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Give your business more insights.

Power BI Whitepaper

Applies to: Microsoft Power BI (Desktop & Service)

Summary: Go from data to insights in minutes. Connect to hundreds of data sources, drive ad hoc

analysis and produce beautiful reports. Publish your reports to access on web and across mobile devices.

Tell your story through data whether you are an IT professional, a BI analyst, or a business user.

This paper highlights the key benefits of Power BI which is transforming the Business Intelligence world.

Author: Mithun Kumar

Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 4

A next generation of business intelligence ...................................................................... 4

Microsoft Power BI overview ........................................................................................... 4

Power BI key benefits ............................................................................................................................... 4

The Power BI service ...................................................................................................... 5

Content packaging .................................................................................................................................... 5

Live dashboards ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Interactive reports ..................................................................................................................................... 6

Data visualizations .................................................................................................................................... 6

Data refresh .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Natural Language Query ........................................................................................................................... 7

Sharing with others ................................................................................................................................... 7

Data sources ............................................................................................................................................. 7

Power BI Desktop............................................................................................................ 8

Shape and refine your data ....................................................................................................................... 8

Author reports ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Analytics through visuals ........................................................................................................................... 9

Row-level security ................................................................................................................................... 10

Publish to Power BI ................................................................................................................................. 10

Power BI Desktop Data Sources ............................................................................................................ 10

Power BI Mobile apps ................................................................................................... 11

Favorites.................................................................................................................................................. 11

Report server .......................................................................................................................................... 12

Apps ........................................................................................................................................................ 12

Shared items ........................................................................................................................................... 12

Workspaces............................................................................................................................................. 12

QR Code Scanner ................................................................................................................................... 13

Authentication and data refresh .................................................................................... 13

User authentication ................................................................................................................................. 13

Data source security ............................................................................................................................... 13

Authentication methods ........................................................................................................................... 13

Data source authentication in Power BI Desktop ................................................................................... 13

Data refresh ............................................................................................................................................ 14


Real-time visibility and live connectivity ............................................................................................................................ 14

Automatic and scheduled refresh ....................................................................................................................................... 14

Power BI REST APIs ..................................................................................................... 14

Common API usage ................................................................................................................................ 14

Embedding .................................................................................................................................................................................. 14

Data streaming using push data .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Build custom connectors ........................................................................................................................................................ 15

Build custom visuals ................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Power BI Report Server ................................................................................................ 15

Web portal ............................................................................................................................................... 15

Power BI report ....................................................................................................................................... 15

Paginated report ...................................................................................................................................... 15

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 16


Introduction

This document introduces the main capabilities of Power BI, Microsoft’s business analytics service for

visualizing, exploring, and deriving insights from data.

The objective of this document is to help you understand what Power BI offers and how it can support

your organization’s business intelligence (BI) strategy.

This document’s target audience includes IT professionals, who manage organizations’ BI platforms,

solutions, and tools, as well as BI analysts, who specialize in data modeling, analytics, and presentation.

A next generation of business intelligence

The concept of business intelligence has been around in the data world and plays a pivotal role in

delivering key values to the business. As the time passes, the data people became lazy to feed all details

again whenever they customize the report. The world started moving toward a self-service bi.

Microsoft is leading the way with this new generation of BI extending rather than replacing the existing

analytics platforms and tools (SSIS, SSRS & SSAS).

Microsoft launched a pilot project by adding such functionality in Microsoft Excel with Power Pivot and

Power Query. This innovation enabled business user to deliver insights from greater volumes of data and

a broad array of data sources.

Microsoft Power BI overview

Power BI provides cloud-based BI service, known as "Power BI Service", along with a desktop based

interface, called "Power BI desktop". It also offers an interactive mobile applications for Windows, iOS,

and Android devices, providing secure access to live Power BI dashboards and reports from any device.

With Power BI, you can create live dashboards and reports, consuming local as well as remote data.

In addition, Power BI can be extended with a set of REST APIs which enable developers to integrate

client and web solutions with Power BI or to build custom visualizations.

Power BI key benefits

Together, the Power BI ecosystem provides a unique set of features that empower everyone to benefit

from direct access to the BI they need. Power BI’s distinctive set of features include:

Live data-streaming

Real-time dashboard updates

Secure, live connectivity to your data sources, on-premises and in the cloud

Natural language query on data

Quick insight on data

Scheduled data refresh through personalized data gateway

Data security metrics

Data Science and Statistics through R language


The Power BI service

The Power BI service offers a simple, intuitive experience for creating and sharing dashboards with

enhanced capabilities of further growth. Constraints can be enforced to secure sharable data.

