Data aggregation
• Data mining
• Forecasting
• Text mining
• Visualisation

Using digital tools helps take your data analysis to the next level so your company can better define its future.

Case Study on Meijer

Meijer had significantly become dependent on its IT organization to extract insights from the data that is used to generate. It was time-consuming and inefficient to wait for IT to build every report. Meijer was unable to perform ad hoc and real-time analysis efficiently. So, Meijer connected Power BI to an on-premises SQL Server Analysis Services cube. This allowed them to refresh 20 billion rows of data in near real-time. With Power BI, teams can now pull in the data faster and perform real-time analysis to derive insights from data.

A bakery department inside Meijer used Power BI to compare its sales with regional performance. They analyzed where Meijer was behind the regional trends, focused on the problem, and created a solution. With Power BI, they can drill down into hourly sales and send out a sales flash to 800 Meijer business leaders. Power BI enabled them to standardize data sources and empower store directors and team leaders, to develop and track their data to ensure that they can improve.

With that, let us now jump into Power BI Desktop and do some practical hands-on demo using a Finance Sample Dataset. We will create a report to visualize different charts and graphs to analyze the sales made by various countries, products, and segments.

Demo using Power BI

Loading the Dataset

In the Home Menu, click on the Get Data tab and choose Excel as your file source.

Select the data file from the system and click on Load. It will load the dataset onto the Power BI Desktop.

Give a title to the dashboard by creating a text box and naming it as Finance Dashboard. You can add a background color, select a specific font, and resize it as per your choice. From the Visualizations area, select a “card” and drag the sales column from Fields on to Values. This will show the total sales that were made. Similarly, you can select another “card” and drag the Units Sold column to show the total number of units that were sold.

Now, you see which product made what number of sales, you can create a simple Table from the Visualizations and drag Product and Sales columns on to the Values.

To check the total amount of sales made in each month and find out which month had the highest and lowest sales, you can create a simple clustered column chart and drag the date column on the Axis and the Sales on to the values. You can change the color of the bars by going to the Format option and selecting Data Colors.

As you can see from the above chart, October month had the highest amount of sales and March had the least.

Then create a pie chart to analyze the sales made by each segment and find out which segment made the highest and lowest amount of sales. Click on the pie chart option, select Segment on to the Legend, and Sales on to the Values.

As you can see from above, the Government segment made the highest sales with 52.5M comprising of 44.22% from the total, while Channel Partners made the lowest.

You can also create a map that will depict the sales made in each country. Select Map from Visualizations and add the Country column in the location and Sales column under Size.

Using a Donut chart, you can see the Profit made in each Segment.

So, the Government segment made the highest profit, with 65.04%. Finally, visualize which Product gave us the highest revenue. We’ll create a Treemap and add the Product column under Group and Sales under Values.

So, the product Paseo gave us the highest revenue.

Below is how our two-page report looks like:

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Power BI Service

Power BI service is the Software as a Service (SaaS) part of Power BI. It is also known as Power BI Online. To access Power BI Service, you need to log in to Power BI service.

Here is how the home page of Power BI Service looks like once you log in:

It allows you to connect to data, create reports and dashboards, and ask questions about your data.

Now, as you have understood what is Power BI, its architecture, and services, let us now understand about Dashboards in Power BI.

How does this tool support different types of users?

Because business intelligence is versatile and can be used across the organization, many companies prefer a combination of self-service and enterprise BI tools that work for technical and non-technical users.

Talk to stakeholders from both ends of the spectrum to find out exactly how they’ll be using BI and if you need to focus on features for self-service, enterprise, or a blend of the two. You may want to look for a single tool that scales to serve the needs of all users—from business operations to IT—and includes both types of BI solutions.

Self-service BI

• Appropriate for employees in any operational area.
• Technical skills are not required for building analyses.
• Features AI-assisted automation and insights.
• Interface has user-friendly features—drag-and-drop, filtering, drilldowns, and computed fields.

Enterprise BI

• Most often used by analytics teams to more deeply investigate data.
• Features advanced administration and deployment controls.
• Includes big data support and on-premises reporting.

Can I use this tool on the go?

Mobile features provide access to real-time data and allow you to make data-informed decisions on the fly when working remotely. Talk to your employees who work in the field or distributed locations to find out what level of mobile access they need. It could range from basic viewing of dashboards and reports to creating and editing analytics with mobile tools. You should also make sure the tool’s features are aligned to your company’s broader mobile strategy.

How are other companies using this software?

As you evaluate BI tools, look for customer stories and case studies based on company size and industry. As you review customer challenges and solutions, you’ll get a better idea of whether or not this tool is effective for businesses that are similar to yours. You may also discover new ways to use business intelligence after reading the success stories of other organizations.

PL-900 course

Power Platform is a set of Microsoft tools integrated with Office 365 useful for analyzing, creating solutions, and automating business processes. This powerful platform brings together 4 applications:

• Power BI: for informed, reliable business decisions by delivering data-driven information to everyone involved.
• Power Apps: for transforming ideas into business solutions and creating customized applications that can solve business problems.
• Power Automate: to improve business productivity and get more work done by providing the necessary resources through business process automation.
• Power Virtual Agents: to easily create chatbots capable of chatting with customers without the need to write code.

To conclude

With Power BI, Microsoft has made its mark in data visualization tools, offering a complete solution for individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, and large organizations alike. The tool’s ease of use and native compatibility with data sources, plus the possibility of adding customized visualizations, make it a relevant option as a reporting tool.

Are you interested in obtaining the specific certification PL-300 and PL-900? Then you should have a look at our course at DataScientest to discover your possibilities!

• Discover the PowerBI course

Power BI

These 12 questions will help you select a BI tool that’s right for your business.

Choosing the right business intelligence (BI) tool for your company can be a time-consuming process with many options that have similar features. A smart strategy for evaluating tools like business intelligence software is to have a clear understanding of why your business needs it and a solid set of criteria to help you review your choices.

Does it offer the security and compliance features I need?

These are important factors to consider when evaluating business intelligence tools, especially if you work in a regulated industry like financial services or healthcare. Make sure your BI software includes features that:

• Allow IT to create a secure, governed environment.
• Offer management tools for data quality and consistency.
• Enable data cleansing before information is fed to BI analytics tools.
• Provide data protection that persists even when exported to other file types.
• Support your organization’s policies and procedures for access and encryption.
• Deliver geolocation data for enhanced insights and compliance.
• Automate critical compliance processes.
• Securely retain and archive data.

