A Complete Guided Tour Through the Power BI Interface

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A Complete Guided Tour Through the Power BI Interface

Welcome to our comprehensive Power BI interface guide, designed specifically for professionals, data enthusiasts, and beginners looking to master Microsoft’s powerful analytics tool. This playlist offers a step-by-step walkthrough of the entire Power BI interface, ensuring you understand its features, functionalities, and best practices.

Whether starting your data journey or enhancing your BI skills, this course covers everything from basic navigation to advanced features. Join us to unlock the full potential of Power BI and transform your data into actionable insights.

What You’ll Learn:
• Navigating the Power BI interface like a pro
• Understanding key components: Dashboards, Reports, and Data Models
• Customizing your workspace for maximum efficiency
• Tips and tricks for seamless data visualization

Ideal For:
• Data Analysts and Business Intelligence Professionals
• Beginners eager to dive into data visualization
• Power BI users looking to refine their skills

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Power BI basics tutorial
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Power BI report creation step by step
Power BI interface navigation demo
Power BI desktop overview
Power BI tutorial for beginners
Power BI interface features explained
How to use Power BI interface
Creating Power BI reports and dashboards

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Transcript
00:00Hey friends, welcome to this first video about the Power BI desktop interface.
00:11So before we get started, let me just say my assumption here is that you have never
00:15worked with Power BI before, so it's completely new for you, which is great because this allows
00:20us to explore together.
00:22If on the other hand, you already have seen Power BI or worked with it before, feel free
00:27to skip this lecture, but I would still recommend have a look at it.
00:31Let's go through it and see whether you already really know everything which is inside here.
00:36So let's get started.
00:38When you first open Power BI desktop, you should see an interface which is kind of similar
00:42to this one.
00:43Why do I say kind of?
00:45Well, the reason is that Power BI from Microsoft is under constant development.
00:50That means depending on when you see this video, then the interface might have slightly
00:55changed, but no worries because everything you learn here in this course is up to date
01:00and you can use it in Power BI.
01:02And also in the future when I will re-update the videos, then of course you also will then
01:07see the other or new interface.
01:10So to get started, this is what you should see when you first open Power BI desktop.
01:16So normally there's also a pop-up window, but I already closed this and then this is
01:20actually the interface you have at the beginning.
01:23Now what we need in order to get started with Power BI is of course some data, right?
01:29And the way to import data into Power BI is quite simple because already on the starting
01:33page here, it tells us to add data to our report.
01:38Now we have various options in here.
01:40The first one would be this one here.
01:42If we want to import Excel data, you can simply click on this Excel logo here and then you
01:47can navigate to a specific folder on your desktop or on a shared drive you might have
01:52and then simply select the file you want to use and import this in Power BI.
01:57The other option, I will not do this here now, are of course here also I can use data
02:00from SQL Server or I can also here paste data into a blank table, so you can also copy and
02:07paste data into Power BI, Control-C, Control-V, or you can also try a sample data set.
02:12If you want to start with some sample data, this is financial data which comes from Microsoft,
02:16you can click here and select the sample data set.
02:20Of course, these are not all the sources we have in Power BI.
02:23We can also go to get data from other source if the source you want to use is not there,
02:28then you can click here, get data from other source, and then a little window appears just
02:32a second.
02:33There it is.
02:34And there we can specify the source we want to have.
02:37And you can see already there are quite a lot of data sources we can see here, right?
02:42So the old data sources regarding databases, flat files, and also some web data sources
02:48as well.
02:49And of course, also the cloud like Azure and so on.
02:52If you want to filter this a little bit, simply go here and search and type in the data space
02:56you want to search for.
02:58For instance, if I search Oracle, just as an example here, I will see Oracle database
03:01in here.
03:03Or I could, of course, also pre-select the data I want to filter.
03:07For instance, if I want to have file data source, I can go to file, and I would see
03:10all the file options I have.
03:12I can also go to other things like Microsoft Fabric, which is currently in preview here,
03:17and also other kinds of sources like Azure and others and online sources and so on.
03:22So I would assume that you probably find the data source you want to connect to inside
03:26these options in here.
03:28So let me just close this.
03:29This was the second option to click here.
03:32And of course, there's also inside this ribbon menu on the top, the option to get either
03:37data from these sources here, like Excel workbook, then there's SQL server.
03:43The data would mean we enter data manually, so copy-paste.
03:47There's the so-called data hub.
03:49Microsoft might rename this in the future, but right now it's called data hub.
03:53And under data hub, there are also data sources regarding Microsoft.
03:56For instance, Power BI data sets, data marts, lake houses, and warehouses.
04:02So all these ones are also from the brand new Microsoft Fabric.
04:06And then there's also Dataverse, which is also a database which comes from Microsoft
04:11directly.
04:12You can also go to recent sources if you have worked with Power BI before, and then you
04:16can refer to a recent source.
04:18Or the same menu as you've seen when we click here, there's also this get data option.
04:22You can click here and then you can select the database or data source you want.
04:26And of course, you can also go to more.
04:28And if you do this, you will see exactly the same window appearing here.
04:31And again, you can choose the specific data source you want to use.
04:34So you can see there are various options to achieve the same thing in Power BI.
04:39And this is actually not only here the case, but this also you want to, you will see it
04:44later on that this is actually something which I call redundancy a little bit in Power BI.
04:49So you can do the same thing on multiple places.
04:52But I personally think this is quite good because sometimes you might not spot exactly
04:56immediately what, where to find a specific option, and then it's good to have it on various
05:01places.