Power BI service offers a variety of services. Key services are described below.

Content packaging

Package up your dashboards, reports, Excel workbooks, and datasets and publish them to your team as

an organizational content pack or app created in App Workspace. Through apps, you get more control

over data in terms of data refresh and security.

Live dashboards

A Power BI dashboard is a set of data visualizations, or charts, from one or more underlying reports,

presented in an engaging way that makes it easy to glean insights - no analytics expertise needed. An

advantage of Power BI is that dashboards are live. For example, when a visualization in a dashboard is

connected to a real-time data source, the visualization updates continuously, enabling faster insights.

You can add a visual on dashboard from any report or other dashboard called “Pinning”. You may also

add textbox, images, videos and web contents.

Figure 1: Power BI service overview


In Power BI, dashboards are not only for

viewing - they are interactive tools. If

there is information on a dashboard that

you want to look into more deeply, drill

down into the underlying reports to see

details.

Interactive reports

Power BI has rich set of visuals to create

an interactive and user-friendly interface.

A report is a set of charts, also known as

visualizations, based on the same

underlying dataset. You may construct a

report from scratch, import Power bi

desktop report, or get report from shared Content pack or App. Reports can be customized as per need

and can have multiple pages.

Data visualizations

Power BI offers a variety of visualization options,

enabling you to present data in a compelling and visually

appealing manner. These includes charts (Bar chart,

Column chart, Line chart, Area chart, Scatter chart, Pie

chart), Maps (Tree map, Shape map, Filled map and

ArcGIS map), Funnel, Gauge, Card, KPI, Table, Matrix,

Slicer and R).

In addition, Microsoft have office store which contains several custom visuals created by individual or community.

Data refresh

In Power BI, you can connect to live data resides at

Azure cloud. This feature is only available in Power BI Service. For local data also, you can configure the

auto refresh through Data Gateway. For SQL data, you can connect through Direct query mode can get

the latest changes as you refresh the report page.

Figure 3: Sample visualizations

Figure 2: Sample Power BI dashboard


Natural Language Query

Natural language query - also known as Q&A - is a

unique feature of Power BI that lets you ask

questions in plain English, and produces answers in

the form of new visualizations, or charts. For

example- “Show last year sales by store”. Your

dashboard will include the pre-defined queries of

other dashboard if you take the visuals from there

and pin it to your dashboard. Power BI automatically

create few sample queries based on underlying data

behind the visuals used on the dashboard and

additionally you can also add Question in “Featured

Q&A questions”.

Sharing with others

By default, all of the data and reports you create and upload are privately visible only to you. But you can

share your dashboard, report or data to other people in your organization or outside having Power BI

account. If the dashboard and underlying report and dataset are required altogether, you can package

then into a content pack or app and can share to people. Through app feature, you can control the further

modification and sharing of shared content. Another option includes the creation of Embed code of your

report which gives URL link and html code to share on web for public access. Also, you can embed your

report to SharePoint online and export to PowerPoint. You can download the .pbix file and share the

same for further modification. For mobile access, generate QR code of your report and from power bi app

scan the code to get report.

Data sources

Power BI Service can connect to a variety of sources like- content packs, Excel and Power BI desktop

file, and live data in Azure SQL database. Using REST APIs, you can even connect to custom data

sources, such as proprietary corporate data or external data services. It provides secure, live connectivity

to existing, on-premises data sources, such as SQL Server Analysis Services. AppSource repository

stores all organizational as well as custom content packs.

With Power BI, users can connect directly to popular SaaS solutions and gain even more value from the

cloud services they already use. There is no system configuration required; users enter existing SaaS

solution credentials in the Power BI interface, and start exploring data in minutes.

A unique feature of Power BI is its ability to directly connect to on-premise data sources, including SQL

Server Analysis Services (SSAS), SQL Server, etc.

Power BI integrates with other Microsoft cloud services, including Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data

warehouse, Azure Stream Analytics and SQL Server Analysis Services. By extending existing Azure

services capabilities into Power BI, you can build seamless, end-to-end BI solutions.

Figure 4: Ask questions of your data like you

would ask a person


Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is the desktop version of Power BI and it is most suited for data preparation. Clean,

transform, and mash up data from multiple sources—in a few clicks. Key offerings of Power BI desktop

are described below.

