Microsoft Power BI is a cloud based BI service allows us
to create and share reports and data visualization from variety of data sources
on any device. The service which was previously available only in the US region
is now available worldwide. In this blog we will see how to create a simple visualization
in Power BI using excel sheet as Data Source.
Below are the series of steps that have to be taken to
create a Power BI visualization
1. Create
a excel data source. For example create a products sheet with Product, Quarter,
Revenue, Units Sold columns and enter data for few rows. Select the rows and
create a table.
3. In
the Power BI designer click ‘+’ sign next to the Datasets menu in left
navigation pane.
4. You
will be taken to Get Data page. On this page click Excel Workbook in the left
navigation and then click Connect button
5. Choose
the location as computer and Browse to the location where we have saved the
excel workbook with table and click Connect button
6. A
new dashboard will be created with the selected excel work book.
7. Click
on the dashboard from the left navigation pane and then click source to create
a new visualization.
8. On
the visualization page select the fields you want in the visualization for
example Product and Units sold fields. The Visualization will be displayed on
the screen.
9. Save
the report by clicking the Save menu from top and give a name to the report.
10. Select
the visualization to by clicking on it and then click the Pin button on the
right to pin the visualization to the dashboard.
11. Click
on the dashboard name from the top to go back to the dashboard. You will see
that the visualization has been added to the dashboard.
12. Q&A
feature in Power BI allows us to explore data through natural language queries
and get answers in the form charts. We can create a variety of Q&A like for example “show products sold
more than 2500 in q2”
12. Visualizations
created from Q&A can be pinned to the dashboard.
13. Dashboards
can be easily shared with your colleagues by simply clicking the Share icon and
specifying the email addresses of colleagues with whom the report has to be
shared.