05:02So let me just close this.
05:04I just wanted to mention that.
05:05All right.
05:06So these are the data sources we have in order to connect to data to get started.
05:10And this is something we're going to cover then, of course, in the next couple of videos.
05:15Before I continue, I would like to mention that currently my interface is always with
05:19the big icons, but some people prefer it to have the small icons.
05:24And there's an option like for various, in this case, Microsoft products to simply click
05:29on this little arrow here and switch ribbons.
05:31And if you do this, then you have this kind of menu.
05:34So some people prefer the little icons here.
05:36And if you do so, please go ahead and feel free to switch to this specific view.
05:41But I, during the course, I will keep the big icons here because that's what I'm used
05:45to and that's what I prefer.
05:47But again, that's totally up to you what you prefer.
05:50So that's it for the data we have here.
05:53Then next, still under the home ribbon here, we have the option to transform data here.
05:59This is regarding queries and also refresh.
06:02Refresh is currently grayed out because we do not have any data in here, but the transform
06:06option is still, it's already available.
06:09And what it does basically is, it depends on your prior knowledge, but what it is, is
06:13a so-called power query editor.
06:16So if you have worked with Excel a lot before, then this is quite familiar to you.
06:20But what it allows us, if you hover over it, it also tells you, it allows us to connect
06:24to data and also to repair data, to clean the data, to transform the data.
06:28What is meant by that is that most often, and you all know that, in the real world,
06:33the problem is that we have some data, but this data is, let's say, messy, right?
06:38It's not in the right format.
06:39We need to clean it, so we need to transform it in order to make it work for us and then
06:44create our reports, our visualizations, and so on.
06:47And this is what the power query allows us to do.
06:50So we can use some kind of messy data, import it into the query editor, then we transform
06:55it, we clean it, we shape it exactly the way we want it, and then we load it into Power
07:00BI, and then with this clean data, we then create our reports.
07:04I also like to mention is that when we do this in the query editor, we do not change
07:10the underlying data.
07:12So all the transformations are done in Power BI, but our underlying data source will not
07:16change, okay?
07:18So that's also something I like to mention because not everyone knows that.
07:22And then under refresh, as I said before, it's kind of probably intuitive, but this
07:26just means that if you work with Power BI and in the meantime, the underlying data source
07:31changed because, for instance, someone has or edits the Excel file or the file you use
07:36in Power BI, and then, of course, you can click on this refresh option, and then the
07:41imported data in Power BI gets refreshed, and then you have the latest data.
07:44For instance, let's say there's a new month and you get new financial data and you want
07:48to refresh it or new sales data and you want to refresh it, then you can simply click refresh
07:52icon here and you see the latest data in your report.
07:55Just make sure that the data structure does not change because otherwise, if, for instance,
08:00some kind of columns are missing in your file, then, of course, Power BI will complain because
08:04it will not find the columns, okay?
08:08So under visual options here, we have the option to import results into our report,
08:14and these are actually templates we have.
08:16So if I click on new visual here, for instance, you see that I have a template in here.
08:20We chose here bar chart, but it's actually a template which we now need to fill with
08:26data.
08:27So put something on the x-axis, on the y-axis, on the legends, and so on, right?
08:31So we can specify what we want to see here.
08:33Also, it tells us here you need data to build visual, select, get data, and add some, right?
08:39Because currently we don't have anything, but that's basically what it is.
08:42It's just a template for visualization if we simply click here.
08:46And let me just click delete here.
08:49Of course, there are also these kind of visuals here.
08:51These are the default ones which you can find.
08:53So let me just click on this to open the visual gallery.
08:56You can see there's a bar and column charts are there, there are line charts, waterfall,
09:00funnel charts, and so on, various maps, the pie doughnuts, the tree map, and so on.
09:06So all these kinds of visualizations are available for us.
09:09And also, if you are or have a data science background, there also are a Python visuals
09:14if you want to use that as well.
09:16And also some AI visuals because the AI is also kind of hot topic right now, right?
09:21So there are also some built-in visualizations which use AI technology in Power BI.
09:27So next to this, there's also an option to add text box.
09:32So any kind of texts in Power BI.
09:34So if you simply click here, let me do that, then you can see there's my text box and now
09:39I can add some data here.
09:41For instance, I could say, hello, welcome to Power BI.
09:47So like that.
09:48And then if I press control A, I can select everything and then I can customize this.
09:52I can make it bold.
09:53I can change here the font if I like to have a different font, so Dean, for instance, and
09:58also make this bigger.
09:59Let's say 20.
10:00You can see that it's bigger, I can make this also bigger.
10:04If I hover over the three dots, I can drag this around.
10:07You can also do it if you hover over the line sometimes, but I think this is more difficult
10:11for me.
10:12I always use the three dots to drag it.
10:13It's easier for me.
10:15And of course, if I go here, select everything, control A again, I can also then also use
10:20all these things I have here.
10:21I can center it if I would like to do this.
10:23I can write it in italic, underline it.
10:26I can also insert a link if I want to do this and other kinds of options.
10:29They also can add dynamic, well, dynamic inputs here.
10:34For instance, I can add a specific measure which I calculate.
10:37For instance, sales revenue, and this will be dynamic inside this text.
10:40This can also be added here.
10:42So I'm going to show this.
10:43Of course, we can dive deeper into visualizations later on, but for now, let's just say this
10:48is how easily we can add text boxes in here and of course, drag them around.
10:54Next to this, we have the option to add more visuals.