Why Power BI?

Following are the reasons why Power BI is so popular and needed in the BI domain:

Access to Volumes of Data from Multiple Sources

Power BI can access vast volumes of data from multiple sources. It allows you to view, analyze, and visualize vast quantities of data that cannot be opened in Excel. Some of the important data sources available for Power BI are Excel, CSV, XML, JSON, pdf, etc. Power BI uses powerful compression algorithms to import and cache the data within the.PBIX file.

Interactive UI/UX Features

Power BI makes things visually appealing. It has an easy drag and drops functionality, with features that allow you to copy all formatting across similar visualizations.

Exceptional Excel Integration

Power BI helps to gather, analyze, publish, and share Excel business data. Anyone familiar with Office 365 can easily connect Excel queries, data models, and reports to Power BI Dashboards.

Accelerate Big Data Preparation with Azure

Using Power BI with Azure allows you to analyze and share massive volumes of data. An azure data lake can reduce the time it takes to get insights and increase collaboration between business analysts, data engineers, and data scientists.

Turn Insights into Action

Power BI allows you to gain insights from data and turn those insights into actions to make data-driven business decisions.

Real-time Stream Analytics

Power BI will enable you to perform real-time stream analytics. It helps you fetch data from multiple sensors and social media sources to get access to real-time analytics, so you are always ready to make business decisions.

Now, in this what is Power BI article, you will learn about the architecture of Power BI.

Description

Welcome to the #1 best-selling Power BI Desktop course – completely rebuilt for 2023!

If you’re a data professional or aspiring analyst looking to learn the top business intelligence platform on the market, you’ve come to the right place. With more than 50,000 perfect 5-star reviews from students around the world, this is the course you’ve been looking for.

Throughout the course, you’ll learn from top instructors on the Maven Analytics team and put your skills to the test with hands-on projects and unique, real-world assignments.

THE COURSE PROJECT:

You’ll play the role of Business Intelligence Analyst for AdventureWorks Cycles, a fictional manufacturing company. Your role is to transform raw data into professional-quality reports and dashboards to track KPIs, compare regional performance, analyze product-level trends, and identify high-value customers.

But don’t worry, we’ll be here to guide you along every step of the way, with intuitive, crystal clear explanations and helpful pro tips to take you from zero to expert – guaranteed.

This course is designed to follow the key stages of the business intelligence workflow, and simulate real-world tasks that data professionals encounter on the job:

STAGE 1: Connecting & Shaping Data

In this stage we’ll focus on building automated workflows to extract, transform, and load our project data using Power Query, and explore common data connectors, storage modes, profiling tools, table transformations, and more:

• Data connectors

• Storage & import modes

• Query editing tools

• Table transformations

• Connecting to a database

• Extracting data from the web

• QA & Profiling tools

• Text, numerical, date & time tools

• Rolling calendars

• Index & conditional columns

• Grouping & aggregating

• Pivoting & unpivoting

• Merging & appending queries

• Data source parameters

• Importing Excel models

STAGE 2: Creating a Relational Data Model

In stage 2 we’ll review data modeling best practices, introduce topics like cardinality, normalization, filter flow and star schemas, and begin to build our AdventureWorks data model from the ground up:

• Database normalization

• Fact & dimension tables

• Primary & foreign keys

• Star & snowflake schemas

• Active & inactive relationships

• Relationship cardinality

• Filter context & flow

• Bi-directional filters

• Model layouts

• Data formats & categories

• Hierarchies

STAGE 3: Adding Calculated Fields with DAX

In stage 3 we’ll introduce data analysis expressions (DAX). We’ll create calculated columns and measures, explore topics like row and filter context, and practice applying powerful tools like filter functions, iterators, and time intelligence patterns:

• DAX vs. M

• Calculated columns & measures

• Implicit, explicit & quick measures

• Measure calculation steps

• DAX syntax & operators

• Math & stats functions

• Conditional & logical functions

• The SWITCH function

• Text functions

• Date & time functions

• The RELATED function

• CALCULATE, FILTER & ALL

• Iterator (X) functions

• Time intelligence patterns

STAGE 4: Visualizing Data with Reports

Stage 4 is about bringing our data to LIFE with reports and dashboards. We’ll review data viz best practices, building and format basic charts, and add interactivity with bookmarks, slicer panels, parameters, tooltips, report navigation, and more:

• Data viz best practices

• Dashboard design framework

• Cards & KPIs

• Line charts, trend lines & forecasts

• On-object formatting

• Table & matrix visuals

• Conditional formatting

• Top N filtering

• Map visuals

• Drill up, drill down & drillthrough

• Report slicers & interactions

• Bookmarks & page navigation

• Numeric & fields parameters

• Custom tooltips

• Importing custom visuals

• Managing & viewing roles (RLS)

• Mobile layouts

• Publishing to Power BI Service

We’ll also introduce powerful artificial Intelligence tools like decomposition trees, key influencers, smart narratives and natural language Q&A, along with performance optimization techniques to keep your reports running smoothly at scale.

Ready to get started? Join today and get immediate, lifetime access to:

• 15 hours of high-quality video

• 200+ page Power BI ebook

• 25 homework assignments & solutions

• Downloadable course project files

• Expert Q&A support forum

• 30-day money-back guarantee

If you’re looking for the ONE course to help you build job-ready Power BI skills, you’ve come to the right place.

Happy learning!

-Chris & Aaron (Maven Analytics)

See why this is one of the TOP-RATED Power BI courses in the world:

“I believe this is the best Power BI course out there. I spent £1400 to attend a 3-day Power BI crash course, and have to confess it’s nothing compared to the knowledge, skills, expertise and understanding derived from this course. I am forever grateful to Chris and the Maven Analytics team for doing such amazing work and to Udemy for making this available.”

-Isaac Mensah

“Resources are awesome. Presenter is brilliant. I found this course more useful than the official Power BI course from Microsoft. Things are easy to follow, and presentations are high quality.”

-Jacobus M.