Shape and refine your data

Power BI has a built-in query editor which lets you easily clean and transform your data as you need. It

works only when you import data into Power BI. Retrieving data is as simple as finding and selecting your

data source from four primary categories - namely File (such as Excel, Text and XML files), Database

(such as Oracle and SQL Server), Azure (a variety of Azure services), Online Services (Power BI

service, Share point, Dynamics, Salesforce) and Other (such as Web, Exchange, and Hadoop).

Power BI gives you option to refine your data either before

loading or after loading into Power BI. It has rich suit of

functions Using M language and DAX (Data Analysis

Expression) that can be applied on the data to perform task

like- creating measures and columns (calculated, custom,

conditional, and index column), change data type of column,

Pivot/Unpivot column, replace values, and Merge and

Append Queries. The dataset is named in the form of Query

and all the operation performed on query are listed down in

steps.

When data is imported to Power BI Desktop, a data model

is automatically created. Power BI Desktop detects

relationships automatically, categorizes data and applies

default summarization. You can edit the relationship and

change its Cardinality and Cross filter direction as well as

create another relationship.

Figure 5: Power BI desktop overview

Figure 6: Query applied steps


Author reports

Once you have loaded data, Power BI Desktop’s freeform, drag-and-drop canvas makes it easy to select,

transform and mashup data, and create reports. You may jump right into report-authoring after connecting

to a data source - data preparation and analysis are optional steps.

Going a step beyond the service,

Power BI Desktop allows you to use

data from as many different sources

as you want in a single report. There

are a variety of ways to explore data

within a report—for example, you can

sort and filter data, cross-filter data

across multiple visualizations, drill into

and across datasets, and pivot and

slice data.

The result is a visually impactful,

interactive report that you can publish

to end users.

While creating reports, you can explore the data by going to Data view mode and the relation between

data tables in Relationship view.

You can attach a variety of custom visuals into your report. Import from Office store use directly. Also, you

can create your own visual using REST api.

Analytics through visuals

You can perform advanced

analytics in visuals as an extra

feature. Some visuals like- line

chart, bar chart, column chart,

Area chart, and Scatter chart

have extra set of feature for

analytics.

You can define variety of

analytic line on your visual like-

Max and Min line, Average line,

Trend line, Forecast line,

Ration line, etc.

Figure 7: Visually author reports

Figure 8: Visually author reports


Row-level security

Data always comes with associated risk of being misused. Row-level security (RLS) in Power BI Desktop

can be used to restrict data access. Filters restrict data at the row level. You can define filters within roles.

A user can access the data as per the associated role.

You can now configure RLS for data models imported into Power BI within Power BI Desktop. You can

also configure RLS on datasets that are using DirectQuery, such as SQL Server.

You can define roles and filters for the dataset being used behind report visuals and then you publish

your report to Power BI service where it carries your role definition. In Power BI service against dataset

security, you bind your role with user logins.

Publish to Power BI

When a report is ready for use, the Power BI Desktop file (in PBIX format) may be saved and uploaded to

the Power BI service with a single click on Publish button. This PBIX file contains the data model, queries,

and a copy of the dataset as well as role defined on the dataset if any.

With the same login id you can login on Power BI service site (app.powerbi.com) and get all the published

reports.

Power BI Desktop Data Sources

When you click “Get Data”, you get a list of data sources categorised under five main headings- File,

Database, Azure, Online Services, and Other.

Some of the source are marked as Beta and they are still under development phase. Some sources only

allow connection to the data and you can’t import data in Power BI like Azure and Power BI service. Also,

to connect some sources you need active internet and login credentials.

Figure 9: Creating role for Row level security


Power BI Mobile apps

Power BI supports live, secure dashboard access on any device through native, interactive apps for

Windows, iOS, and Android. To enhance the viewing experience, the dashboard user interface is

optimized for smaller displays.

Setting favorites makes it easier to

access specific visualization tiles.

The apps include several mobile-

specific features. You can zoom in

and out of visualizations to look at

data more closely. To stay on top of

changes, set up alerts, and receive a

notification when data exceeds or

drops below certain thresholds. Take

a snapshot of a report or

visualization, and make annotations

using highlight features. Annotate

and share with other.

