Develop powerful data models that bind data from disparate sources into a coherent whole. Then extend your data models using DAX–the query language that underpins Power BI–to create reusable measures to deliver finely-crafted custom calculations in your dashboards. This book starts off teaching you how to define and enhance the core structures of your data model to make it a true semantic layer that transforms complex data into familiar business terms. You’ll learn how to create calculated columns to solve basic analytical challenges. Then you’ll move up to mastering DAX measures to finely slice and dice your data. The book also shows how to handle temporal analysis in Power BI using a Date dimension. You will see how DAX Time Intelligence functions can simplify your analysis of data over time. Finally, the book shows how to extend DAX to filter and calculate datasets and develop DAX table functions and variables to handle complex queries. What You Will Learn Create clear and efficient data models that support in-depth analytics Define core attributes such as data types and standardized formatting consistently throughout a data model Define cross-filtering settings to enhance the data model Make use of DAX to create calculated columns and custom tables Extend your data model with custom calculations and reusable measures using DAX Perform time-based analysis using a Date dimension and Time Intelligence functions Who This Book Is For Everyone from the CEO to the Business Intelligence developer and from BI and Data architects and analysts to power users and IT managers can use this book to outshine the competition and create the data framework that they need and interactive dashboards using Power BI

This book provides all you need to find data from external sources and load and transform that data into Power BI where you can mine it for business insights and a competitive edge. This ranges from connecting to corporate databases such as Azure SQL and SQL Server to file-based data sources, and cloud- and web-based data sources. The book also explains the use of Direct Query and Live Connect to establish instant connections to databases and data warehouses and avoid loading data. The book provides detailed guidance on techniques for transforming inbound data into normalized data sets that are easy to query and analyze. This covers data cleansing, data modification, and standardization as well as merging source data into robust data structures that can feed into your data model. You will learn how to pivot and transpose data and extrapolate missing values as well as harness external programs such as R and Python into a Power Query data flow. You also will see how to handle errors in source data and extend basic data ingestion to create robust and parameterized data load and transformation processes. Everything in this book is aimed at helping you deliver compelling and interactive insight with remarkable ease using Power BI’s built-in data load and transformation tools. What You Will Learn Connect Power BI to a range of external data sources Prepare data from external sources for easy analysis in Power BI Cleanse data from duplicates, outliers, and other bad values Make live connections from which to refresh data quickly and easily Apply advanced techniques to interpolate missing data Who This Book Is For All Power BI users from beginners to super users. Any user of the world’s leading dashboarding toolcan leverage the techniques explained in this book to turbo-charge their data preparation skills and learn how a wide range of external data sources can be harnessed and loaded into Power BI to drive their analytics. No previous knowledge of working with data, databases, or external data sources is required—merely the need to find, transform, and load data into Power BI..

Produce high-quality, visually attractive analysis quickly and effectively with Microsoft’s key BI tool. This book teaches analysts, managers, power users, and developers how to harness the power of Microsoft’s self-service business intelligence flagship product to deliver compelling and interactive insight with remarkable ease. It then shows you the essential techniques needed to go from source data to dashboards that seize your audience’s attention and provide them with clear and accurate information. As well as producing elegant and visually arresting output, you learn how to enhance the user experience through adding polished interactivity. This book shows you how to make interactive dashboards that allow you to guide users through the meaning of the data that they are exploring. Drill down features are also covered that allow you and your audience to dig deeper and uncover new insights by exploring anomalous and interesting data points. Reading this book builds your skills around creating meaningful and elegant dashboards using a range of compelling visuals. It shows you how to apply simple techniques to convert data into business insight. The book covers tablet and smartphone layouts for delivering business value in today’s highly mobile world. You’ll learn about formatting for effect to make your data tell its story, and you’ll be a master at creating visually arresting output on multiple devices that grabs attention, builds influence, and drives change. What You Will Learn Produce designer output that will astound your bosses and peers Make new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before Create high-quality analyses in record time Create interdependent charts, maps, and tables Deliver visually stunning information Drill down through data to provide unique understandings Outshinecompeting products and enhance existing skills Adapt your dashboard delivery to mobile devices Who This Book Is For For any Power BI user who wants to strengthen their ability to deliver compelling analytics via Microsoft’s widely adopted analytics platform. For those new to Power BI who want to learn the full extent of what the platform is capable of. For power users such as BI analysts, data architects, IT managers, accountants, and C-suite members who want to drive change in their organizations.