“Chris is a skilled communicator and does a great job of explaining a complex tool like Microsoft Power BI. His ‘pro-tips’ are great for new user productivity and gaining a sense of the big picture, and I value his best practices on building and managing Power BI queries and reports. I’m feeling much more confident to dig in and use Power BI on my own projects!”

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“Simply put, this course is AMAZING! The instructor literally takes you step-by-step from knowing nothing about Power BI into nearly an expert! I have had experience working with Power BI even in a corporate setting in the past, and I was still blown away by the level of granularity Chris was able to casually explain in a way that made sense. The hands-on exercises are THE perfect way to reinforce the concepts you learn throughout the course and connect theory to application. Can’t speak enough to how great this course is, I will definitely be coming back to it as a reference guide in my work and would recommend it to anyone looking to learn Power BI!”

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Looking for the full business intelligence stack? Search for “Maven Analytics” to browse our full course library, including Excel, Power BI, MySQL, Tableau, Alteryx & Python!

Advantages Of Power BI

1. User-friendly interface: Power BI has an intuitive interface allowing users to visualize and analyze data easily.
2. Data integration: Power BI allows users to easily integrate data from various sources, including Excel, SQL Server, and cloud-based sources like Azure and Salesforce.
3. Customizable dashboards: Users can create customized dashboards and reports to display data in a way that is meaningful to them.
4. Real-time data: Power BI supports real-time data processing, which means users can view up-to-date data in their dashboards and reports.
5. Collaboration: Power BI allows users to share their dashboards and reports with others, making collaborating on data analysis projects easy.

Business analyticsbusiness intelligence

It’s not uncommon for business analytics and business intelligence to be confused with one another as both focus on the collection and dissection of historical data. They both accomplish different objectives, so you’ll need to first decide your goals before committing to a tool. The difference between the two is business intelligence uses reporting techniques to find past and current information while introducing this data to users in a visually appealing format, and business analytics focuses more on the future of a business and how that data can help.

Choosing tools geared towards business analytics instead of business intelligence will work for you if you’d like to:

• Visualise the future performance of your organisation.
• Explore and manipulate raw data with the help of data analysts.
• Forecast the possible results of opportunities.
• Use more predictive measures for creating successful business events.

If you’re looking to simply aggregate past and present statistics to easily display results with a data visualisation tool while creating your own narrative around the data, choose a business intelligence tool rather than business analytics to make sure you’re getting the right information you’ll need for your team.

Business analytics is a more advanced method of providing context to raw data—which could also be lifted from BI software—and offer readers a glimpse of possible events and their outcomes, as well as set future expectations. Establishing a set of business analytics best practices will help set these expectations and ensure your business works efficiently.

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See what a business analytics tool can do

Reveal hidden paths and solutions that are sure to advance your organisation with Microsoft Power BI. By utilising a comprehensive business analytics tool such as Microsoft Power BI, you’ll discover how past and present data can affect the future of your organisation while providing the guidance for increased revenue and understanding, better customer experiences, and organisational success.

To make sure that your business is gathering and organising data in a way that’s innovative and strategic and saves time, Microsoft Power BI is ready to equip your business for progress.

Microsoft power BI là công cụ có khả năng phân tích và trực quan hóa dữ liệu nhằm giúp người dùng dễ hiểu hơn. Bên cạnh đó, ứng dụng này giúp doanh nghiệp tối ưu hóa quá trình hoạt động của các phòng ban.

Microsoft Power BI là một công cụ phân tích và trực quan hóa dữ liệu nằm trong hệ thống Power Platform. Khi sử dụng ứng dụng, doanh nghiệp sẽ xác định được phương hướng kinh doanh phù hợp với thị hiếu của khách hàng và biến động của thị trường trong tương lai. Để hiểu hơn về công cụ, hãy tìm hiểu xem cơ chế hoạt động Business Intelligence Microsoft Power BI là gì qua bài viết dưới đây.

Microsoft BI hay tên đầy đủ là Microsoft Power BI, là một sản phẩm được tích hợp với các ứng dụng trong hệ thống Power Platform và hệ sinh thái Microsoft 365 Business. Cụ thể hơn, Power BI nằm trong nhóm kinh doanh thông minh (Business Intelligence). Công cụ này có chức năng chính là phân tích và trực quan hoá dữ liệu trên các báo cáo tài chính, doanh số…

Hiện nay, Power BI hỗ trợ sử dụng trên 3 nền tảng là website, máy tính và điện thoại. Điều này đồng nghĩa với việc mọi người có thể sử dụng công cụ phân tích dữ liệu này mọi lúc mọi nơi, chỉ cần thiết bị có kết nối internet.

Business Intelligence hoạt động dựa trên 4 bước chính để chuyển đổi dữ liệu thô thành thông tin chi tiết cho người dùng. Trong đó, ba bước đầu tiên là thu thập, phân tích và trực quan hóa dữ liệu nhằm tạo tiền đề cho bước cuối cùng.

Trước kia khi chưa có Microsoft BI, doanh nghiệp cần phải thực hiện nhiều bước phân tích thủ công rất mất thời gian và công sức. Nhưng hiện nay, với sự giúp đỡ của BI, quá trình này sẽ được đơn giản hóa hơn, cụ thể như sau:

Business Intelligence sử dụng phương pháp trích xuất, chuyển đổi và tải (ETL) để tổng hợp dữ liệu có cấu trúc và không có cấu trúc từ nhiều nguồn khác nhau.

Sau đó, những dữ liệu này sẽ được chuyển đổi và chỉnh sửa lại trước khi được lưu trữ ở vị trí trung tâm. Điều này sẽ giúp tạo ra một tập dữ liệu toàn diện giúp các ứng dụng có thể dễ dàng phân tích và truy vấn hơn.

Khai thác dữ liệu thường được thực hiện một cách tự động hóa để phân tích nhanh dữ liệu nhằm tìm ra các dữ liệu ngoại lai, cái mà cung cấp thông tin về trạng thái kinh doanh hiện tại của doanh nghiệp.

Microsoft Power BI bao gồm một số loại mô hình hóa và phân tích dữ liệu như khám phá, mô tả, thống kê và dự đoán. Những công cụ này có chức năng khai thác thêm dữ liệu, từ đó dự đoán xu hướng và đưa ra đề xuất cho người dùng.