Favorites

Collect the dashboards and apps you view most often by tagging them as favorites. You can mark KPIs

and reports as favorites on a Power BI Report Server or Reporting Services web portal, and then view

File Database Azure Online Services Other

Excel SQL Server Database Azure SQL Database Power BI service Web

Text/CSV AccessDatabase

Azure SQL Data

Warehouse SharePoint Online SharePoint List

XML

SQL Server Analysis

Services Database Azure Data Lake Store

Microsoft

Exchange OData Feed

JSON OracleDatabase Azure HDInsight Dynamics 365 Hadoop File (HDFS)

Folder IBMDB2Database Azure Blob Storage

Salesforce

Objects Active Directory

SharePoint

folder MySQLDatabase Azure Table Storage

Salesforce

Reports Microsoft Exchange

PostgreSQLDatabase

Azure Cosmos DB

(Beta) Google Analytics R Script

SybaseDatabase Facebook ODBC

TeradataDatabase Smartsheet OLE DB

SAPHANADatabase Twilio (Beta) Blank query

AmazonRedshift Zendesk (Beta) Spark (Beta)

Impala Marketo (Beta)

Snowflake

Figure 10: Data sources in Power BI desktop

Figure 10: Power BI Mobile app overview


them in one convenient folder on your mobile device, along with your Power BI favorite dashboards. You

can mark your dashboard or app as favorite.

Report server

You may have connections to one or more on-premises Power BI Report Server or SQL Server Reporting

Services servers. If you do, the KPIs, Power BI reports, and paginated reports on the server show up

here. If you've made any of them favorites on the server, they also show up in your Favorites list.

Apps

All the apps listed in your Power BI service account will appear here. With apps you automatically get all

the updates the author makes, and the author also controls how often the data is scheduled to refresh. If

you need to install a new app, you can do the same from Power BI service and it will list up in mobile app

also.

Shared items

You will list of dashboard and report names

which other people has shared with you. You

can filter by the owner of the dashboard or

search to find what you're looking for. For

shared content you visit frequently, you can

favorite it right from Shared with me by tapping

the ellipsis (...).

Workspaces

These are work areas where you can collaborate with colleagues to create a collection of dashboards and

reports. Then you distribute the collection as an app.

In the mobile apps, you can view and interact with content in any workspace where you're a member or

an admin. You can't publish apps from workspaces in the mobile apps.

Figure 11: Power BI Mobile shared with me


QR Code Scanner

In Power BI service, you can generate QR code for

any report. It is a machine-readable code consisting

of an array of black and white squares, typically used for storing

URLs or other information for reading by the camera on a

smartphone.

On your Power BI mobile app, open scanner and cover QR code

under camera window. The report will start downloading and will

open as customized in mobile display.

Authentication and data refresh

Secure data access, along with up-to-date data, are both very important for any BI solution. Below is an

overview of how authentication and data refresh capabilities work in Power BI.

User authentication

A user accesses the Power BI service at powerbi.com using their organizational email address. Users of

the same company usually share the same Power BI tenant and belongs to the same domain. Power BI

requires users to be within the same organization in order to be able to share dashboards and reports.

Data source security

The Power BI service connects to data sources in a secure and integrated way. It uses existing

credentials and source-specific details to establish connections to each data source.

Authentication methods

Power BI, Power BI Desktop and Excel support

authentication of the initial connection to a data

source, as well as subsequent refreshes, based on

various authentication methods. Figure 9 shows

examples (not a comprehensive list) of data sources

and their corresponding authentication method.

Certain types of data sources (e.g. ODATA feeds,

web) can support multiple authentication methods.

Data source authentication in Power BI Desktop

Authentication in Power BI Desktop works the same as in the Power BI service. You connect to data in

Power BI Desktop with existing credentials for third-party data sources, or using Azure AD for integrated

Authentication

method

Example data sources

that use this method

Basic SQL Azure, Marketo, OData

Account key Blob store, Table store, HDInsight

OAuth Salesforce, Google Analytics,

ODATA Feed, facebook

Marketplace key Azure Marketplace

Anonymous ODATA Feed, Web

Figure 9. Data Authentication methods

Figure 12: Power BI Mobile QR code scanner


Microsoft offerings. Data refresh is also available through Power BI Desktop using the authentication

methods described above.

Data refresh

Power BI keeps all of your data current with real-time updates, automatic and scheduled refreshes, and

live connectivity depending on the data source.