Use JSON theme files to standardize the look of Power BI dashboards and reports. This book shows how you can create theme files using the Power BI Desktop application to define high-level formatting attributes for dashboards as well as how to tailor detailed formatting specifications for individual dashboard elements in JSON files. Standardize the look of your dashboards and apply formatting consistently over all your reports. The techniques in this book provide you with tight control over the presentation of all aspects of the Power BI dashboards and reports that you create. Power BI theme files use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as their structure, so the book includes a brief introduction to JSON as well as how it applies to Power BI themes. The book further includes a complete reference to all the current formatting definitions and JSON structures that are at your disposal for creating JSON theme files. Finally, the book includes dozens of theme files, from the simple to the most complex, that you can adopt and adapt to suit your own requirements. What You Will Learn Produce designer output without manually formatting every individual visual in a Power BI dashboard Standardize presentation for families of dashboard types Switch presentation styles in a couple of clicks Save dozens, or hundreds, of hours laboriously formatting dashboards Define enterprise-wide presentation standards Retroactively apply standard styles to existing dashboards Who This Book Is For Power BI users who want to save time by defining standardized formatting for their dashboards and reports, IT professionals who want to create corporate standards of dashboard presentation, and marketing and communication specialists who want to set organizational standards for dashboard delivery

Deliver eye-catching and insightful business intelligence with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. This new edition has been updated to cover all the latest features of Microsoft’s continually evolving visualization product. New in this edition is help with storytelling—adapted to PCs, tablets, and smartphones—and the building of a data narrative. You will find coverage of templates and JSON style sheets, data model annotations, and the use of composite data sources. Also provided is an introduction to incorporating Python visuals and the much awaited Decomposition Tree visual. Pro Power BI Desktop shows you how to use source data to produce stunning dashboards and compelling reports that you mold into a data narrative to seize your audience’s attention. Slice and dice the data with remarkable ease and then add metrics and KPIs to project the insights that create your competitive advantage. Convert raw data into clear, accurate, and interactive information with Microsoft’s free self-service BI tool. This book shows you how to choose from a wide range of built-in and third-party visualization types so that your message is always enhanced. You will be able to deliver those results on PCs, tablets, and smartphones, as well as share results via the cloud. The book helps you save time by preparing the underlying data correctly without needing an IT department to prepare it for you. What You Will Learn Deliver attention-grabbing information, turning data into insight Find new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before Build a data narrative through interactive reports with drill-through and cross-page slicing Mash up data from multiple sources into a cleansed and coherent data model Build interdependent charts, maps, and tables to deliver visually stunninginformation Create dashboards that help in monitoring key performance indicators of your business Adapt delivery to mobile devices such as phones and tablets Who This Book Is For Power users who are ready to step up to the big leagues by going beyond what Microsoft Excel by itself can offer. The book also is for line-of-business managers who are starved for actionable data needed to make decisions about their business. And the book is for BI analysts looking for an easy-to-use tool to analyze data and share results with C-suite colleagues they support.