Business Intelligence Microsoft Power BI áp dụng cách trực quan hóa dữ liệu để trình bày kết quả đã thu thập. Cụ thể, các báo cáo kinh doanh thu được bằng BI sẽ được biểu thị thông qua bảng điều khiển dữ liệu tương tác, biểu đồ, đồ thị và bản đồ giúp người dùng biết được những gì đang diễn ra trong doanh nghiệp ngay bây giờ.

Việc xem các dữ liệu đã được thu thập từ BI cũng như dựa trên bối cảnh kinh doanh hiện tại sẽ giúp doanh nghiệp xác định được phương hướng hoạt động trong thời gian tới.

Với các tính năng điều chỉnh thời gian thực và thay đổi chiến lược dài hạn, Business Intelligence Microsoft Power BI sẽ giúp doanh nghiệp khắc phục được khuyết điểm, thích ứng với những thay đổi của thị trường, giải quyết các vấn đề về cung ứng và khách hàng một cách tối ưu.

Với khả năng phân tích dữ liệu nhanh chóng và chính xác, các công cụ Business Intelligence giúp doanh nghiệp giải quyết được nhiều vấn đề trong hoạt động kinh doanh của mình. Cụ thể khi sử dụng Power BI, công ty sẽ nhận được những lợi ích như:

Hiện nay, Business Intelligence Microsoft Power BI đã được ứng dụng rộng rãi trong nhiều ngành nghề khác nhau. Dưới đây là 6 lĩnh vực thường ưa chuộng sử dụng công cụ này:

Trên đây là một số thông tin về Microsoft power BI. Hy vọng qua bài viết vừa rồi, tổ chức sẽ thấy tầm quan trọng của Power BI trong việc tối ưu hóa quy trình làm việc. Nếu còn thắc mắc gì về trình quản lý này hay có nhu cầu tư vấn về công cụ Power BI thì có thể liên hệ với FPT Smart Cloud qua những thông tin sau:

Bài học	104
Bài tập kiểm tra
Kiến thức mục tiêu	Cung cấp kiến thức cơ bản về Power BI Desktop Học viên có khả năng xử lý và biến dữ liệu thô, xây dựng data model và trực quan hoá dữ liệu ở mức cơ bản Thành thạo xử lý tiền xử lý dữ liệu, biến đổi dữ liệu, thu thập dữ liệu với Power Query trong Power BI

Nguyễn Đức Thanh Founder & CEO – Học Excel Online

Con đường đến với Business Intelligence và ra quyết định nhanh chóng chính xác trong doanh nghiệp của bạn chưa bao giờ thuận lợi như vậy nhờ có Power BI – giải pháp BI đến từ Microsoft. Với Power BI Desktop, bạn có thể đi từ dữ liệu tới thông tin có giá trị để quyết định trong ít phút ở bất cứ đâu, bất cứ khi nào.

Theo Gartner 2019, Microsoft là công ty dẫn đầu trong những tên tuổi cung cấp giải pháp Business Intelligence 12 năm liên tiếp, dự đoán trong vòng 5 năm nữa vị trí của Microsoft sẽ càng được củng cố bởi hàng loạt những giải pháp Business Intelligence nổi bật, trong đó có Power BI. Tỉ lệ các công ty, tập đoàn lớn nhỏ sử dụng Power BI ngày càng tăng, nhân sự có kiến thức Power BI được tìm kiếm ngày càng nhiều với mức độ đãi ngộ tốt.

Khoá học PBI101 – Microsoft Power BI Desktop, Business Intelligence trong tầm tay sẽ cung cấp cho các bạn những kiến thức nền tảng ban đầu về lý thuyết Data Warehouse (Nhà kho dữ liệu), xây dựng mô hình dữ liệu (Data Modelling), thực hiện mô hình ngôi sao trong cơ sở dữ liệu (Star Schema), kiến thức cơ bản về giao diện làm việc của Power BI Desktop, kiến thức cơ bản về ngôn ngữ xử lý dữ liệu của Power Query (ngôn ngữ M), kiến thức cơ bản về ngôn ngữ phân tích dữ liệu của Power BI (ngôn ngữ DAX). Bạn sẽ sử dụng toàn bộ kiến thức cơ bản học được trong khoá học để tự mình xây dựng quy trình xử lý từ dữ liệu thô, cho tới xây dựng mô hình dữ liệu, xử lý dữ liệu, định nghĩa các Measures quan trọng với business của bạn sau đó trực quan hoá toàn bộ dữ liệu nhanh chóng dưới dạng Dashboard với dữ liệu động. Tất cả sẽ trong tầm tay của bạn, hãy tham gia khoá học PBI101 – Microsoft Power BI Desktop, Business Intelligence trong tầm tay cùng với Học Excel Online.

Nguyễn Đức Thanh Founder & CEO – Học Excel Online

Nghề nghiệp: – Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp Robotics Process Automation (RPA): Automation Anywhere, uiPath, Blueprism … – Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp tự động hóa quy trình và nâng cao năng suất lao động trong doanh nghiệp cho các doanh nghiệp hàng đầu thế giới trong các lĩnh vực Retails, Automobile, Banking, … – Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp công nghệ thông tin, hệ thống ERP – giải pháp quản lý phần mềm đa năng cho doanh nghiệp SAP thuộc bộ phận IT Advisory tại KPMG Europe LLP, trụ sở tại Munich, Đức. – Founder & CEO: Học Excel Online – Nền tảng nâng cao khả năng làm việc tương tác đa chiều đầu tiên tại Việt Nam – Founder & Blogger: Học Excel Online – Nền tảng chia sẻ kinh nghiệm, thủ thuật, hướng dẫn sử dụng Excel từ cơ bản tới nâng cao. – Founder: Cộng đồng Tin học văn phòng Excel Word Power Point trên 30000 thành viên. Học vị, các danh hiệu đạt được: – Thạc sỹ Chiến lược quản trị thông tin – Đại học Frankfurt, Đức. – Đã từng học tập và nghiên cứu tại trường đại học London Metropolitan, Vương Quốc Anh – Ngành “IT for Financial Services” (2012-2013). – Cử nhân Hệ thống thông tin quản trị doanh nghiệp – Đại học Frankfurt, Đức. – Giải 3 ý tưởng khởi nghiệp tại cuộc thi ý tưởng Start Up Live tại Karlsruhe, Đức (2013). – Nghiên cứu và sách xuất bản tại nhà xuất bản Springer (2016). Kinh nghiệm giảng dạy, thành tựu nghiên cứu: – 10 năm kinh nghiệm hỗ trợ, giảng dạy và tư vấn Excel và VBA. – Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng Excel trong công việc cho FPT – FSOFT tại Nhật Bản (2019) – Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng VBA cho trung tâm BICC – Ngân hàng Việt Nam Thịnh Vượng – VPBank (2016-2019) – Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng VBA cho phòng KHDN – Ngân hàng TMCP Công Thương Việt Nam – VietinBank (2017, 2018, 2019) – Tư vấn và giảng dạy, ứng dụng Excel cho Rolls Royce (Tại Ý, Đức) (2018) – Đồng tác giả của cuốn “The Drivers of Wearable Device Usage” – xuất bản tại nhà xuất bản Springer – Đức (2016) – trực tuyến tại http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783319303741 – Các bài viết nghiên cứu khác trong lĩnh vực IT được công bố trong nhiều hội thảo quốc tế (2013) – Bài viết khoa học

