You can play around with the huge range of options that Power BI gives you. Power BI isn’t just about pretty graphs and visuals but, if you want to get people in your business interested, business data presented in an attractive, easy-to-read manner is a great way to impress.Įxperiment with different visuals to find the clearest method And, once you publish a report you can even automate this, so you never have to download and import the data ever again! Step 3. Now you’ve made this connection you can refresh your data at the push of a button. All the columns in that spreadsheet are now available to use in your Power BI report Select the file path to your spreadsheetĥ. Let’s face it, every organisation holds some key information in a spreadsheet. There are connectors for almost every data source imaginable, available ready to go. Now, the great thing about Power BI is that it connects directly to your data through built-in ‘Connectors’. The ‘Power’ in Power BI – the ‘Connectors’ (How you go about choosing and structuring your data to get valuable answers is a whole other subject – see here – but for this guide, we’ll focus on the practical steps) Of course, every Dashboard needs data, so the next step is to get some. The nice thing is, you don’t need a license to use Power BI Desktop – so you can play and experiment without any upfront investment. No Microsoft licensing required so get experimenting! Or you could use a remote desktop to a Windows computer. This gives you a remote Windows PC that you can access from any device through a web browser or the Microsoft Remote Desktop client, available for IOS, MacOS and Android.Īlternatively, a virtual machine like Parallels Desktop could work (see ). Our favourite option is Microsoft’s ‘ Windows 365 Business Cloud PC’. Unfortunately, the Power BI Desktop isn’t available for Mac OS so you’ll need a slightly different solution… *Alternatively, you can download the Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft website and install it in the conventional manner. This version will automatically update itself which is super useful as Microsoft release new updates and features almost much every month Install the app from the Microsoft Store if you’re a Windows 10 user Get the developer tools in Microsoft Power BI Desktopĭownload and install Microsoft Power BI Desktop. If you’re a developer taking your first look at Power BI, here are the first 3 steps on your journey from data zero to data hero.

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful data modelling and visualisation tool.

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