10:57So this just means that if the default visualizations we have in Power BI, if those are not enough
11:03for you because you say, for a specific use case, I need a different visual, something
11:08which is not available in here, then there is an option to import also custom visuals.
11:13This is under more visuals and there are two options, either from AppSource or from MyFiles.
11:20The difference is that from MyFiles means that you would need to have downloaded the
11:25specific visuals up front and then you can refer here, click here for MyFiles and navigate
11:31via caution, put visuals and so on.
11:32But if I go to import now, I can navigate to a specific folder and then I can select
11:36the specific visual I want to use.
11:40From AppSource, on the other hand, we go one more time, more visuals, AppSource.
11:44This will open a navigation window here, but I need to be aware that this will only work
11:51if you are signed into Power BI.
11:53So in order to use AppSource from here, you need to be signed in with a Power BI account.
11:59You can sign up for Power BI for free, but you can only do it with a corporate account,
12:05so your work email address, for instance, or institutional account like a school or
12:09anything like that.
12:10There are some workarounds, but these are actually the normal default settings at least.
12:16So if I go to from AppSource here, just to show this to you, just a second, then this
12:21window appears, Power BI visuals, and there you can see there are a lot of visuals in
12:25here, which I can choose from.
12:27Some of those are free, other ones you have to pay for.
12:30They have some kind of features which are premium features and they can only be enabled
12:34if you pay for the visual.
12:38So what you can search here, filter by specific topics, for instance, to find a specific visual.
12:43You can click the search here, up there, you can sort by popularity, or also, which might
12:48be more interesting regarding company and environments, that you can search for Power
12:54BI certified visuals.
12:57You might have this little blue checkbox here, and this just means that at least Microsoft
13:01has reviewed those visuals and said they are not harmful in any way.
13:07So sometimes companies allow, for instance, only Power BI certified visuals, and then
13:12this would be a filter you can use in order to choose them from these visuals in here.
13:17So of course, this is something you have to decide together with your IT department, right,
13:21your IT admins.
13:22They, of course, need to approve specific visuals and only then you can use them, because
13:27there are also some companies which do not allow any kind of custom visuals.
13:31So that depends on the specific company in the environment.
13:35So if you want to add something from here, for instance, if I say I have this chiclet
13:38slicer here and I want to use this, I simply click on it.
13:42And if I do that, it gets loaded, just a second, and then we can see a little bit more information
13:47about it.
13:48Here it is.
13:50So I can take a look at the sample, so I can download the sample, which is a sample report
13:54in Power BI where the chiclet slicer is used, or I could also click on add directly.
14:00And by the way, here you can see the pricing.
14:01This, for instance, is completely free, the social.
14:04So I can go to add in here, and then I just need to wait, and now the import is successful.
14:10And if I go in here, under my visuals, you can see there, for instance, already there's
14:14a chiclet slicer, right?
14:15So this is now appearing here, and I could use it in my report.
14:19That's how easy it is to import specific visuals.
14:24Next to that, we also have the option to create calculations, which is DAX in Power BI.
14:29So DAX is the formula language in Power BI.
14:31Like in Excel, we have formulas.
14:33In Power BI, we have DAX.
14:35And there are two options in here.
14:36There are the measure option and the quick measure option.
14:40Both of them are currently grayed out.
14:42The reason for this is because we currently don't have any data.
14:46And if we do not have any data, then, of course, we can't create any kind of calculations
14:49based on data.
14:52If you're wondering what is the difference between a measure, new measure, and quick
14:55measure, well, if we click on new measure, and we will see this during the course, then
15:00this would mean that we need to write DAX completely from scratch, right?
15:06If you click on the quick measure option, then you have the option to simply drag and
15:11drop specific, well, columns from your data in this option, in this quick measure option.
15:18And then Power BI will create the DAX formula for you.
15:21And there's also an option if it's enabled by the admins of your IT department to simply
15:27write text.
15:28And then based on the text on your question, then Power BI tries to create the DAX formula
15:33in order to solve this question.
15:35So they might be quite powerful, these quick measures.
15:37I still feel and I think that it is important that you need to learn DAX and understand
15:42DAX.
15:43The reason for this is, and that's why we focus on creating DAX measures during this
15:47course, is, of course, maybe the quick measure will not give you exactly the specific result
15:53you need.
15:54Maybe you have a certain use case, and this use case cannot be accomplished by simply
16:00using the default quick measures.
16:02And then you need to tweak, you need to transform, you need to change the DAX measure a little bit.
16:08But if you have never used DAX before and you don't know how DAX works, then, of course,
16:12there's no way you can modify the quick measure exactly to the way you need it, right?
16:17That's why it's very important to understand DAX in Power BI, and that's why we focus on
16:21creating DAX measures ourselves.
16:24Next to that, we have the sensitivity labels here.
16:28This can be enabled by your IT department, and this just means that you can add a sensitivity
16:33label to your specific Power BI reports and also inside the Power BI service.
16:38And that just means that if you do this, then when other people in your organization use
16:43and interact with your report, they will see the sensitivity label, and this might have
16:48an influence how they can interact with the report.
16:51For instance, if it has a confidentiality sensitivity label, that means that, for instance,
16:57that people are not allowed to download the report or to print the report as a PDF and
17:02so on.
17:03This can be turned off by adding sensitivity labels, but this is something which you do
17:08not decide on your own.
17:09This normally at first needs to be, well, activated by the IT admins, and then you might
17:15think with your colleagues and also with your organization, your department maybe, which
17:20kind of sensitivity labels is the right one for our reports.