Nghề nghiệp:

– Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp Robotics Process Automation (RPA): Automation Anywhere, uiPath, Blueprism …

– Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp tự động hóa quy trình và nâng cao năng suất lao động trong doanh nghiệp cho các doanh nghiệp hàng đầu thế giới trong các lĩnh vực Retails, Automobile, Banking, …

– Chuyên gia tư vấn giải pháp công nghệ thông tin, hệ thống ERP – giải pháp quản lý phần mềm đa năng cho doanh nghiệp SAP thuộc bộ phận IT Advisory tại KPMG Europe LLP, trụ sở tại Munich, Đức.

– Founder & CEO: Học Excel Online – Nền tảng nâng cao khả năng làm việc tương tác đa chiều đầu tiên tại Việt Nam

– Founder & Blogger: Học Excel Online – Nền tảng chia sẻ kinh nghiệm, thủ thuật, hướng dẫn sử dụng Excel từ cơ bản tới nâng cao.

– Founder: Cộng đồng Tin học văn phòng Excel Word Power Point trên 30000 thành viên.

Học vị, các danh hiệu đạt được:

– Thạc sỹ Chiến lược quản trị thông tin – Đại học Frankfurt, Đức.

– Đã từng học tập và nghiên cứu tại trường đại học London Metropolitan, Vương Quốc Anh – Ngành “IT for Financial Services” (2012-2013).

– Cử nhân Hệ thống thông tin quản trị doanh nghiệp – Đại học Frankfurt, Đức.

– Giải 3 ý tưởng khởi nghiệp tại cuộc thi ý tưởng Start Up Live tại Karlsruhe, Đức (2013).

– Nghiên cứu và sách xuất bản tại nhà xuất bản Springer (2016).

Kinh nghiệm giảng dạy, thành tựu nghiên cứu:

– 10 năm kinh nghiệm hỗ trợ, giảng dạy và tư vấn Excel và VBA.

– Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng Excel trong công việc cho FPT – FSOFT tại Nhật Bản (2019)

– Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng VBA cho trung tâm BICC – Ngân hàng Việt Nam Thịnh Vượng – VPBank (2016-2019)

– Tư vấn và giảng dạy ứng dụng VBA cho phòng KHDN – Ngân hàng TMCP Công Thương Việt Nam – VietinBank (2017, 2018, 2019)

– Tư vấn và giảng dạy, ứng dụng Excel cho Rolls Royce (Tại Ý, Đức) (2018)

– Đồng tác giả của cuốn “The Drivers of Wearable Device Usage” – xuất bản tại nhà xuất bản Springer – Đức (2016) – trực tuyến tại http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783319303741

– Các bài viết nghiên cứu khác trong lĩnh vực IT được công bố trong nhiều hội thảo quốc tế (2013) – Bài viết khoa học

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bài giảng dễ hiểu

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Nội dung bài giảng phong phú, chất lượng hình ảnh tốt, ví dụ cụ thể dễ hiểu.

Khoá học rất bổ ích. Kỹ năng sư phạm của Thầy cực tốt Khi nào có version nâng cao, chương trình liên hệ với tôi nha.

Nhờ khóa học này tôi đã có kiến thức mới về Power BI. Xin cảm ơn

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Vô cùng dễ hiểu và dễ học. Khóa học vô cùng bổ ích!

lớp học ở mức vỡ lòng, cần lớp nâng cao

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Chất lượng hình ảnh video tốt, giọng giáo viên hay, ấm áp dễ nghe. Có 1 ý muốn góp ý rằng, trước 1 công việc, gv đừng chí tâm vào kỹ thuật vội mà hãy nói cho người nghe biết mục đích các hành động tiếp sẽ đúp j kết quả gì, thì người học dễ theo dõi hơn. Trân trọng

Quá tuyệt vời, tưởng chừng không cần lắm, mà ai ngờ đâu cần không tưởng. Hi vọng hocexcel.online ra thêm các khoá nâng cao nữa!

Đề nghị chương trình bổ sung thêm 1 khóa nâng cao của power bi. Vì nó rất thú vị và có tính thực tiễn cao

Giáo viên : Nguyễn Đức Thanh

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Business Intelligence is a process of transforming raw data into information and knowledge which support taking business decisions. MS Power BI is a suite of tools that make this process fast and easy thanks to intelligent, automated reports.

(Test an interactive Power BI report on-line: “Alcohol consumption trends” or see a short video on Power BI report functionalities).

It all starts with raw data that that unless processed is not valuable. Like the crude oil that was not sourced and refined.

Raw data have to be correctly sourced and processed (cleansing, aggregation, etc). Then they can be transformed into information (e.g. the most costly part of the portfolio) and knowledge (the reasons behind this). Knowing the causes of the problem we can take appropriate actions. The more efficient the process is the better-taken decisions are.

Microsoft Power BI is a suite of tools that supports the process of data processing – from sourcing to suggesting optimal decision.

