Download code from GitHub
Introduction to Business Intelligence and Power BI
Power BI is a powerful ecosystem of business intelligence tools and technologies from Microsoft. But what exactly is business intelligence, anyway? Simply stated, business intelligence is all about leveraging data in order to make better decisions. This can take many forms and is not necessarily restricted to just business. We use data in our personal lives to make better decisions as well. For example, if we are remodeling a bathroom, we get multiple quotes from different firms. The prices and details in these quotes are pieces of data that allow us to make an informed decision in terms of which company to choose. We may also research these firms online. This is more data that ultimately supports our decision.
In this chapter, we will explore the key fundamental concepts of business intelligence, as well as why business intelligence...
Key concepts of business intelligence
Business intelligence, in the context of organizations, revolves around making better decisions about your business. Unlike the example in the introduction, organizations are not generally concerned with bathrooms, but rather with what can make their business more effective, efficient, and profitable. The businesses that provided those quotes on bathroom remodeling need to answer questions such as the following:
- How can the business attract new customers?
- How can the business retain more customers?
- Who are the competitors and how do they compare?
- What is driving profitability?
- Where can expenses be diminished?
There are endless questions that businesses need to answer every day, and these businesses need data coupled with business intelligence tools and techniques in order to answer these questions and make effective operational and strategic...
The Power BI ecosystem
While Power BI is often classified as a visualization tool, the reality is that Power BI is not a single tool but rather a collection of interrelated tools and services that form a complete business intelligence ecosystem of its own. This ecosystem spans the entire business intelligence spectrum, from data sources to modeling, analysis, and visualization. In addition, this ecosystem includes components that are specific to Power BI itself but also to other Microsoft technologies that interoperate with Power BI, as well as third-party integrations. This interoperation with other Microsoft tools and technologies as well as third-parties makes Power BI a formidable business intelligence platform whose value far exceeds that of more siloed business intelligence tools in the market.
While the Power BI ecosystem is vast and complex, this ecosystem can be broken...
Power BI licensing
There are a number of ways to license Power BI technology, including the following:
- Power BI Free
- Power BI Pro
- Power BI Premium
- Power BI Embedded
- Power BI Report Server
Power BI Free
Power BI Desktop is free to download, install, and use. In addition to simply sharing Power BI files (.pbix), which are the files that are created by the Power BI Desktop program, Microsoft provides a free method of using Power BI Service so that you can publish and share reports via a featured called Publish to web. Publish to web creates a web browser link or URL to a report that's published in the Power BI Service. While this URL is long and cryptic and these reports are not indexed by search engines, anyone with the...
Power BI Desktop and Service
After learning about the entire breadth and depth of the Power BI ecosystem and licensing, you may be wondering how on earth a single book can possibly cover everything there is to know about Power BI. The short answer is that it isn't possible. Entire books exist dedicated to just a single topic, including Power Query, DAX, and Power BI Embedded, alone. Even books that claim to be complete references to Power BI inevitably leave out some components of the entire Power BI ecosystem. Thus, this book is intended for those who wish to learn the basic, core components of the Power BI ecosystem, namely the following:
- Power BI Desktop:
- Power Query
- DAX
- Power BI Service:
- On-premises data gateway
Learning about these core technologies and, while doing so, learning how to build and share reports with meaningful business intelligence insights means...
Summary
In this chapter, we were introduced to business intelligence and its key concepts. Then, we took a broad look at the Power BI ecosystem. Finally, we explored some more specific capabilities of the Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service.
In the next chapter, we will get Power BI Desktop installed, explore its interface, and familiarize ourselves with some of its functionality.
Technical requirements
The following are some requirements to successfully complete the instructions in this chapter:
- You will need a connection to the internet.
- You will need Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2012 R2.
- Microsoft Power BI Desktop requires Internet Explorer 10 or higher.
- Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms.
Downloading and installing Power BI Desktop
There are actually three different versions of the Power BI Desktop application. Each version has its own method(s) for downloading and installing. The three versions of the Power BI Desktop are as follows:
- Power BI Desktop (the trusted Microsoft Store app)
- Power BI Desktop (MSI)
- Power BI Desktop (Report Server Edition)
Power BI Desktop (the trusted Microsoft Store app)
Power BI Desktop (the trusted Microsoft Store app) is the preferred Power BI Desktop application to install and use. Microsoft recommends this version of the Power BI Desktop as it is specifically built for use on 64-bit, Windows 10 and keeps itself updated automatically.
