Module 8: Using Excel with Power BI

Module 8: Using Excel with Power BI

“Using Excel with Power BI … Power BI Mobile App”
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Summaries

  • Module 8 > Using Excel with Power BI > Lecture
  • Module 8 > Power BI Mobile App > Lecture

Module 8 > Using Excel with Power BI > Lecture

  • The reason I’m going to show it is that it’s actually very relevant to an Excel user because you can actually create the contents.
  • One of the options to create the contents will be using Excel.
  • Even if you use one of the other options to create the content, everything you have learned so far in this series of modules will be relevant and will help you building this content even if you are not using Excel because the same data model.
  • The same technology for queries, the same DAX expressions, are actually the way you build the content for this service, which is Power BI. Power BI comes as a freemium.
  • Now, just before I show you anything I want to say that I’m going to show just a very narrow aspect of the capabilities of this service, because I’m actually showing the Excel part in it, and how to use Excel to upload into the server, or the service.
  • That is actually showing data coming from which should be familiar because it’s actually using the same model that I created with Excel.
  • I uploaded to this service the Excel in a way that actually the service is now using the data model with its connection, with its expressions, DAX expressions, everything I did but not the visualization.
  • You can see, right away, that the variety of visualizations is beyond what you can do with Excel for example showing data on a map or using this tree map where it shows the area for each one of the manufacturers which represent their relative size in sales and so on.
  • Now, the dashboard can contain tiles coming from different reports connected to different data sets.
  • Actually the source I was using is a model in Excel, but if you want to you can add, and if you go back to my area and to the dashboard I was saying that the dashboard can contain tiles coming from and connecting to any one of these sources.
  • So I can go here and change its visualization to something else, for example, to this kind of map, in which the area is actually colored and the intensity of the color represents again the measure that I want to visualize.
  • From the report, I could now, all this actually elements here are already part of the dashboard.
  • Just to show you when I’m looking at one of these elements in the report I can pin it and it will go and pin to the dashboard which is the current dashboard.
  • Now in the dashboard I can edit some properties of it, I can give it a title and, but now this becomes part of the dashboard, and again, if I click on it, it will go back to the report that it came from.
  • Now in order to create the content, as I said this content I created with the Excel but there’s also a companion application called Power PI Desktop that you can use it instead of Excel to create the content, to import the data using queries to create the DAX expressions, calculate columns, calculate measures, you can do it with Power PI desktop.
  • I’m going to the Get Data, and I’m saying that I want to bring data from a file.
  • It knows where my files are, and I have a folder here called For Excel Training, in which I’ve stored some material, and it’s actually a version of the same file, but I designate it as to be used as Excel, and we’ll see in a moment what it does.
  • Once I decided I want to use this one, it actually tells me, asks me one of two options.
  • What do I want to do? Do I want to import the Excel data into the Power BI service, and this is what I did before.
  • To import means, use the model in this Excel, and then start to build reports and dashboards on top or I just want to connect to it as it sits in OneDrive for business and here I’m selecting the option to actually connect and it’s started to do that.
  • It asks me, what do you want to do with it and you can see that there are options for example to schedule a refresh so I can actually schedule a refresh that will run everyday at a specific hour and actually pull data from the data sources and so on but what I want to do with it now is viewing it.
  • Now what it does it opens the Excel file and I will be interacting with it in the similar way that I was interacting with it when I was in Excel.
  • So all the slicers, all the functionalities available to me, only that now I am actually opening this Excel from the browser, and using the technology that we’ve had for quite some time called Excel Services or Excel Online.
  • It’s only that it’s now integrated into the experience of Power BI. So again, I can upload Excel files in two different ways, one is to be used as the model, and to build dashboards and reports from it.
  • One is to actually upload it as a report with the visualizations of Excel.
  • In the Excel client if I switch back there is a publish option that can actually push it directly from Excel to the Power BI environment.

Module 8 > Power BI Mobile App > Lecture

  • Let us switch to seeing my, I have this contraption here, the cable connecting directly to video and we are live from the iPad. So I can click on, I see the list of my dashboard, I already logged in.
  • So now we see the same thing, we see that actually the additional one, we actually see two similar parts.
  • Which is good, because we see that actually this is the way the dashboard was edited by me, just a few minutes ago when I recorded the previous model, when I showed you Power BI from the browser.
  • You’ll see, I’m with my finger I’m moving between the elements on top that every time I’m parking on one of them it shows the details for this one.
  • Again, I selected one of the tiles and I clicked under open the report.
  • Yeah, here it is, so now I see the report with all the different visualizations.
  • You see that actually this was actually a map, but now last time I touched it, I made it into a column chart.
  • So I have this, report effect and I can also, uncheck one of the years and select another year.
  • So with the same cable I am just connecting to the iPhone 6, holding this in my hand and now let’s see what the experience on the iPhone looks.
  • You see here, I see, again, I already logged in, I authenticated.
  • I see the different dashboards are available for me, either that I created them or were shared with me.
  • I see all the visualizations that were part of this dashboard.
  • To see more details, what I don’t have from the phone, because it’s not practical is a way to dive into the report.
  • So in the iPhone, I am left just at the level of looking at the different elements of the dashboard and when I click on one of them I can see it in more detail but I cannot go and see the report experience.
  • Every month you will see new functionality coming, so also the mobile applications will update and will show you different, more functionality and more visualizations and more gestures that you could use against visualizations.
  • Once you have a model you can start creating dashboards- And reports.
  • Then finally you can use a variety of phones and tablets, Android, Windows, or iOS devices to interact with the reports and the dashboard, share them with your colleagues and get the full benefit of having a cloud-based solution available on a variety of devices.

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