Below the list of the most popular data sources, you can connect with using Power BI connectors:

• Files (e.g. excel .xlsx, .pdf, .csv, .xml, .json)
• Data Bases (e.g. MS SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, others)
• Folders (cloud-based e.g. SharePoint and locally-based)
• Azure Services (Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake, others)
• On-line Services (e.g. Microsoft Exchange, Dynamics 365, Salesforce Objects, Google Analytics)
• Other Sources (e.g. websites, OData feed, ODBC, Active Direcory, others)
• Indirect connection via other services (e.g. Microsoft Azure Data Factory)

The data is processed and transformed with Power BI queries (M language) to the so-called data model. Then, with the use of DAX formulas, the data objects formulas, the data objects (e.g. KPI’s, targets, etc.) that need to be part of a Power BI report are created (measures, calculated columns, parameters).

When a Power BI report is ready, you can analyse it using one of the Power BI versions:

• Power BI Desktop
• Power BI Service
• Power BI Mobile

Power BI Desktop

A desktop version of Power BI (free download from Microsoft website). It is the most complex version of Power BI that allows us to get data from different sources and process them. It also allows users to create dynamic reports that can be easily analysed. It creates .pbix files that contain the data model (aggregated data) and the report. It is a proper choice for people who work with raw data and prepare reports.

Power BI Service

It is a cloud version of Power BI. It allows us to get pre-processed data and prepare reports. It is not as complex as Power BI Desktop however it allows us to cooperate with others and share the reports with people without Power BI Desktop installed on their computers. You can easily transfer reports between a desktop version and a cloud version. If you would like to know more about the Power BI cloud version, licenses, and subscriptions, please read our article on Power BI licensing.

Power BI Mobile

It is a version dedicated to mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. It allows a convenient analysis of reports – any time and any place.

Advantages of Power BI implementation

There are a few reasons behind the growing popularity of Power BI:

• Reporting Process automation
• Connecting different sources of data in one data model (one source of truth)
• Interactive, multidimensional reports, possibility to track correlation
• Quick and easy analysis
• Standardization and reliability (lower risk of “human error”)
• Collaboration and safe report sharing with any member of the organization

For effective deployment of Power BI in your organization, the right strategy (tailored to the organization’s size, number of users, and reporting functions) should be chosen. You can read more about Power BI strategies in the article Power BI implementation strategies – step by step deployment.

What you’ll learn

• Build professional-quality business intelligence reports from the ground up
• Blend and transform raw data into beautiful interactive dashboards
• Design and implement the same tools used by professional analysts and data scientists
• Showcase your skills with two full-scale course projects (with step-by-step solutions)
• Explore powerful artificial intelligence tools and advanced visualization techniques
• Learn from a #1 best-selling instructor and professional Power BI developer

Why companies benefit from using business intelligence tools

Because business intelligence tools speed up information analysis and performance evaluation, they’re valuable in helping companies reduce inefficiencies, flag potential problems, find new revenue streams, and identify areas of future growth.

Some of the specific benefits that businesses experience when using BI include:

• Increased efficiency of operational processes.
• Insight into customer behavior and shopping patterns.
• Accurate tracking of sales, marketing, and financial performance.
• Clear benchmarks based on historical and current data.
• Instant alerts about data anomalies and customer issues.
• Analyses that can be shared in real-time across departments.

In the past, business intelligence tools were primarily used by data analysts and IT users. Now, self-service BI platforms make business intelligence available to everyone from executives to operations teams.

Instructors

Maven Analytics is the first purpose-built, online platform for data analysts to learn new skills, showcase their work, and connect with peers and employers.

Named one of the top 10 education companies revolutionizing the industry, Maven’s award-winning Guided Learning model allows users to create personalized learning plans, build public portfolios, connect with expert instructors and career coaches, and join a community of world-class analytics talent.

We’ve helped 1,000,000+ students build job-ready skills, master tools like Excel, SQL, Power BI, Tableau and Python, and build the foundation for a successful career.

Chris Dutton is an EdTech entrepreneur and best-selling Data Analytics instructor.

As Founder and Chief Product Officer at Maven Analytics, his work has been featured by USA Today, Business Insider, Entrepreneur and the New York Times, reaching more than 1,000,000 students around the world.

Maven Analytics was named one of the top 10 education companies revolutionizing the industry, and is the world’s first purpose-built, all-in-one platform for data professionals to launch or accelerate their careers.

Learn in-demand skills, create portfolios to showcase your work, and connect with world-class analysts around the world.

At Maven Analytics, our mission is to empower everyday people with life-changing data skills.

Aaron is a professional analytics consultant and Power BI expert, with 10+ years working in business intelligence and marketing analytics.

He’s an instructor, coach and mentor for aspiring analysts, and has deep experience helping companies develop and implement full-stack BI solutions.

Aaron is the Head of Student Success at Maven Analytics, a leader in analytics education, whose mission is to empower everyday people to change the world with data.

Every company is on a quest for information. In the age of Big Data, data volumes are becoming ever larger. However, we need to be able to process all these data from different sources. That’s where Business Intelligence comes into place: making data talk, telling a story, and creating analyses that lead to decision-making.

Initially, BI is divided into four parts:

• Data sources,
• ETL (Extract – Transform – Load),
• Data Warehouse,
• Reporting.

You can read our more detailed article on Business Intelligence, which covers and defines all the concepts involved.

The Power BI suite is an integral part of the BI chain.

It can also be deployed using a governance approach aimed more at IT teams, by gradually integrating business users into the governance process, thanks to an appropriate technical-functional architecture.

What is Power BI?

It’s a data visualization tool for creating dashboards and distributing them throughout a company.

This solution is described as self-service, since users are able to analyze the data available in their organization themselves, in total autonomy, without the support of an IT team.

The use of such a tool is essential to ensure that internal and external company data can be understood and analyzed. Analyzing data in a grid is difficult, but formatting it to highlight certain information makes it possible to obtain the important data in a matter of seconds.

Microsoft Power BI works with a model or dataset. This system allows your data to be easily shared between several reports. These reports can therefore be customized to be read by several types of profiles, depending on the use cases you plan to handle:

• The creation of a data model takes place in the first two stages of data preparation and modeling. This is often the role of specialized consultants or developers, but also of data analysts.
• The data sets can then be used by the company’s various functions in a few of ways, including :
  • interactive reports (also known as Dashboards),
  • pivot tables in Excel,
  • paginated reports available via premium offer.