Real-time visibility and live connectivity

Real-time visibility is available via Azure Stream Analytics integration, and the Power BI REST API. Live

connectivity to on-premises data sources, including SQL Server or SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS),

means there is no need to schedule data refresh. Data is accessed via live queries; when you click a

visualization or navigate a report, live data comes back from the data source. But even without user

intervention, data in Power BI is refreshed automatically every 10 minutes.

Automatic and scheduled refresh

For most SaaS solutions, Power BI automatically refreshes your data on a daily basis; no intervention

required. You can also refresh data on-demand with one click.

Scheduled refreshes are supported for Power BI Desktop and Excel files that connect to a variety of cloud

data sources, including Azure SQL, BLOB storage, Table storage, HDInsight, Azure Marketplace,

Facebook, and Salesforce.

Power BI offers Personal Gateway acts as a bridge, providing quick and secure data transfer between the

Power BI service and on-premises data sources that support refresh. Data transfer between Power BI

and the Gateway is secured through Azure Service Bus. The Service Bus creates a secure channel

between the Power BI service and your computer. Because the Gateway provides this secure connection,

there’s no need to open a port in your firewall.

Power BI REST APIs

Power BI is an extensible platform thanks to a library of REST APIs, which manipulate data in Power BI

by accessing a collection of JSON objects. These APIs enable developers to programmatically access

certain Power BI resources. In order to use Power BI APIs, applications must be registered. Once your

application is registered, you use Azure Active Directory (AD) to manage authentication.

Common API usage

Embedding

The Power BI service and Power BI Embedded in Azure are coming together to offer a single API for

embedding your dashboards and reports. This means you will have one API surface, a consistent set of

capabilities and access to the latest Power BI features – such as dashboards, gateways and app

workspaces – when embedding your content.

Data streaming using push data

You can use the Power BI API to push data into a dataset. This allows you to add a row to a table within a

dataset. The new data can then be reflected in tiles on a dashboard and within visuals within your report.


Build custom connectors

With Power BI REST APIs (or OData, ODBC and other APIs), developers can create custom connectors

for Power BI. Connectors allow authorized Power BI users to access your data source and retrieve data.

Build custom visuals

You can create your own custom visual and publish your visual into Office store for use in dashboard,

reports and content packs. Custom visuals are written in TypeScript which is a superset of JavaScript.

Visual styling is handled using cascading styles sheets (css).

The Power BI REST API has the following operations:

Dataset operations: Get and create Datasets.

Table operations: Get Tables and update Table schema.

Row operations: Add Rows and Delete Rows.

Group operations: Get Groups.

Import operations: Create Import, Get Imports, Get Import from GUID, and Get Import by File

Path.

Dashboard operations: Get Dashboards and Get Tiles.

Power BI Report Server

Power BI Report Server is a solution that customers deploy on their own premises for creating,

publishing, and managing reports, then delivering them to the right users in different ways, whether that’s

viewing them in web browser, on their mobile device, or as an email in their in-box.

Power BI Report Server offers a suite of products including a modern web portal you can view in any

modern browser, Power BI reports created with Power BI Desktop, Paginated reports so you can create

modern-looking reports, and Mobile reports with a responsive layout that adapts to different devices.

Web portal

You can access all your reports and KPIs in the web portal. You can apply your own custom branding to

your web portal. And you can create KPIs right in the web portal.

The content on the web portal is organized by type: Power BI reports, mobile reports, paginated reports

and KPIs, plus Excel workbooks, shared datasets, and shared data sources to use as building blocks for

your reports. You can store and manage them securely here, in the traditional folder hierarchy. You can

tag your favourites, and you can manage the content if you have that role.

Power BI report

A Power BI report is a multi-perspective view into a dataset, with visualizations that represent different

findings and insights from that dataset.

Paginated report

Paginated reports are paginated document-style reports, in which the more data you have, the more rows

in the tables, and the more pages the report would have.


Conclusion

Power BI offers your organization enormous potential by expanding access to business intelligence and

analytics and thus supporting in data-driven decision making. IT professionals and developers benefit

from fast deployment, a secure, hybrid configuration, and easy integration with existing IT systems.

Business analysts can leverage powerful analysis capabilities for easy data discovery, exploration, and

report creation. And business users no longer need to rely solely on BI from others - they can view and

analyze all of their data in one place with live dashboards and reports. By adding Power BI to your

organization’s portfolio, you can make BI available to the people who need it, when they need it, all at one

place.

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