Know How to Double Profits With Power BI
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- jaro Education
- 17, August 2024
- 6:00 pm
In today’s data-driven sphere, gaining mastery over tools like Power BI could be a certain way to stay ahead. The Power BI tool from Microsoft is a strong piece of analytics software that puts visualization and sharing insights at the users’ disposal with their organization, all concerning things with data. Certainly, learning Power BI for beginners can significantly enhance the skills of data analysts, business professionals, and individuals progressing up the value chain of in-demand skills. The article will take you through learning how to use Power BI: an introduction to its basics, training techniques, and best practices.
What Is Power BI?
*Simply Dynamics
Power BI is a set of software applications, services, and connectors that can transform raw data into meaningful, immersive, and interactive insights.
It was developed by Microsoft and has a vast range of flexibility in terms of its use. It can cater to inputs from Excel sheets, databases, or even cloud storage. It allows you to connect the data sources, derive the insights, and then share them with others. Power BI is the most widely used business intelligence tool out there; now why is that? Let us discuss why using Power BI is in high demand and what makes it different from other tools.
Why Power BI?
*Vantos Technologies
There is “data as the new oil” in the world today. An organization needs a tool to assist them in understanding the lot of data it is collecting. Microsoft Power BI introduced such needful things. It is a strong data visualization and analysis tool allowing organizations to turn raw data into viable actions and reports.
Power BI helps users who are very new and don’t come from an analytical or tech background. Still, they can prepare reports on Power BI from the desktop. Microsoft Power BI comes in a free and paid version. The free version only provides Power BI tools – for instance, Power BI Desktop and Power Q&A—for dashboards. The Pro version provides services like live report sharing, Power View, and other Power BI applications.
Now that we understand what Power BI is, let’s look at how to use it once our devices have it fully loaded.
Installation of Microsoft Power BI
Power BI Desktop exists in two versions: 32-bit and 64-bit. How to use The Power BI desktop app creates a report where, for publishing reports, Power BI Services (Software as a Service—SaaS) are followed, and the Power BI Mobile app helps view dashboards and reports.
Some of the major Companies Using Power BI
Power BI is quite popular among business intelligence users, and here are some large customers of Microsoft Power BI in their intelligence reports:
- Nestle
- Dell
- Vale
- Infosys Ltd
- Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC
- The North Face
- RHI Magnesita
- Cargill
- NielsenIQ
- L’Oréal
- Hospital Montfort
Getting Started with Power BI
To begin with, you should have at least a minimum base in how to use Power BI. Here’s how to approach it from the beginning.
*Learn Microsoft
- Download Power BI Desktop: Download how to use Power BI Desktop for free from Microsoft’s website. It is the hub that contains everything you need to master or learn Power BI with the basics.
- Explore the Interface: Before proceeding, take a little time to explore the How to Learn Power BI interface and at least know different panes like Fields, Visualizations, and Filters.
- Connect to Data Sources: Power BI provides a wide range of data source connections. You would generally start with Excel files, as they are in common use and relatively easier to deal with. Later on, you start exploring more intricate ones, such as SQL databases and cloud services.
- Create Your First Report: Create your first report with sample data. Produce insights with drag-and-drop simplicity. Use the drag-and-drop feature to move fields around and come up with some of the most interactive and iconic types of data representation.
Power BI Prep Basics
Before moving on, you must be eager to learn Power BI basics. Some of the things include
- Loading Data and Transformation: This webinar would help you understand how to get data into Power BI by importing, cleaning, and transforming it through the Power Query Editor. This ensures the data is correct and ready for analysis.
- Modelling: This section explains the relationships between different tables. In a good data model, the key to good data analysis resides.
- DAX (Data Analysis Expressions): A formula language to perform custom calculations in Power BI and learn Power BI details. Start with simple functions such as SUM, AVERAGE, and COUNT and move on to more advanced calculations.
- Visualization Techniques: Features that enable you to format, design, and build visualisations of new and different formats into your reports. The reports can have a myriad of options within chart types, slicers, and filter options.
Power BI Training Resources
There is comprehensive training available to learn Power BI. For this purpose, fortunately, there are various resources handy:
- Online Courses: The training workshops available online for individuals to learn Power BI are prime courses offered on most platforms, including Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning. The courses are very intense, with both foundational and advanced courses.
- Microsoft Learn—free learning path: In this Microsoft Learn guide, we cover all things needed to learn Power BI, from its basics to the very advanced features.
- YouTube: Tutorials on YouTube are filled with a lot of stuff that will help you learn Power BI. Channels like Guy in a Cube and Enterprise DNA provide a lot of value with step-by-step guides.