17:24Next to this, we have the option to publish our report, so sharing, because at the end
17:28of the day, here we are in Power BI Desktop.
17:32And what we do is we analyze our data, we clean our data, and then, of course, we create
17:37a report which we want to share with, for instance, the board members or our superior
17:44or our colleagues in the department or whoever we want to share.
17:48But at the end of the day, we want to share our report.
17:51And in order to do this, then normally we do not save the report and send the Power
17:56BI file via email.
17:58Of course, we could do this to a colleague, but normally we would like to have the option
18:02to create a report, then send it to the Power BI service, and that's what's meant by publish.
18:08This just means that you send your Power BI report to the Microsoft Cloud, so the Power
18:12BI service, and then your colleagues only need to use their browser in order to access
18:19your report and interact with it.
18:21And also the experience, of course, is a little bit different because they are the users,
18:25the consumers of your report.
18:27They do not need to have all these options here to enter data and so on.
18:31They only want to see the report.
18:32They want to click on the report.
18:34They want to filter that and slice and dice the data, and this can be done via their browser
18:38after the report has been published using this publish option when you share it.
18:43Of course, this also requires a sign-in, so an account for Microsoft, because otherwise
18:48you cannot send the data to the Power BI service.
18:52But of course, if you use Power BI inside an organization, then, of course, they have
18:56their own Power BI, not their own, but they use the Power BI service.
19:01You have your own, let's say, space inside the Power BI service, and this way you can
19:04securely then share your reports inside the organization.
19:10So that's it actually regarding the home menu.
19:12So you see there's quite a lot.
19:15Also what I did not mention here are these options here, but probably if you have worked
19:19with any kind of Microsoft product before, then you're familiar with those.
19:23Of course, this is just, for instance, we can cut, we can copy something, we can copy
19:27or also the format, and use it on a second visual, and so on.
19:32So this can be done here using these options.
19:34These are kind of similar in PowerPoint, for instance, but also in Excel, they're also
19:39available, most of them at least.
19:42So that's it actually under home.
19:45Then under insert, that's the next one, if you go here, then again you can see that there's
19:49an option for the visuals.
19:51That's what I meant when I said or talked about redundancy.
19:54If you remember, then for instance, we have the visuals here.
19:57We can simply select something, for instance, here, and I have my template in here, but
20:01that's actually exactly the same as if you go back to home and do it from here, right?
20:06This is actually exactly the same as you find here.
20:09And also there's more visuals, which again refers to the app source or also import data
20:14if you have downloaded them on your local drive.
20:19So this, at the beginning here, I just want to mention this as well.
20:22This allows us to add new pages to our report.
20:24So you can see here, we are currently on page number one.
20:27I can also double click here and rename it, for instance, start, and press enter.
20:31This would be now the starting page.
20:34I can right click here.
20:35I can also here rename the page if I want to do it this way, and I can also duplicate
20:38the page.
20:40And this can also be achieved here.
20:42If you go new page here, again, you can also duplicate the page, start, which we currently
20:46selected, or I can create a blank page and a blank page, either click it, create it here
20:52by clicking on it, or you go down there, click on the plus symbol, new page.
20:56This will do exactly the same.
20:59So let me just double right click here, say duplicate, then you can see I have duplicate
21:04of start, and now I have two pages.
21:06And I can rename this.
21:07I can say this, for instance, hello, page number two, or let's say number two like that.
21:16Okay.
21:17Let me press enter, and you see that now I have a different here, and if I go back to
21:20my starting page, you see that this would be page number one, and this would be page
21:24number two.
21:25So again, let's see.
21:26This one here, this, for instance, is my page two.
21:31Okay.
21:32Of course, you can rename this then exactly the way you want it, and you can also, by
21:35the way, like I mentioned this, if I use, if I click on start here, I can drag it, I
21:40can place it here, and now page number two is the first page, page number, starting page
21:45here is the second page, and again, select it, let me drag it up here before, and now
21:49it's there.
21:50Right.
21:51If you want to reorder the pages, you can do that quite easily by simply dragging and
21:55dropping the pages.
21:58So that's what you find here.
22:00Next to this, we have again here various visuals, but all these visuals, which you can see here,
22:06for instance, the key influencer, which is an AI visual, the decomposition tool, also
22:10this AI driven, and also the smart narrative, this also AI driven visual, but these visuals
22:16you can see here, they are also part from the visual box here.
22:21So they're also, these ones here, for instance, you can find them here under AI visuals, and
22:26the same is true for these ones, which appear here, which are coming from the power platform.
22:31So maybe you've heard of it, maybe not, but this, for instance, is power apps, which allows
22:35you, which is also part of the power platform, and allows you to build your own apps in,
22:41with no or low code, right?
22:45And then there's also power automate, which is also part of the power platform.
22:49This allows us to create automatic workflows, meaning, for instance, let's say you have,
22:55well, if an email arrives, then something needs to be triggered automatically.
23:00For instance, then the team message needs to be sent, that a new email has arrived to
23:05the specific email folder, for instance.
23:08These processes, where we have a trigger, and then something should happen, this can
23:12be automated by using power automate, which is the separate tool, but also a tool part
23:17of the power platform.
23:19So if you are interested in that, of course, you can dive into this further.
23:23And these options here just mean that we can use power apps, which have been built inside
23:29power apps, or power automate workflows, which have been created inside power automate, those
23:34can be used inside Power BI as well.
23:38So this just means that, so there's a power apps virtual, which again, click, and then
23:42if I have built a power app, I can use this power app inside power BI and interact with
23:46the app.
