Power BI · Lesson 1 of 7

Power BI introduction

What Power BI is, Desktop vs Service, and the get data → model → visualise → share workflow.

Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence tool for turning data into interactive reports and dashboards. It's one of the most requested skills for data analyst, MIS and business analyst jobs.

Power BI Desktop (free, Windows) — where you build reports.
Power BI Service (online) — where reports are published, shared and refreshed on a schedule.
Power BI Mobile — viewing reports on phones.

The workflow

Get data — Excel, CSV, SQL databases, SharePoint, web APIs.
Transform — clean it in Power Query.
Model — relate tables and write DAX measures.
Visualise — build report pages with charts, cards and slicers.
Share — publish to the Service and set up refresh.

Sample data & steps

Power BI Desktop (free, Windows)

Sample file: sales.xlsx  (sheet "Sales")

OrderID | Date       | Region | Product   | Qty | Amount
1001    | 2026-10-02 | Kochi  | Laptop    | 2   | 96000
1002    | 2026-10-03 | Kozhikode | Mouse  | 10  | 6000
1003    | 2026-10-05 | Kochi  | Monitor   | 3   | 33000
1004    | 2026-11-01 | Trivandrum | Laptop | 1   | 48000

Steps:
1. Home → Get data → Excel workbook → choose sales.xlsx → tick "Sales" → Load
2. In the Report view, add a Card visual and drag Amount into it
3. Add a Clustered bar chart: Region on the Y-axis, Amount as the value

Result

Card:  Sum of Amount = 183K

Bar chart (Amount by Region):
Kochi       ████████████████  129,000
Trivandrum  ██████             48,000
Kozhikode   █                   6,000

Download Power BI Desktop free from Microsoft (Windows). Re-create the small sample tables in Excel, load them, and follow the steps. Data is fictional.

Key points

Power BI turns data into interactive reports.
Build in Desktop; share through the Service.
Workflow: get data → transform → model → visualise → share.
Analyst and MIS job posts often ask for it.

Quick check

Where do you usually build a Power BI report?

Power BI Service in the browser Power BI Desktop Microsoft Word SQL Server

Practice task

Install Power BI Desktop, recreate the sample table in Excel, load it and build a card for total Amount and a bar chart of Amount by Product.

Interview corner

What is Power BI and what are its main components?

A Microsoft BI tool for connecting to data, modelling it and building interactive reports. Main parts: Power BI Desktop (build), Power Query (transform), the data model with DAX (calculations), Power BI Service (publish, share, refresh) and mobile apps.

What is the difference between a report and a dashboard in Power BI?

A report has one or more interactive pages built from a single dataset. A dashboard is a single page in the Service made of tiles pinned from one or more reports, used for a high-level overview.