Are you really curious about Power BI Dashboards, but you are scared that you won’t understand any of the words? This is the session for you! During our short time together, I will define some basic terms and best practices in Data Analysis, provide a quick demo of Power BI, and show what it takes to create a few simple reports and dashboards. What Will You Learn? • How to ask the right questions • How to quickly get and model data • How to design easy reports and dashboards

1. CEO of Smarter Consulting
Adjunct Professor/Trainer:
MS Applications, BA, Six Sigma, Leadership
20+ years designing, developing, and managing software
15+ years SharePoint experience
• Microsoft Certified Trainer
• Six Sigma Black Belt
• BSAC Certified
sweaver@smarter-consulting.com
www.sharoneweaver.com
@sharoneweaver
Sharon Weaver, MCT, MOS, BSAC, SSBB

2. 8th Annual
Office 365/Power
Platform Saturday
Chicago Suburbs

3. POWER BI & DASHBOARDS 101
Sharon Weaver

4. HOW TO BUILD A DASHBOARD… IN
3 EASY STEPS
1. Connect to Data
• Excel
• SQL
• Access
• SharePoint List
• Other sources
2. Model Data
• Do you have the correct
data?
• Do you have duplicate
data?
• Does your data have
categories?
3. Create Reports & Dashboards
• Use Microsoft Power BI

5. BEFORE YOU START!
ASK QUESTIONS!
• What questions will the dashboard answer?
• Who will be looking at the dashboard?
• What will they use the dashboard information to decide?
• How recent does the data need to be?
• What data do you need?
• What data do you have?

6. WHAT IS POWER BI ANYWAYS??
Power BI:
• Allows users to connect to various sources and types of data
• Allows users to model, shape, and transform that data in a way
that makes sense to them
• Allows users to create visualizations like reports and dashboards
to help understand more about the data

7. POWER BI DESKTOP VS SERVICE
• Power BI Desktop
• FREE download
• Tool to create data connections, models, and reports
• Started from client app OR from Power BI service
• Power BI Service
• Online subscription service
• Allows users to share Power BI Desktop reports
• Can be shared with other Power BI users

8. DOWNLOAD POWER BI DESKTOP
https://powerbi.microsoft.com

9. POWER BI DESKTOP

10. POWER BI DESKTOP
• Connect to Data
• Shape/Model Data
• Create Reports

11. POWER BI DESKTOP
• Report
• Data
• Relationships

12. 1. CONNECT TO DATA
File > External Data > Get Data > Data Source (Excel, SQL, etc.)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/sample-datasets

14. Imagine you’re retiring – you want to live where there’s lots of sunshine, preferable taxes, and good
health care – or perhaps you’re a data analyst, and you want that information to help your customers.
For example, perhaps you want to help your sunglasses retailer target sales where the sun shines most
frequently.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/retirement/best-places-retire-how-state-ranks.aspx

15. Click Edit to edit the
query before loading
the table.

17. 2. MODEL
DATA

18. Note that in Query Settings, the Applied Steps
reflect the changes that were made. If I want to
remove any step from the shaping process, I simply
select that step, and then select the X to the left of
the step.

19. 3. CREATE REPORTS/DASHBOARDS
• Report
• A collection of pages that contain visualizations
• Must come from the same dataset
• 2 Views - Reading
• Dashboard
• A collection of tiles/visualizations from various sources
• Can come from different datasets
• Can be shared with other Power BI users (READ ONLY)

20. Five main areas:
1.The ribbon, which displays common
tasks associated with reports and
visualizations
2.The Report view, or canvas, where
visualizations are created and
arranged
3.The Pages tab area along the
bottom, which lets you select or add a
report page
4.The Visualizations pane, where you
can change visualizations, customize
colors or axes, apply filters, drag
fields, and more
5.The Fields pane, where query
elements and filters can be dragged
onto the Report view, or dragged to
the Filters area of the Visualizations
pane
REPORT VIEW

21. To create a visualization,
just drag a field from the
Fields list onto the Report
view. In this case, let’s drag
the State field from
RetirementStats, and see
what happens.
Voila! Power BI Desktop
automatically created a
map-based visualization,
because it recognized that
the State field contained
geolocation data.

22. This is what the Report view looks
like after a handful of visualizations
have been added, as well as a few
new Report pages.

23. SHARE YOUR WORK!
1. Publish to the Power BI service

24. SHARE YOUR WORK!
2. Upload the .pbix file directly
within the Power BI service

25. SHARE YOUR WORK!
3. Save the .pbix file and send it
like any other file

26. Sharon Weaver
@sharoneweaver
sweaver@smarter-consulting.com