23:47So these are options which I have here.
23:50This just means, I like to mention this because this just means that the power platform itself
23:55is interactive.
23:56So I can use power apps, for instance, inside power BI, but I can also use power BI reports
24:01inside power apps.
24:03So that just meant here.
24:06And then again, we have the text box, which you've already seen in here.
24:10And also we can add buttons, shapes, and also images.
24:13So for the buttons, I can go here, and then I can insert any kind of button I want.
24:17So you can see a lot of buttons in here, but also for the buttons itself, you can also
24:22change, for instance, the specific items we have in here.
24:28And there's also the navigators, there's a page navigator, and also a bookmark navigator.
24:33So just to show it to you, if I go to page number two here, for instance, and I can go
24:37to buttons and I can use this back button here, I can tick this option, and now I have
24:42a big button.
24:43And as long as we are here in the power BI desktop, we are developing our reports.
24:48I need to hold control key.
24:50And you can also see that if you hover over that in here, if you let me hover over it,
24:53you can see control click here to go back to the previous page.
24:57So if I hold control key and click on it, like that, you see that now I'm navigated
25:02to the starting page.
25:03So you can use those buttons, for instance, for page navigation.
25:05I can do that here, if I want to do this.
25:09And the control click, this is only necessary as long as we are here in the developer, into
25:14the Power BI desktop.
25:16After we're publishing our report, so remember, if you go to home and publish it to the Power
25:20BI service, then if our end user is then consuming the reports and interacting with the report,
25:26then he or she only needs to click with the left mouse button in order to navigate inside
25:31the browser.
25:32Okay.
25:33So that's it for the buttons.
25:36And we're going to use those buttons later on, of course, when we create our report,
25:40there will be further options where we can see how these buttons can be used.
25:47For the page navigator, I just want to mention this maybe because we have two pages, so I
25:50can show this to you.
25:51So if I go to the navigator here and page navigator, then by default, that's what I
25:56have.
25:57Let me just drag this around like that.
25:59This will show all the pages by default, at least you have.
26:02So if I go click on control, click start here, I will go to the starting page.
26:06So this gives me simply instead of only one button, it gives me all the pages I have.
26:10So if I click on the plus symbol and add a third page, page number one, if I go to page
26:15number two, you see that also page number one is there.
26:18So this will be automatically extended.
26:20If I have additional pages, let me just delete the page, click on a little cross symbol here,
26:26go to delete.
26:27And now you see I have only have two pages left.
26:30So that's it.
26:31What actually this option here, navigator and page navigator allows us to do shapes.
26:38I can insert various shapes in here.
26:40So let me just do that as well.
26:41Let me just click on any of those shapes.
26:43So for instance, this one here, and now I have my shape in here, which I can customize
26:48further the shape itself.
26:51So if I go here and let me just go to the new option here, let me just check the formatting
26:58option here for now for the shape here.
27:01And then, of course, I can go to the shape style here and I can change here, for instance,
27:04the color.
27:05If I want to do that, so different color in here and so on, I can change everything here.
27:09But also this is something we're going to cover later on as well.
27:12I just wanted to mention that you can do that.
27:14Also in the future, and I'm going to show you, currently it's not supported for all
27:17the visual, but you also have here a little icon here, which allows you to change specific
27:22visuals.
27:23But again, this is something we're going to see in the next couple of videos.
27:27So that's it for shapes.
27:29And also, if we go one more on insert, then there's also an option to insert an image.
27:33For instance, let's say you want to insert your company logo.
27:36This can be easily done if you have a logo somewhere stored.
27:39Then I go to image here and then I can choose, for instance, this one, Power BI image, which
27:43I have here.
27:44And I'll have my image here and I can place it somewhere on my report page, like here.
27:48That could be my company logo and I place it somewhere and have it inside my reports.
27:53So quite easy to do and insert it here.
27:58So beside this, under insert, then we also have here the modeling view.
28:03And again, some redundancy, what I'm going to call it, which allows us here to create
28:07new measures, which is currently grayed out, as well as also add quick measures, or also
28:12new columns and new tables.
28:14So new columns and tables, just referring to a new column, we can add columns.
28:19So calculated columns to a specific table, which we imported, so that just means that
28:24allows us to create additional calculations and add those as a column to a specific table.
28:30That's also currently grayed out because we do not have any data.
28:34A new table just means that we could insert a manual table, or in this case, the manual
28:39table itself actually is under home, enter data.
28:43This under modeling here, we can create a table using DAX expressions.
28:48So that can be also done and also something we might want to do during the course.
28:53So if you do not know what I'm talking about right now, it's quite difficult to imagine.
28:57If you have never seen Power BI before, no worries, I totally understand, but you'll
29:01see that when we do this during the course, it's quite easy to do and then you understand
29:05what it does.
29:07Change detection, this just means that if you have a live connection, so to your underlying
29:12data source, then you can turn this change detection on and then the page might refresh
29:18in real time.
29:19Well, let's say at least for instance, every five seconds, for instance, then this could
29:23be pretty interesting and see that then for instance, something changes.
29:27But this is only interesting for streaming data and data, which is frequently changing.
29:33So it's not something we're going to cover during the course because most often that's
29:36not what you want.
29:37Normally, in most of the cases, you import data in Power BI and then you refresh the
29:42data maybe on an hourly basis or once a day or once a month, anything like that.
29:48Parameters, this is much more interesting to us because parameters, you can also hover
29:52over it if you want to read more, but this can be used in order to do, for instance,
29:57what if analysis, so scenario analysis actually, for instance, what about if we have a price
30:05change of 5%, how can this affect our sales revenue, for instance?
