What is Power BI Desktop – Quick Overview to Power BI Desktop

Introduction

If we want to access Power BI for FREE, then Power BI Desktop is option, a free application that we can install on our local computer that lets us connect to, transform, and visualize your data. We can create Data Model by connection to multiple different data sources. With this data model we can build visuals and it as reports, with other people inside our organization. Power BI service is used to share our reports with others.

Install Power BI Desktop

We can download the Power BI Desktop from the official site and select download free. It redirects to Microsoft Store and choose Get option. Once after installing, start Power BI Desktop from the Windows Start menu or from the icon in the Windows taskbar. It displays the Welcome Screen first.

Lets get into the deep introduction of Power BI Desktop. The Fig.1 shows the overview of the Power BI Desktop. On the top left corner we can see some icons as Save, Undo and Redo which are quick accessible tool bar in the Power BI.

Ribbon Tab

Just below the Quick Tab, we can see options as File, Home, Insert, Modeling, View, Help. These are part of Ribbon Tab in Power BI Desktop. Each options have some sub options as well, which we will learn more in detail later part.

Report

On the left side of the Power BI Desktop, we can see three icons. Among those, the first one is Report. Reports are the visuals that we create in Power BI.

Data

The second icon from the left of the screen is Data. We will get complete information about the data that we have connected.

Model

The third icon in the left side of the screen is Model. Models are used to create relationships between our data.

Page Information

As like Excel Worksheet, we can add more pages and name each pages in the Power BI. To add or name the pages, on the bottom we can see Page 1 (by default) as shown below.

By clicking the Plus icon, we can add more pages.

Fields

Whatever data connected with Power BI will be shown under the field section.

Visualizations

Under Visualizations options, it provides various charts to create our interactive Dashboards.

Filters

For the chosen Charts from the visualizations, we can apply filters from Filters options.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed an overview of Power BI Desktop application, which I hope you all found useful. In the next article we will discuss more concepts in Power BI Desktop. Please share your feedbacks in the comment section.

Consider to Read

• What is Power BI