On the visualization side, the software is very well-supplied and offers a wide range of formats. It is also possible to add customized graphics from the catalog or even developed in-house.

Creating dashboards is easy. Power BI’s interface is simple and easy to understand. What’s more, users accustomed to Excel will easily find their way around the menus and options.

But Power BI is much more than a simple reporting tool. Microsoft has integrated it seamlessly into the giant’s extensive software catalog. It’s very easy to combine Power BI with the Office suite, such as Excel or Outlook, but also with tools from platforms like Azure, Flow, or PowerApps.

To meet broader needs, Power BI is not confined to data visualization alone: several components have been developed or taken over from other software.

Power BI Desktop has the advantage of being updated every month. This tool enables you to design reports on a workstation. Easy to use, Power BI Desktop consists of three modules:

1. Power Query, an Excel-based component, transforms data in the same way as an ETL, building a data model consistent with the information retrieved,
2. A data modeling module,
3. A report design module.

• Power BI Service is used for publishing and consulting reports within your organization;
• Power BI Mobile is designed for users on the move, who can access dashboards at any time from their phone or tablet.

Thanks to its many native functions, such as Power Query and the DAX language (Data Analysis Expressions, a library of functions and operators for building formulas and expressions), Power BI can act as an ETL.

1. In other words, data can be cleaned, standardized, de-duplicated, and sorted.
2. Once this stage has been completed, we need to build the data model to link and cross-reference them.
3. And last but not least, the creation and distribution of dashboards.

In short, it has been designed to work easily for both data analysts and users with specific data analysis needs.

• Discover our PowerBI course

Power BI for more interactive reports

Power BI offers several features to make your reports more interactive:

• Power BI’s Drill Through option lets you create links between report pages.
• Tooltips Reports” allow you to display a report as a tooltip in another report.
• Power BI bookmarks will help you tell a story using your data.
• Thanks to integrated artificial intelligence functionalities, you can more easily establish links between your data. For example, you’ll be able to find the data that has the greatest impact on the data you’re trying to explain.
• Power BI is particularly easy to use. It is open to users who are not experts in data mining, enabling them to achieve their goals with just a few clicks and in Ah-hoc mode.

The software enables Data Scientists to implement their own predictive analysis techniques using their own algorithms developed in Python or R.

How much does Power BI cost?

The Microsoft suite is versatile and suitable for a wide range of uses. In terms of pricing, three offers are available:

• Power BI Desktop, free software for personal and small business use;
• Power BI Pro, $10 per month per user, this version brings more control over sharing and distribution options, with the management of licenses and rights for each user;
• Power BI Premium is the most elaborate version offered by Microsoft, priced at $5,000 per month. This package includes a cloud server with dedicated storage and computing resources.

Power BI vs Excel

Data visualization tools are often in competition with Excel. And understandably so, given the spreadsheet’s popularity and ease of use.

However, when you’re dealing with large volumes of data, and you want to share your analyses, it’s much easier to use Power BI.

In fact, thanks to its rights management and restricted access based on your position in the company, it’s more relevant to use Power BI.

The different Power BI certifications

Power BI is a modern, comprehensive Business Intelligence tool. Power BI certifications are issued by Microsoft to those who pass its certification exams, namely DA-100, PL-100, PL-200, PL-600, PL-900, and MCSA BI Reporting.

PL-300: Analyzing data with Power BI (ex DA-100)

Earning the DA-100 certification enables you to join companies requiring the skills of a Data Analyst to maximize the value of their data assets using Power BI. The tasks are important and vital in the sense that the Data Analyst will be responsible for designing and creating scalable models, cleansing and transforming data, and implementing advanced analysis capabilities with significant business value through easy-to-understand visualizations.

PL-100: Microsoft Power Platform App Maker

PL-100 certification is proof that its holder is capable of creating low-code applications to simplify, automate and transform business processes and tasks using the Microsoft Power Platform.

App Maker enables the development of solutions to simplify, automate and transform tasks and processes for businesses and their teams when the designer has in-depth experience with the solution’s business domain. Passing the PL-100 exam certifies the candidate’s basic skills in data modeling, user experience design, requirements analysis, and process analysis.

PL-200: Microsoft Power Platform Functional Consultant

PL-200 certification assures companies that their Power Platform consultant is able to make discoveries, grasp requirements, involve employees with Power Platform skills and stakeholders, translate requirements and configure Power Platform applications and solutions.

PL-600: Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect

A PL-600 certified expert is an architect of solutions based on Microsoft’s Power Platform. This profile is highly sought-after by companies, as they are able to lead implementations and focus on how solutions meet their technical and business needs.

This certification confirms that the architect can manage the successful development of a global solution, from conception to implementation and adoption. He ensures that the solution meets the current and future needs of the company he works for.

PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals

This Microsoft Power BI certification guarantees that the candidate for the position offered by the company understands the value of Power Platform and knows the essentials: creating applications, accessing data with Dataverse, creating a dashboard with Power BI, automating processes with Power Automate, and developing chatbots with Power Virtual Agents.

In other words, this is the certification that proves the expert has mastered all the applications, or at least the basics.

MCSA BI Reporting

The MCSA BI Reporting certification is an attestation demonstrating that the holder has acquired knowledge of data analysis, data visualization, modeling, dashboards, and direct connectivity to data sources in Excel and Power BI.

Power BI training with DataScientest

With DataScientest, you can acquire the skills needed to master Power BI in its entirety via two training courses, including the Power BI expert course (DA-100) and the Power Platform applications introductory course (PL-900).

Does the vendor have a stable reputation?

Evaluating your business intelligence vendor is equally as important as reviewing features of the tool. Take the time to research its reputation and stability to make sure it has long-term viability and will be able to provide continuing support. When choosing a vendor, look for an industry leader that has a wide range of offerings that will work for your organization’s current and future needs.

What are the data visualization capabilities?

Visual representation of data is a key element of business intelligence and one you should spend time learning more about during a demo or trial.

First, explore the data dashboards the tool offers and see how they can help your organization uncover new insights. Since these dashboards will be used daily by a wide range of users, they should enable users to visually explore data in ways that help identify and solve problems quickly.

Next, take a look at how findings are presented through data visualization and data storytelling. These features typically use charts, graphs, and maps to surface insights that are hard to see on a spreadsheet. The best data visualization tools have an intuitive interface that lets users explore and present data in multiple ways, regardless of their technical skills.