30:13This can be done a little bit with those parameter options and then there are also, this will
30:17be the numeric range and they're also the field parameters, which allow us to create
30:22dynamic visualizations.
30:23And you'll see this when we're going to cover this during the course.
30:28So managed roles in the US, this is a security feature.
30:32So when do we need this?
30:34Well, sometimes we create a report and our goal is that not everybody should see exactly
30:40the same data.
30:41So let's say we have some colleagues which are located in the US, we have some colleagues
30:45which are located in India, and we have also some colleagues which are maybe located in
30:50Europe.
30:51Now, our goal is that the colleagues in US should only see US data.
30:56The colleagues in India should only see the Indian data and the European colleagues should
31:00only see European data, something like that, but they all view the same report.
31:06So then we need to make sure that we create roles and this can be done by managed roles.
31:12So we can click on managed roles and then create roles in Power BI Desktop.
31:17For instance, as I said, we have a US role, which only is referring to sales which happened
31:22in the US.
31:24And the same is true then for India and then for Europe.
31:27And then we need to assign those roles, which we created here, to specific users or to specific
31:33groups, for instance, to specific Azure directory groups.
31:37And the assignment, this will be done in the Power BI Service.
31:41So after we publish our report, but the creation of the roles, this is something we need to
31:46do in here, which we can do in here, in the Power BI Desktop.
31:51And the view as is quite helpful because after you have set up your roles, your security
31:56roles, then of course you want to know before you publish your data and assign people to
32:02a specific role, you want to know whether your role works, whether the security you
32:05have created works.
32:07This can be done by simply then click view as, and then you have the option to choose
32:12any of the roles you have created.
32:14And if you select the role, then the data or the report will change based on the role
32:18you have.
32:19And then you see whether your role, whether your security feature works or not.
32:24And that's quite helpful.
32:25So you know in advance that it works and then you can publish it and then assign the people
32:29to the role.
32:32So the QA here, that's for our purposes now, not very important.
32:37So this is regarding language settings for the QA, but for now and during the course,
32:42this is not very important to us.
32:43So I'll skip this for now.
32:46Under view, we can specify specific, well, templates in this case, which are themes,
32:53which we can assign to Power BI.
32:55So if you click on themes here, you see that there are quite a vast amount of report themes.
32:59Currently, this one is selected, but I can choose a different one, for instance, just
33:03to see this.
33:05If I click this one here, now you see this is the new theme.
33:08So that's how you can assign specific themes to Power BI or this one here and so on.
33:14So also what Power BI or Microsoft has done is it also added these accessible themes.
33:20Well, as far as I understood, the thing is that some people have difficulties, well,
33:27understanding or seeing color and differentiate between colors, right?
33:30Some people are colorblind and so on.
33:32And what Microsoft has done in the prior or past, recently, actually, they added additional
33:41themes, which might be easier to spot for people who have some kind of disability regarding
33:47visualization or regarding seeing things.
33:50But this, of course, can further be customized.
33:54That's something I like to mention here.
33:55So if I select one of the themes, like this one, for instance, I have the option, and
34:00it's quite important, especially in corporate environments, because most often for PowerPoint,
34:06for instance, and so on, you'll notice as well, you have a corporate identity, which
34:10means that you have specific colors next to your logo, of course, and specific fonts maybe
34:16you're going to use all the time and you want to implement those in Power BI.
34:21And if you want to do this, then under the option here, you can go to the customized
34:26current theme, for instance, you can click on this, and then you can specify what kind
34:30of colors you want to use.
34:32So what's here, the first color, you can use Xcode here or RGB codes, and you can customize
34:37exactly the way you want it.
34:40You can do this for the text, you can change the font family here for cards, KPIs, for
34:46the titles in your reports, and for the visuals, you can change the color of the backgrounds,
34:50the border, the header, and so on.
34:53So everything here can be customized.
34:56And next to that, you also have the option.
34:59So if you change something and apply it, then it gets applied.
35:02But next to that, you also have the option.
35:04If you go one more time here, you can also download the theme.
35:10So save the currency in this one, and this will save a JSON file.
35:15And of course, sometimes it's easier for people to save actually the JSON file and then modify
35:20the specific template inside the JSON file.
35:23And if you do this, then you can go to the option, in this case, Browse for Themes, and
35:29this allows you then to select the specific JSON file you have modified and import a theme.
35:34So Power BI does not only allow to modify an existing theme inside Power BI, you can
35:39also create your own theme.
35:41And if you want to know how to do this, check the Microsoft documentation, because there
35:46they specify exactly how a JSON theme needs to look like, if you do this for the first
35:50time for your organization, for instance.
35:53And then you can import the theme you have created and use this.
35:57That would be another option.
35:59So quite a lot of options to style here.
36:03And if you create reports for yourself, then of course, you might also go to the theme
36:07gallery, because there are some people who have uploaded themes to this gallery.
36:12It's just an internet website where you can take a look at what themes they have created,
36:18and you can also download them and use them if you want to do that.
36:21But most often for a company environment, that's not that interesting, because they
36:25have already set up their default colors and so on.
36:29But that's what you can do here.
36:32Next to the theme options here, we have the page view.
36:35The page view allows us to fit, width, and so on, that allows us here to change how the
36:41Power BI report looks itself.
36:43So default is fit to page, but you can change this to fit width and also actual size, especially
36:48if you create a Power BI report, which is bigger than the default size.
