1B. Get started building with Power BI Flashcards
What are the parts of Power BI?
- a Microsoft Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop
- an online SaaS (Software as a Service) service called the Power BI service
- and mobile Power BI apps that are available on any device, with native mobile BI apps for Windows, iOS, and Android.
What is a common flow of work in Power BI?
It begins in Power BI Desktop, where a report is created. That report is then published to the Power BI service and finally shared, so that users of Power BI Mobile apps can consume the information.
In more detail:
- Bring data into Power BI Desktop, and create a report.
- Publish to the Power BI service, where you can create new visualizations or build dashboards.
- Share dashboards with others, especially people who are on the go.
- View and interact with shared dashboards and reports in Power BI Mobile apps
What are the basic building blocks of Power BI?
- Reports consist of visualizations and semantic models created with Power BI Desktop application.
- Dashboards consist of tiles from report visualizations created in the online Power BI service.
What is a visualization (or visual)?
A visual representation of data, like a chart, a color-coded map, or other interesting things you can create to represent your data visually. Power BI has all sorts of visualization types, and more are coming all the time. The following image shows a collection of different visualizations that were created in Power BI.
What is the goal of a visual?
To present data in a way that provides context and insights, both of which would probably be difficult to discern from a raw table of numbers or text.
What is a semantic model
A collection of data that Power BI uses to create its visualizations. It can be a single spreadsheet, or a combination of many different sources, which you can filter and combine to provide a unique collection of data for use in Power BI.
What is a report?
A collection of visualizations on one or more pages, that (generally) combine related data.
What is a dashboard?
A selected group of visuals that provide quick and important insight into the data or story you’re trying to present. They are limited to a single page.
How can users interact with dashboards?
Users can interact with them through the Power Bi service or on a mobile decive.
What is a tile?
A single visualization on a dashboard. It’s the rectangular box that holds an individual visual.
What is an app?
A way to group related reports and dashboards and distribute to the appropriate audience(s).
What are some benefits of apps compared to reports and/or dashboards?
- They provide a cleaner look with only the relevant content.
- They’re also customizable with app color and thumbnail.
- They also allow you to configure multiple audiences if you need to limit access to certain pages in a report, for instance.
Can you refresh data sets from inside an app?
Yes, you can manually refresh or schedule up to eight refreshes per day at minimum.
What do you do in Power BI Desktop?
Author reports made up of semantic models and visualizations
What do you do in Power BI service?
Create dashboards from published reports and distribute content with apps
