Power Bi – Data Analytics & Visualization
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- Power Bi – Data Analytics & Visualization
Imagine you have thousands of records in a file and need to analyse them together – tough, right?
A pictorial representation of data is much more user-friendly and easy to comprehend. Power Bi is an advanced application developed by Microsoft to do exactly that. It feeds in a large amount of data from different sources as input and builds dynamic reports and analyses. It is easy to use with various data collecting applications like Microsoft Excel and helps publish import insights required for business. It works effortlessly with big data so that you can plug in information from all of your sources and generate required reports. Discover the benefits of our Power BI course in Delhi and gain a competitive edge in the field of data analytics.
Power BI is a business analytics service provided by Microsoft that allows users to analyze data and create interactive visualizations, reports, and dashboards. It is a cloud-based service that can be accessed from a web browser or through mobile apps for iOS and Android. Power BI is designed to work witha wide range ofy data sources, including spreadsheets, databases, cloud services, and big data sources.
Power BI offers a range of features that make it a powerful business analytics tool. Here are some of the key features of Power BI:
One of the main advantages of power is its ability to connect with various data sources. Some prime examples are IBM, MySQL, ORACLE, and Azure databases. It can also access data from online directories such as GitHub, and many more data sources are on the way to integrating with Power Bi soon. Steps for Data Connection with various sources in Data Analytics & Visualization are provided below:
Let us get deeper into the topics one by one. Microsoft Power Bi is a business intelligence tool, and live and extract modes in Power Bi are some of the primary applications. There isn’t a second copy of the data kept in memory with this kind of connection. In the live mode, the power connects with datasets from only three types of applications from SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) technology. They are
Dynamic generation of reports after real-time tracking is an important aspect of live mode. However, do know that the modelling options in Power BI are severely constrained with the Live connection – just measures can be made.
Extract mode, also known as direct query, is excellent in handling large datasets that need to be processed. Instead of storing the data, it fetches the data directly from the source during the query time to save storage. It is also utilised for generating quick reports when the real-time data changes continuously.
Let us take the terms Measures & Dimensions in Power Bi individually. Measures are for analysis in Power Bi. It calculates different business metrics from the formulas that you provide for evaluation. It uses the Data Analyst Expression Language library of over two hundred different formulas and functions to create the result that you desire. Think of it as a mathematical tool for automatic calculations like MIN, AVERAGE, MAX, and SUM.
For example, it can create a graph of your projected sales for next year – if you provide this year’s sales and year-on-year growth. Not only that, it can create a visual representation of different analyses of your data — for example, profit percentages and net revenue, without user intervention.
The pieces of information that are not related to mathematical calculations are kept in dimension tables; they are business entities. While a fact table stores information about sales, a dimension table can contain information about the buyer, like their name, age, and address. The types of dimensions available are static dimensions, slowly changing dimensions, and rapidly changing dimensions.
Measures & Dimensions in Power Bi give great results together!
Minor Data wrangling in Power Bi is one of the earliest stages in analysis. Firstly, it acts as a central repository and collects data from different sources. Then, it merges different complex data sets after removing errors and redundancies. With the increasing popularity of big data, it has become a prerequisite to storing and organising various data sets efficiently. Minor data wrangling helps to eradicate and fill blank cells according to client needs, therefore making efficient use of space. It reorganises data groups and converts raw datasets into a more useful format for analysis. Minor data wrangling in Power Bi helps in workflow automation and helps in recognising the valuation of your business.
Microsoft power query is a very powerful tool built in MS excel that is an excellent data wrangling tool. One of the prime advantages is that it integrates with other Microsoft applications like Power Bi to take data wrangling experience to the next level.
The ability to combine different datasets is known as data blending. Data Blending in power Bi gives a powerful feature of linking two or more related tables to provide a compact view, which also removes redundancy. To strengthen its data Blending in Power BI tools, Microsoft partnered with data blending and analytics company Alteryx Inc.
Data blending in Power Bi requires at least two primary and secondary data sources. The first dataset becomes the main view to which different fields of the second dataset get joined.
Think of it as a join in SQL. For example, suppose there are two datasets for sales data, and we need a comparison between the actual sale and targeted sales for this year. Data blending is the merging done by keeping an entity as a pivot, for example, the unique id of the selling material.
It is how different information links with each other. Data modelling in Power Bi connects multiple data sources and tables using relationships. For example, suppose you have a sales table with details of the item sold and the customer’s phone number.
Another table contains the customer’s details like name, address, and contact number. Data modelling in Power Bi connects these two tables based on one common information – the contact number. By modelling your data, you may record the data you have, how you utilise it, and the usage, security, and management needs. You can speed up data extraction and analytics by making plans for security, scalability, and development. Data modelling in Power Bi helps you meet business deadlines and tracks performance reports. According to your business needs, the types of data modelling offered are Conceptual data modelling, Logical data modelling, and Physical data modelling. Maintainance and updation of the models are very easy as the user does not need to do anything on their own.
The full form of DAX is Data Analysis Expressions. It has a vast library of functions, operands, and operators to make mathematical calculations easy. You can develop new insight from data already present in your model by using DAX to tackle a variety of computations and financial analyses. It can take your business to new levels by generating profit reports or by giving an insight into your project’s business growth in the future. By looking into the reports, you can alter some of your business metrics to take them to the next level. If you need to consider only specific values for analysis, DAX in Power Bi provides that too. DAX has functions that enable you to utilise the present row data as a parameter. It also has specific time intelligence functions. You can select a starting and ending date, and get a dynamic report based on that, for example, a population chart of a nation. Example of a DAX in Power Bi; Total population = SUM(Population[Male,Female]). Here, the table name is population, and column names are male and female. This formula sums up the total count.
Charts in Power Bi provide an interactive approach to analysing different reports. Some of the most used charts in Power Bi are as follows :
Dashboards in Power Bi allow you to have all the insights clubbed together on a single screen. It is referred to as canvas because it tells a story — a story about the business! If you want to gain insight that highlights the business features, you need dashboards in Power Bi. Do note that the dashboard only comes in Power Bi service and not on Power Bi desktops. The feature works like a dashboard in real life – we can create or edit the dashboards by pinning the business metrics on the screen that we think are necessary. It can combine several datasets to give a beautiful representation of different metrics. It is dynamic – the tiles keep changing with changes in the data sets.
Data storytelling is the way we tell stories about data to the user. Stories in Power Bi are a strong and effective way of storytelling in the visual form. Complex information is made understandable through data storytelling. Stories in Power Bi allow clients to interact efficiently and extract their key ideas. Your data should add value to your organisation and inspire others to make a change for the better. It should be easy to understand, therefore increasing client engagement.
Most importantly, keep an unbiased approach while telling a story and being open to contradictions. Utilise unbiased data sets to influence your stories in Power Bi and how your ideas will bring a revolution.
You can utilise Power Bi’s web feature that allows insights and reports from your Power Bi account to be uploaded anywhere across the web so that your story reaches many people and moves them.
Even though Tableau is a similar application that works by visualising data, there are some key differences between Tableau & Power Bi.