36:52The default size is normally the PowerPoint, the same size as PowerPoint.
36:56By default, I think it's 1600 pixels times 900 pixels.
37:00I'm not quite sure, but I think that's like that, but you can also change it.
37:04So if you want to have a report with a scroll bar, which is much, much longer, for instance.
37:11So the default is fit to page, and probably we're going to use this the whole time.
37:15I just want to mention what this is, so you know that.
37:18Mobile layout allows us to create mobile layouts for reports.
37:22So if I go in here, mobile layout, you see that now I can create a custom report based
37:27on what we have inside our report for mobile devices.
37:31And this is quite interesting, because that means we can create a different report for
37:36mobile devices.
37:38So let's say the CEO of our company also consumes our report, but he or she maybe is not interested
37:45in all the visualizations we have, only specific ones, for instance, only the key KPIs, and
37:50not everything we have in our report.
37:53And this allows us, this mobile view, to only drag, you can see here the elements, which
37:57we currently have, not that much, because we have not created so much, but you can see
38:02all the visualizations and also the icons and so on we have, and you can simply then
38:07drag and drop things directly inside the view, like that.
38:10I like to add the logo, I can make this bigger here, for instance, and then I have my logo.
38:14And then I like to have this box here, the shape, I can drag this in here, and then I
38:19can also make this bigger, like that.
38:22And of course, I can scroll down and then add additional elements.
38:25So the beauty here is that you can really customize the mobile view and make it completely
38:30different from the original view, if you want to, and if you have the need for that.
38:37You can also just click on this, if you want to remove all the visualizations, click on
38:40it, and yes, I want to remove everything, and then you can start from scratch, if you
38:43want to do that.
38:45So this can be done in here, there's no need to do it.
38:49So if you do not specify a specific mobile layout, then by default, of course, on a mobile
38:54device, when they have the Power BI app, then they would see exactly the same report as
38:58you have created for the normal, so switch to desktop layout, let me do this, then they
39:03would see the report like that.
39:05So it's up to you whether you have a requirement for that, but I just want to mention that
39:09it is available if you need it.
39:12These options we have here, there are the gridlines, snap to grid, and log options.
39:19And gridlines just means that you can see the gridlines at the back, snap to grid just
39:25means if you take this option, then the visualizations are snapping to the gridlines.
39:30And log objects, if you take this option, also sometimes helpful, that just means if
39:35you take it, then now you cannot move the visuals around, they're all now fixed, currently,
39:39they are locked.
39:41That's sometimes helpful if you create a report and you do not buy, well, want to drag anything
39:47around while you're creating your final touch, or you want to interact with.
39:52So that's it actually for that, X under log objects, that was the last one we checked.
39:58I unchecked it again, so I can move the windows around.
40:01There are these options here, the show panes, the show panes, this is what we need to select
40:07in order to show our panes on the right side.
40:09Currently, you can see that the filter pane is activated, the data pane, and the formatting
40:15pane.
40:16And I always encourage you, hover over something, and then you get some more information about
40:20that.
40:21But the filter pane here, this is if I make this bigger, that's where we can drag filters
40:26in order to slice and dice the data that currently is checked, so it's available.
40:31If I uncheck it here, you see that now it's gone.
40:35The same is true for the data and the formatting pane.
40:38The difference is that only one of those is currently selected here, or visible, which
40:42is the format.
40:44If I check this one here, that's the data one, the little cylinder.
40:48Now you can see, or you would see at least, you'll see this later on in the next couple
40:53of videos, there you can see your data, so all the columns you have in your data set.
40:58And if you add additional ones, like bookmarks here, you would see them appearing here as
41:02well.
41:03And selection, and then, for instance, performance analyzer, and sync slicers, so you can add
41:08all of them in here.
41:09And if I want to see them here, I just need to check it, and then it appears here.
41:13You can also, of course, click on the cross symbol if I want to remove it.
41:18So you see, if I close it now, then you can see it's also not selected anymore, and I
41:22need to reselect it in order to see it again here on the sideline.
41:27If you want to see more than just one at the same time, because you see that if I select
41:31the other one, then this one always gets changed.
41:35That might change in the future, but currently, at least in Power BI, it's implemented like
41:39that.
41:40You need to right click on one of those and say, open a new pane, and now you see them
41:46next to each other.
41:47So you can achieve this if you want, but by default, you always will replace the one you
41:52have currently in here.
41:54So for instance, if I go to bookmark here, you would see that now the bookmark will replace
41:57the other ones.
42:00If you want to add three of them, go here to the next one, like that one, open a new
42:04pane, right click here, open a new pane.
42:06You can add them and see them all, but by default, as I said, select one of those, and
42:10the other ones are just removed.
42:13This one here is removed.
42:14The bookmark is still there.
42:15If you close it like that, that's what I meant.
42:18Select one, and then it is overwritten.
42:21The filter one is always visible.
42:23That's there the whole time.
42:24That's the difference.
42:25But again, this might change in the near future, currently it's implemented like that.
42:32So next to the panes we have in here, let's go to the optimize option here.
42:36This is all regarding the optimization of Power BI.
42:40So pause visuals just means that you pause the visuals, so the visuals don't filter each
42:46other.
42:47Because the default behavior, and you also see this, we explore this together, is that
42:51if you click on a visual, then the other visuals get filtered.
42:55But if you want to pause this, if you do want to disable that, you can click on pause visuals.
43:01And refresh visuals would then refresh the visuals.
43:04There are also a few additional optimization presets.
43:08Take this one.