- Books, E-Books: There are quite a few very good books available on Power BI, like “Pro Power BI Desktop” by Adam Aspin, and “The Definitive Guide to D2AX” by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari—and these are good resources for delving a step closer to learning more in-depth.
Best Practices for Learning Power BI
Below are some best practices for learning Power BI:
- Practical Experience: Real-world projects and datasets are indispensable for comprehensive learning.
- Join the Community: Listening to the Power BI community can bring quite a lot of enlightenment. Engaging in webinars, forums, and local user groups can help you stay competitive and gain the support of your peers in the learning community.
- Keep Up to Date: Power BI is always advancing with new functionality and updates. Sign up and follow the Power BI blog to receive updates on the new developments.
- Certification: To be certified in Power BI is to have your skills validated. It augments your credibility, so regardless of what course you undertake, you can always go for the Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate.
Ways of Growing in Power BI
Once you have sufficiently mastered the basics, move on to learn Power BI’s more advanced features to attain better mastery.
- Advanced DAX Functions: Unleash the Power of DAX by learning advanced functions used to create complex calculations and measures. Time Intelligence Functions, Iterative Functions, and Advanced Filtering Methods.
- Writing Custom Visuals: Create custom visuals with R or Python. While you will need to use tools such as HTML and JavaScript libraries, you will still need to create one for your particular or niche data visualization needs.
- Power BI Service: See how to use and learn Power BI for publishing your reports and collaborating with your colleagues. Take a look at dashboards, workspaces, and app workspaces.
- Other Tool Integration: Power BI can easily be integrated with other Microsoft tools and software like Excel, Azure, and Power Automate. Learning to work with these can accelerate your data workflows.
Real-World Power BI Applications
Power BI has varied applications in terms of sectors and functions. Below are some use cases for how different sectors apply Power BI:
1. Finance
When budgeting, forecasting, and reporting on finances, financial analysts lay great emphasis on the use of Power BI to come up with financial dashboards. The dynamic method of coming up with financial dashboards assures the analysts that key performance indicators, which will directly affect the financial health of the organization, are in control.
2. Marketing
Drawing on historical data, marketers monitor campaign performance, analyse customer data, and optimise marketing efforts with Power BI. All marketing efforts are evaluated using data from various sources.
3. Sales
Sales teams use Power BI to monitor sales performance, keep track of the pipeline for opportunities, and identify growth areas using real-time dashboards to make informed decisions.
4. Healthcare
Healthcare professionals make use of Power BI for patient data analytics, resource management, and operational efficiency. With the ability to process many large datasets, Power BI is highly suited for any health analytics work.
Key Features of Power BI
Some of these features are as follows:
- Data Visualisation: Power BI is used by businesses to create interactive reports and dashboards that display data in various ways, through charts, graphs, maps, or any form of visual representation of data.
- Collaborative Working: Power BI allows multiple users to work on the same report or dashboard at the same time. For teams working together, it makes it easier to share data and insights.
- Data Transformation: It has the potential to change raw data into meaningful information via cleansing and transforming it into a more usable format. In this way, organizations will be working on clean, accurate data that can be easily analysed.
- Integration: Power BI integrates seamlessly with different Microsoft products or applications like Excel, SharePoint, and Teams. They help in the workflow of projects.
- Integration APIs: This feature gives developers sample codes and APIs through which they encode the Power BI dashboards in other software products.
From Campus to Career: Mastering Power BI at the Best University
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee has placed itself very high up among the premier institutes of national importance in higher technological education and engineering, basic, and applied research. Since its inception, the Institute has started rendering invaluable assistance to the nation by way of providing technical manpower and know-how, equally at the same time being involved in research. The Institute ranks among the very best technological institutions across the world and has contributed to all sectors of technological development. It is also considered a trendsetter in the area of education and research in the domains of science, technology, and engineering.
Snapshot:
Data science and artificial intelligence have been applied to the analysis of different kinds of real-world datasets to produce actionable insights for applications in business, the economy, and society. These skill sets have gained paramount importance for organizations in reanalysing IIT Roorkee’s Post Graduate Certificate Programme in Applied Data Science and AI (PGCP DSAI) is designed to help working professionals learn the basics of data science and AI, work with related software technologies, and use these technologies wisely in their applications.
Eligibility criteria:
The programme is open for a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) from any recognised university in any discipline with aggregate marks of 50 percent. Ideally, candidates should have one year of work experience after completing their qualifying degree.
Chart Your Career Path with Jaro Education’s Professional Guidance
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Conclusion
It is fun to learn Power BI, very interesting to explore, and offers a very rewarding experience for career development and improvement in making data-based decisions. Only with dedication, practice, and proper resources can you take this journey toward knowing more—not just the basic understanding but getting good at advanced techniques. By following this learning path, you should be well on your way to building your skills in Power BI and taking full advantage of it.
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