Create your first report in Power BI
Create your first report in Power BI using the official sample dataset
Today’s article will focus on building your first Power BI report/dashboard. Probably it is going to be very basic in nature initially but will follow-up with other emails until we get the results we want.
I am not going to spend time on teaching you on how to install Power BI as it is self explanatory process, you can follow the official guideline for each step or download it from here directly.
Once we are all set with the installation process, the first screen we see is as the one below. While most of the times, we will end up using our own data source, whether that is as an excel file or directly from our database, this time we will be using a sample dataset which is provided by Power BI. Click on Try a sample dataset and then the next screen click on Load sample data button
After clicking on Load sample data, click on financials table and a quick popup will show with a preview of the data sample (make sure financials table table has a ticker applied).
Power BI does offer two alternatives for loading the data. First one is Load which basically loads the data. Second method, Transform Data will take you to the Power Query Editor where you will be able to transform the data before loading into Power BI. While in most of the case you will end up using Power Query Editor considering that data source is not always clean, for the sake of this example, we will load them straight without making any transformation. Click on Load button.
After the data is loaded, you will get the screen below. If you are using Excel from O365 then chances are high that you are already familiar with the header option as they have incorporated the same tabs (remember Power BI is part of Microsoft).
Report — is the page/section where dashboard will be built,
Data — shows the data tables and all the details of that data,
Model — shows data tables and their relationships (this will come in handy when working with multiple tables),
Main workplace — is the page where we will drag & drop fields to create visuals,
Visual types — shows all official visuals types you can create in Power BI (you can also get other visuals from marketplace, which will get into that in upcoming newsletters),
Data tables with column names — this section shows the data table name as well as all the column header names for the underlying data which we will be using a lot when creating visuals,
Format — if page is selected it will show you the page format, while if you have visual selected it will show you the visual format options.
Now the we brought the data in Power BI, we can go ahead drag any of the column data from Fields section and drop it into Main workspace. I want to build a table visual which shows the data on monthly basis for Sales and Profit. So first, drag & drop Month name into Main workspace. Then, drag & drop Sales and Profit fields onto the same visual where you added the Month name. It should look like the below.
Usually when creating your first example of visual, Power BI automatically selects Table visual. If for any reason you want to change this visual to another format, all you have to do is select the visual in Main workspace and with visual selected (please note I did copy and paste the first table visual and added it next to each other) go to Visualizations Pane and select the type of visual you want to see instead (Stacked bar chart in our case below). It will look like the below.
Last step for today’s session, we would like to know the participation of each Segment in our total sales. For that, we will be using Donut chart. To do so, click anywhere in Main workspace and go to Visualization pane and click on Donut chart icon. Drag & drop Segment in Legends field and Sales in Values. As we can see, most of our sales are coming from deals with Government (roughly 44%).
The final view for today’s session will look like the below. You can always select visual and then go to Format section where you will be able to make changes in the way a visual looks (including colors, legends, labels, formatting etc.).
You can download the solution here.
If you want to learn best practices for colors when creating a dashboard, check out this post and if you want to learn tips that will make it easier for you to use Power BI, check out this post.
Please note that there will be additional series on newsletters on this dashboard as we continue to build additional features to it.
Cheers!