43:09By default, it's interactivity between the visuals.
43:11So that's what I meant.
43:12If I say click on a visual, and the other visuals get filtered, but you can also choose
43:17query reduction or customize.
43:20If you click on customize, this would open this pane, and this can then disable, for
43:25instance, certain kinds of filtering between the visuals.
43:28These options are normally only important if you have some kind of performance issues
43:33in Power BI.
43:34So if you have really a lot of data, and it takes a long time to load, then it might make
43:39sense to dive deeper into this.
43:41But by default, that's something you don't need to activate here.
43:45Because if you have a smaller data set, and even, let's say, a data set with a few million
43:49rows, also not a problem in Power BI.
43:51That's normally not an issue, though you don't need to refer to the optimized window here.
43:55But if you have really some kind of performance issues, then these options might make sense
44:00to dive deeper into.
44:03Apply all slicers.
44:04That just means that if you have various slicers, you have the option to add this to your report.
44:08I'll also show you how that works.
44:11And then you need to click this apply all slicers.
44:13And only if you click this button, then all the slicers you have set up, for instance,
44:16you specified a certain country, and specified a certain product, and so on.
44:20And only if you click the apply all slicers button, only then those slicers get applied
44:25on the visuals.
44:26So also something which might make sense and helps to improve user experience, maybe, if
44:33you have a lot of slicers, but also improves regarding performance.
44:36Perhaps improving this.
44:39Under help, there's something about the information about Power BI, so what kind of version you
44:44currently use.
44:45There are also kind of some kind of training videos that's also coming from Power BI, so
44:49Microsoft directly.
44:50Normally, you can go to the documentation, you can read more if you want to do that.
44:54You can also go to the community, if you have a specific question, and all these things
44:58are available here.
44:59I think most of them are self-explanatory, also, if you hover over them.
45:03So don't dive too deep into that for now.
45:07External tools.
45:08This just means if you have installed some kind of external tools which you want to use
45:12in Power BI, then those tools will be visible here.
45:16You can see that I have installed a few tools, by default, they should not be visible for
45:21you because you do not use them.
45:23But if you have installed them, if you have installed external tools, they will appear
45:27here and you can use them by simply clicking on them.
45:31Also for now and for this course, they are not that important, but I just want to mention
45:36that this is available here.
45:38You can also have a kind of second course where we dive into Tabular Editor if that's
45:42something you are interested in later on.
45:46But that's basically it regarding all the tabs in here.
45:48So quite a lot we have covered and I totally understand that, of course, there's no need
45:53for you to understand and fully grasp everything we have seen so far, but the main goal here
45:59is really to give you some kind of guide, some kind of tour, so you see what's available
46:03in here.
46:04And also, then you will see later on when you're going to use those features and remember
46:08ah, okay, that was that, okay?
46:11Before we end this video, there are also a few additional things I'd like to mention.
46:15These are these three tabs here.
46:17We have a report view.
46:19That's the view we are currently on.
46:20This is where we can see all the visualizations we have built, all the report pages.
46:26But then there are also two additional views, also we check them out later on.
46:30The first one here is the data view.
46:32The data view will just show the tables we have.
46:36So after we have imported the data, we will see all the various tables we have in here
46:41and they will also appear here.
46:43You can think of it like really a view like in an Excel sheet.
46:46So we can see exactly, okay, what kind of data is there.
46:49We also have the option to filter a column and so on, but we'll see this later on.
46:53I just want to mention that there's also this data view in here.
46:57And finally, very, very important is the model view.
47:01The model view here shows us all the tables and the relationship between those tables.
47:07So if you have some database, some SQL background, you know that normally you have a fact table
47:13and various dimension tables.
47:15That just means you combine information from various tables and then you filter data based
47:20on the relationships you have.
47:23Now if this is something completely new to you and you do not know too much about joins,
47:28for instance, and relational tables, relational databases, then you might have some prior
47:33experience with Excel, for instance, right?
47:36And if so, you probably know that in Excel, we have, for instance, VLOOKUP or INDEXMATCH,
47:42these kind of options.
47:44And or in newer Excel versions, there's this XLOOKUP, I think it's called, right?
47:48But the idea is that you do not have everything inside one specific table.
47:53You might have some additional information which comes from another table.
47:56And in order to link this together, then you can do a VLOOKUP, for instance, or an INDEXMATCH.
48:01So you basically map the data from the second table to your first table based on a common
48:07field.
48:09And that's basically how the relationship works in databases or in Power BI as well.
48:16So for any database administrators and so on, that was probably quite simple how I explained
48:21it.
48:22But hopefully for everyone here who is not familiar with that, that gives you some kind
48:25of intuition what it does.
48:27And this in the model view, this is where we create those relationships between tables.
48:32So if we have various tables, they have common fields, and we want to combine them in order
48:36to slice and dice our data, which comes from different tables, then we need to create relationships.
48:42And this will be done in here.
48:44And we're going to do this together in the next couple of videos then.
48:49So that's basically it as a tour through the whole Power BI interface.
48:54These are two videos, lectures, quite long in total.
48:57I get that.
48:58And as I said, I do not expect that you keep everything which you have seen here.
49:02But hopefully, if you're brand new to Power BI, that gives you some kind of intuition,
49:07some kind of guide.
49:09So you know exactly, okay, that's the interface I'm going to work with, or we're going to
49:13work with together.
49:14And hopefully that was helpful for you.
49:16So thanks a lot for watching.
49:17And I can't wait to see you in the next video.
49:19Until then, best guys.
49:24Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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