Data Science

Power BI Desktop is the popular downloadable data visualization software for PCs developed by Microsoft. It enables individuals and organizations to efficiently create and share interactive dashboards and reports by transforming data into meaningful insights. With Power BI users can connect to a wide range of data sources such as spreadsheets, data bases, cloud-based systems, and web services. Integration with programming languages is possible but not required.

Power BI Desktop has advantages in being more cost-effective, user friendly, and better integration with Microsoft tools (Excel, Azure, and SQL Server) compared to other data visualization software. However, Power BI Desktop cannot be natively installed and used on Mac devices. Paying to install Microsoft Windows on a Mac is one option for using Power BI Desktop on Mac devices. Using Power BI Service in a web browser is another option, but the analytical functionality is much more limited. 

Overall, Power BI enables both technical and non-technical users to create compelling interactive dashboards to communicate data-driven stories for informed organizational decision-making.

Power BI Terms

• Power Query Editor is used in Power BI Desktop and Excel to record the steps used in data preparation before data modeling and visualization. This allows data to prepared in the same manner each time.
  • M Language is a data transformation and expression language used only within the Power Query Editor
• DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a formula expression language similar Excel formulas and is used in the Data View and Report View in Power BI for creating custom calculations, measures, and aggregations
• Power BI Service (Power BI Online) enables users to publish and share dashboards from Power BI Desktop to the cloud for collaboration and embedding