Preface

Microsoft Power BI is a collection of business intelligence and analytics applications and services designed to work in coordination with each other to provide visual, interactive insights into data.

This book provides detailed, step-by-step technical examples of using all the primary Power BI tools and features and also demonstrates end-to-end solutions that leverage and integrate with Power BI technologies and services. You will become familiar with Power BI development tools and services; go deep into data connectivity and transformation, modeling, visualization and analytical capabilities of Power BI; and see Power BI's functional programming languages of DAX and M come alive to deliver powerful solutions that address challenging scenarios common to business intelligence.

This book is designed to excite and empower you to get more out of Power BI via detailed, step-by-step recipes, advanced design and development tips, and guidance on enhancing existing Power BI projects.

The second edition of this book includes even more recipes covering the latest enhancements and integrations to Power BI. All other recipes have been updated and revised to make the recipes more detailed, easier to follow, and entirely based on the stock Adventure Works DW database.

Who this book is for

This book is for business intelligence professionals that want to enhance their knowledge of Power BI design and development while increasing the value of the Power BI solutions they deliver. Those interested in quick resolutions to common challenges and a reference guide to Power BI features and design patterns are certain to find this book a useful resource.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Configuring Power BI Tools, covers the installation and configuration of the primary tools and services that BI professionals utilize to design and develop Power BI content, including Power BI Desktop, the On-Premises Data Gateway, Analyze in Excel, DAX Studio, Tabular Editor, and ALM Toolkit.

Chapter 2, Accessing and Retrieving Data, dives into Power BI Desktop's Get Data experience and walks through the process of establishing and managing data source connections and queries.

Chapter 3, Building a Power BI Data Model, explores the primary processes of designing and developing robust data models.

Chapter 4, Authoring Power BI Reports, develops and describes the most fundamental report visualizations and design concepts. Additionally, guidance is provided to enhance and control the user experience when consuming and interacting with Power BI reports in the Power BI service as well as on mobile devices.

Chapter 5, Working in the Service, covers Power BI dashboards constructed to provide simple, at-a-glance monitoring of critical measures and high-impact business activities.

Chapter 6, Getting Serious with Date Intelligence, contains recipes for preparing a data model to support robust date intelligence as well as recipes for authoring custom date intelligence measures.

Chapter 7, Parameterizing Power BI Solutions, covers both standard parameterization features and techniques in Power BI as well as more advanced custom implementations.

Chapter 8, Implementing Dynamic User-Based Visibility in Power BI, contains detailed examples of building and deploying dynamic, user-based security for both import and DirectQuery models as well as developing dynamic filter context functionality to enhance the user experience.

Chapter 9, Applying Advanced Analytics and Custom Visuals, contains a broad mix of recipes highlighting many of the latest and most popular custom visualizations and advanced analytics features of Power BI.

Chapter 10, Administering and Monitoring Power BI, highlights the most common and impactful administration data sources including Windows Performance Monitor, SQL Server Query Store, the Microsoft On-Premises Data Gateway, the MSDB system database, Extended Events, Office 365 audit log, and Power BI REST API.

Chapter 11, Enhancing and Optimizing Existing Power BI Solutions, contains top data modeling, DAX measure, and M query patterns to enhance the performance, scalability, and reliability of Power BI datasets.

Chapter 12, Deploying and Distributing Power BI Content, contains detailed examples and considerations for deploying and distributing Power BI content via the Power BI service and Power BI mobile applications.

Chapter 13, Integrating Power BI with Other Applications, highlights new and powerful integrations between Power BI, SSAS, SSRS, Excel, PowerPoint, PowerApps, Power Automate, and Dynamics 365.

To get the most out of this book

• Some prior knowledge of Power BI is recommended.
• A Power BI Desktop and Power BI service account (both free).
• Tabular Editor 2.x (free).
• DAX Studio (free).
• SQL Server (any edition, including Express and Developer, which are free) with the AdventureWorksDW2019 database installed. This database is a free download and instructions for installing are available here: http://bit.ly/2OVQfG7.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Microsoft-Power-BI-Cookbook-Second-Edition. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801813044_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example; "After completing these steps, the reports all have a live connection back to the dataset, CH5_R1_SalesAndFinanceDataset."

A block of code is set as follows:

let
    Source = AdWorksDW,
    Data = Source{[Schema="dbo",Item="vCH3R2_Products"]}[Data]
in
    Data

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

Products Rows (Sales) = CALCULATE(COUNTROWS('Products'),'Internet Sales') 

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appear in the text like this. For example: "The Manage roles dialog box includes the ability to set Precedence."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: Email [e-mail], and mention the book's title in the subject of your message. If you have questions about any aspect of this book, please email us at [e-mail].

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit, http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [e-mail] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit http://authors.packtpub.com.

Share Your Thoughts

Once you've read Microsoft Power BI Cookbook, Second Edition, we'd love to hear your thoughts! Please click here to go straight to the Amazon review page for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we're delivering excellent quality content.

Download a free PDF copy of this book

Thanks for purchasing this book!

Do you like to read on the go but are unable to carry your print books everywhere? Is your eBook purchase not compatible with the device of your choice?

Don’t worry, now with every Packt book you get a DRM-free PDF version of that book at no cost.

Read anywhere, any place, on any device. Search, copy, and paste code from your favorite technical books directly into your application.

The perks don’t stop there, you can get exclusive access to discounts, newsletters, and great free content in your inbox daily

Follow these simple steps to get the benefits:

1. Scan the QR code or visit the link below

   

   https://packt.link/free-ebook/9781801813044

2. Submit your proof of purchase
3. That’s it! We’ll send your free PDF and other benefits to your email directly