Types of business analytics to help achieve your business goals

When evaluating the data from your business analytics software, you have four types of analytics available to help decide your business goals and decisions. Each type of analytics is used to achieve a different business objective.

1. Descriptive analytics: These analytics interpret past data and KPIs to identify trends and patterns.
2. Predictive analytics: By using statistics to forecast future outcomes with statistical models and machine learning techniques, these analytics provide context and clarity for future decisions.
3. Diagnostic analytics: By focusing on past performance data, these analytics decide which data element will influence specific trends and the possibility of any future events—created from techniques like data mining and correlation.
4. Prescriptive analytics: These analytics build on descriptive and prescriptive analytics to recommend specific actions that ensure the best or most profitable customer reactions and business outcomes possible.

Here’s how business intelligence improves the way work is done in six key areas:

Customer experience

Access all your customer information in one place, so you can direct resources to key areas that will positively impact customer engagement and support.

Sales and marketing

Gain visibility into sales and marketing performance, consumer behavior, and buying trends which ensures future marketing initiatives are effective and drive revenue.

Operations

Improve operations by automating routine analytics tasks, refining processes, reducing inefficiencies, and increasing productivity.

Finance

Use custom dashboards to get a holistic view of the company’s financial health, study historical data, calculate risk, and predict trends.

Inventory control

Automate data analysis and reporting to improve inventory management, accelerate fulfillment, and help anticipate buying trends.

Security and compliance

Centralize data to improve accuracy and transparency, making it easier to uncover errors, security issues, and reduce compliance risks.

When evaluating business intelligence tools, look for a product that’s secure, compliant, globally available, and trusted. It should also have features that make BI insights accessible to your entire organization—such as data visualization, shared dashboards, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

“It has gotten our key decision makers out of the weeds by providing them with metrics they need to do their job, and not have to wrangle the data to get answers. Flexibility, interactivity … just jump in.”

Daksha R

Manager, Clinical Research Analytics

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Microsoft’s Power BI is a common business intelligence tool used by business analysts and professionals. Learn more about this important tool today.

Microsoft Power BI is a data visualization and reporting platform that is used by businesses and professionals every day. While the platform is commonly used by business analysts, it is also designed to be easily accessible for those without any specialized data knowledge.

In this article, you’ll learn more about Power BI, what modern businesses use it for, and the professionals who typically work with it. Toward the end, you’ll also explore some alternatives and explore online specializations and guided projects that can help you get started with this important business intelligence tool.

Microsoft Power BI is a data visualization platform used primarily for business intelligence purposes. Designed to be used by business professionals with varying levels of data knowledge, Power BI’s dashboard is capable of reporting and visualizing data in a wide range of different styles, including graphs, maps, charts, scatter plots, and more. Power BI’s “AI Insights” functionality, meanwhile, uses artificial intelligence to find insights within data sets for users.

Power BI itself is composed of several interrelated applications: Power BI Desktop, Pro, Premium, Mobile, Embedded, and Report Server. While some of these applications are free-to-use, paid subscriptions to the pro and premium versions provide greater analytics capabilities.

Power BI is also a part of Microsoft’s Power Platform, which includes Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. Created as “low-code tools,” these applications help businesses analyze and visualize data, design business solutions, automate processes, and create no-code chatbots.

Read more: 5 Business Intelligence Tools You Need to Know

Whether you’re a data pro or are just entering the business world, Power BI is designed to empower you with data-driven insights. Some of the most common uses for the platform include:

Creating reports and dashboards that present data sets in multiple ways using visuals

Connecting various data sources, such as Excel sheets, onsite data warehouses, and cloud-based data storage, and then transforming them into business insights

Turning data into a wide range of different visuals, including pie charts, decomposition trees, gauge charts, KPIs, combo charts, bar and column charts, and ribbon charts – among many other options

Providing company-wide access to data, data visualization tools, and insights in order to create a data-driven work culture

Power BI users aren’t limited to data professionals, such as data scientists or data engineers, and can include a wide range of different business users. In fact, the platform is intentionally designed so non-technical users can easily create reports, manipulate data, and perform in-depth data analysis operations.

Nonetheless, some of the most common analyst positions that use the platform on a daily basis include the following:

As data becomes more and more important to the daily functioning of the goods and services that businesses provide, so too do business intelligence platforms capable of turning that data into insights, reports, and interactive visualizations.

For example, a university attempting to optimize the efficiency of their buildings might set up a system (like a digital twin) to collect real-time data on critical building systems. Afterward, they might connect these data sources to Power BI and identify areas for improvement.

An advertising company, meanwhile, running a digital marketing campaign might monitor its effectiveness by connecting various data sources to Power Bi and generating a dashboard that highlights key figures. Here, marketers would be able to better understand what marketing channels are best for reaching their target market.

Want to learn more about Power BI but aren’t sure where to start? Coursera Guided Projects offer step-by-step instructions on how to use the platform. In the project-based, interactive course Getting Started with Power BI Desktop, you’ll learn the basics of the platform in just two hours.

In the free Guided Project, Prepare, Clean, Transform, and Load Data using Power BI, you’ll learn practical ways for data cleaning and transformation on the platform.

While Microsoft’s Power BI is one of the most popular business intelligence platforms, it’s not the only one out there. As you’re exploring BI solutions for your workplace or future career, then, you might also consider exploring some common alternatives to Power BI, such as:

Tableau

Domo

Yellowfin

Qlink Sense

SAP Business Intelligence

Data empowers modern businesses, equipping them with actionable insights that facilitate strategic decision making. Prepare for a career in business analytics by taking a cost-effective, online specialization on Coursera.

In Wharton’s Business Analytics Specialization, you’ll learn how data analysts describe, predict, and inform business decisions in the specific areas of marketing, human resources, finance, and operations, while also developing basic data literacy and an analytic mindset that will help you make strategic decisions based on data. Best of all, the specialization is designed for all business professionals, including those without any prior analytics experience.

Through Google’s Data Analytics Professional Certificate, meanwhile, you’ll learn how to visualize and present data findings in dashboards, presentations and commonly used visualization platforms.

Editorial Team

Coursera’s editorial team is comprised of highly experienced professional editors, writers, and fact…

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.