Prerequisitesĭownload Power BI Desktop from this link.įor this example, I used the old Pubs database (to create something different than AdventureWorks samples).

I'll cover deep, detailed discussion about these products in future chapters, but for now, let's look at Power BI Desktop with a very easy example.

To be a professional and expert in Power BI, you have to be an expert in Power Query (M language), and Power Pivot (DAX expressions). You can solve very complex challenges with Power BI Desktop only because of its underlying components. Power BI Desktop uses three powerful components, and two of those components give you extensive features (I mean Power Query and Power Pivot). Power BI Desktop has everything in one editor, and this makes it an easy to use the tool, but don't be a fool of this easy interface. Then Power View connects to the model and visualizes the data with different charts and visualization elements. Power Pivot can set the relationship and allow you to create measures and calculated columns and set the data model as you want. Power Query connects to data sources and mashes up the data with a formula language, the result set of Power Query will be loaded into a tabular model which is Power Pivot. Power BI Desktop as mentioned above is an editor for three components Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View. Power BI Desktop apply all of these actions on a *.pbix file, and it can publish the file directly to the Power BI website where users can see the report and interact with it from a web browser. Power BI Desktop can connect to many data sources, transform the data, load it into a data model with relationship design, and finally visualize it in a report style. Power BI Desktop is the development editor released 24th of July 2015 for Power BI. If you want to know What is Power BI read the first section of the book here. This would be the first experience with Power BI Desktop. In this section I want to get you to start working with Power BI Desktop, you will get familiar with Power BI Desktop editor, and you'll see main panes of that. Power BI Desktop has three components all in one (Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View), it can upload directly to Power BI website, and it is a recently released product with many shining features. There are some reasons that I chose Power BI Desktop for the very first demo of this book.

Pubs database download