Deliver eye-catching Business Intelligence with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. This new edition has been updated to cover all the latest features, including combo charts, Cartesian charts, trend lines, use of gauges, and more. Also covered are Top-N features, the ability to bin data into groupings and chart the groupings, and new techniques for detecting and handling outlier data points. You can take data from virtually any source and use it to produce stunning dashboards and compelling reports that will seize your audience’s attention. Slice and dice the data with remarkable ease and then add metrics and KPIs to project the insights that create your competitive advantage. Make raw data into clear, accurate, and interactive information with Microsoft’s free self-service business intelligence tool. Pro Power BI Desktop shows you how to choose from a wide range of built-in and third-party visualization types so that your message is always enhanced. You’ll be able to deliver those results on the PC, tablets, and smartphones, as well as share results via the cloud. This book helps you save time by preparing the underlying data correctly without needing an IT department to prepare it for you. What You'll Learn Deliver attention-grabbing information, turning data into insight Mash up data from multiple sources into a cleansed and coherent data model Create dashboards that help in monitoring key performance indicators of your business Build interdependent charts, maps, and tables to deliver visually stunning information Share business intelligence in the cloud without involving IT Deliver visually stunning and interactive charts, maps, and tables Find new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before Adapt delivery to mobile devices such as phones and tablets Who This Book Is For Everyone from CEOs and Business Intelligence developers to power users and IT managers

This book shows how to deliver eye-catching Business Intelligence with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. You can now take data from virtually any source and use it to produce stunning dashboards and compelling reports that will seize your audience's attention. Slice and dice the data with remarkable ease then add metrics and KPIs to project the insights that create your competitive advantage. Make raw data into clear, accurate, and interactive information with Microsoft's free self-service business intelligence tool. will help you to push your BI delivery to the next level. You'll learn to create great-looking visualizations and let your audience have fun by interacting with the elegant and visually arresting output that you can now deliver. You can choose from a wide range of built-in and third-party visualization types so that your message is always enhanced. You'll be able to deliver those results on the PC, on tablets, on smartphones, as well as share results via the cloud. Finally, this book helps you save time by preparing the underlying data correctly without needing an IT department to prepare it for you. Power BI Desktop will let your analyses speak for themselves. Pro Power BI Desktop Simple techniques to make data into insight. Polished interactive dashboards to deliver attention-grabbing information. Visually arresting output on multiple devices grab the reader's attention. What You Will Learn Produce designer output to astound your bosses and peers. Share business intelligence in the cloud Deliver visually stunning charts, maps, and tables. Make them interactive too! Find new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before. Adapt delivery to mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Audience is written for any user who is comfortable in Microsoft Office. Everyone from CEOs and Business Intelligence developers through to power users and IT managers can use this book to outshine the competition by producing 21st Century business intelligence visualizations and reporting on a variety of devices from a variety of data sources. All of this is possible through leveraging your existing skill set with the same, common Microsoft tools you already use in your daily work. Pro Power BI Desktop

High Impact Data Visualization with Power View, Power Map, and Power BI helps you take business intelligence delivery to a new level that is interactive, engaging, even fun, all while driving commercial success through sound decision-making. Learn to harness the power of Microsoft’s flagship, self-service business intelligence suite to deliver compelling and interactive insight with remarkable ease. Learn the essential techniques needed to enhance the look and feel of reports and dashboards so that you can seize your audience’s attention and provide them with clear and accurate information. Also learn to integrate data from a variety of sources and create coherent data models displaying clear metrics and attributes. Power View is Microsoft's ground-breaking tool for ad-hoc data visualization and analysis. It's designed to produce elegant and visually arresting output. It's also built to enhance user experience through polished interactivity. Power Map is a similarly powerful mechanism for analyzing data across geographic and political units. Power Query lets you load, shape and streamline data from multiple sources. PowerPivot can extend and develop data into a dynamic model. Power BI allows you to share your findings with colleagues, and present your insights to clients. High Impact Data Visualization with Power View, Power Map, and Power BI helps you master this suite of powerful tools from Microsoft. You'll learn to identify data sources, and to save time by preparing your underlying data correctly. You'll also learn to deliver your powerful visualizations and analyses through the cloud to PCs, tablets and smartphones. Simple techniques take raw data and convert it into information. Slicing and dicing metrics delivers interactive insight. Visually arresting output grabs and focuses attention on key indicators.