introduction to power bi presentation

Introduction to Power BI: What is Power BI?

As promised I started writing blog post series for the Online Book: Power BI from Rookie to Rockstar , and this is the first post.

Power BI is not a new name in the BI market, components of Power BI has been in the market through different time periods. Some components such As Power BI Desktop is such new that released as general availability at 24th of July . On the other hand Power Pivot released at 2010 for the first time. Microsoft team worked through long period of time to build a big umbrella called Power BI, this big umbrella is not just a visualization tool such as Tableau, it is not just a self-service data analysis tool such as PivotTable and PivotChart in Excel, it is not just a cloud based tool for data analysis. Power BI is combination of all of those, and it is much more. With Power BI you can connect to many data sources (wide range of data sources supported, and more data sources add to the list every month). You can mash up the data as you want with a very powerful data mash up engine. You can model the data, build your star schema, or add measures and calculated columns with an In-Memory super fast engine. You can visualize data with great range of data visualization elements and customize it to tell the story behind the data. You can publish your dashboard and visualization tool in cloud and share it to those who you want. You can work with On-premises as well as Azure/cloud based data sources. and believe me there are much more things that you can do with Power BI which you can’t do with other products easily.

So What is Power BI?

There are many definitions for this tool, here is my version of it simplified for everyone to understand;

Power BI is a cloud based data analysis, which can be used for reporting and data analysis from wide range of data source. Power BI is simple and user friendly enough that business analysts and power users can work with it and get benefits of it. On the other hand Power BI is powerful and mature enough that can be used in enterprise systems by BI developers for complex data mash-up and modelling scenarios.

Power BI made of 6 main components, these components released in the market separately, and they can be used even individually. Components of Power BI are:

• Power Query: Data mash up and transformation tool.
• Power Pivot: In-memory tabular data modelling tool
• Power View: Data visualization tool
• Power Map: 3D Geo-spatial data visualization tool
• Power Q&A: Natural language question and answering engine.
• Power BI Desktop: A powerful companion development tool for Power BI

There are many other parts for Power BI as well, such as;

• PowerBI.com Website; which Power BI data analysis can be shared through this website and hosted there as cloud service
• Power BI Mobile Apps; Power BI supported in Android, Apple, and Windows Phones.

Some of above components are strong and has been tested for very long time. Some of them however are new and under frequent regular updates. Power BI built easy graphical user interfaces to follow, so a business user simply could user Power Query or Power BI desktop to mash up the data without writing even a single line of code. It is on the other hand so powerful with power query formula language (M) and data analysis expression (DAX) that every developer can write complex codes for data mash up and calculated measures to respond challenging requirements. So if you’ve heard somewhere that Power BI is a basic self-service data analysis tool for business analysts and cannot be used for large enterprises systems, I have to say this is totally wrong! I’ve been using Power BI technology myself in many large enterprise scale systems and applications, and I’ve seen usage of that in many case studies all around the world.

Power BI components can be used individually or in a combination. Power Query has an add-in for Excel 2010 and Excel 2013, and it is embedded in Excel 2016. The add-in for Power Query is available for free! for everyone to download and use it alongside with existing an Excel (as long as it is Excel 2010 or higher versions). Power Pivot has been as an add-in for Excel 2010, from Excel 2013 Power Pivot is embedded in Excel, this add-in is again free to use! Power View is an add-in for Excel 2013, and it is free for use again. Power Map is an add-in for Excel 2013, it is embedded in Excel 2016 as 3D maps. Power Q&A doesn’t require any installation or add-in, it is just an engine for question and answering that works on top of models built in Power BI with other components.

Components above can be used in a combination. You can mash up the data with Power Query, and load the result set into Power Pivot model. You can use the model you’ve built in Power Pivot for data visualization in Power View or Power Map. There is fortunately a great development tool that combines three main components of Power BI. Power BI Desktop is the tool that gives you combined editor of Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View. Power BI Desktop is available as stand-alone product that can be downloaded separately. With Power BI Desktop you will have all parts of the solution in one holistic view.

A Quick Overview of Components

To give you an overall view of what you would expect to see in each component I’ve put few explanation for each component here. There will be detailed description for all components later on in future chapters.

Power Query

Power Query is data transformation and mash up engine. Power Query can be downloaded as an add-in for Excel or be used as part of Power BI Desktop. With Power Query you can extract data from many different data sources. You can read data from databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, and many other databases. You can fetch data from files such as CSV, Text, Excel. You can even loop through a folder. You can use Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Azure…. as source. You can connect to Facebook as source and many other applications. You can use online search or use a web address as the source to fetch the data from that web page. Power Query gives you a graphical user interface to transform data as you need, adding columns, changing types, transformations for date and time, text, and many other operations are available. Power Query can load the result set into Excel or into Power Pivot model.

Power Query also uses a powerful formula language as code behind called M. M is much more powerful than the GUI built for it. There are many functionality in M that cannot be accessed through graphical user interface. I would write deeply about Power Query and M in future chapters so you can confidently write any code and apply complex transformations to the data easily. screenshot below is a view of Power Query editor and some of it’s transformations.

Power Pivot

Power Pivot is data modelling engine which works on xVelocity In-Memory based tabular engine. The In-Memory engine gives Power Pivot super fast response time and the modelling engine would provide you a great place to build your star schema, calculated measures and columns, build relationships through entities and so on. Power Pivot uses Data Analysis eXpression language  (DAX) for building measures and calculated columns. DAX is a powerful functional language, and there are heaps of functions for that in the library. We will go through details of Power Pivot modelling and DAX in future chapters. Screenshot below shows the relationship diagram of Power Pivot

The main data visualization component of Power BI is Power View. Power View is an interactive data visualization that can connect to data sources and fetch the metadata to be used for data analysis. Power View has many charts for visualization in its list. Power View gives you ability to filter data for each data visualization element or for the entire report. You can use slicers for better slicing and dicing the data. Power View reports are interactive, user can highlight part of the data and different elements in Power View talk with each other. There are many configurations in Power View visualization that I will explain fully in future chapters.

Power Map is for visualizing Geo-spatial information in 3D mode. When visualization renders in 3D mode it will gives you another dimension in the visualization. You can visualize a measure as height of a column in 3D, and another measure as heatmap view. You can highlight data based on the Geo-grahpical location such as country, city, state, and street address. Power Map works with Bing maps to get best visualization based on Geo-graphical either latitude and longitude or country, state, city, and street address information. Power Map is an add-in for Excel 2013, and embedded in Excel 2016.

Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is the newest component in Power BI suit. Power BI Desktop is a holistic development tool for Power Query, Power Pivot and Power View. With Power BI Desktop you will have everything under a same solution, and it is easier to develop BI and data analysis experience with that. Power BI Desktop updates frequently and regularly. This product has been in preview mode for a period of time with name of Power BI Designer. There are so much great things about Power BI Desktop that cannot fit in a small paragraph here, you’ll read about this tool in future chapters. because of great features of this product I’ll write the a section “Power BI Hello World” with a demo of this product. You can have a better view of newest features of Power BI Desktop here in this blog post . screenshot below shows a view of this tool;

Power BI Website

Power BI solution can be published to PowerBI website. In Power BI website the data source can be scheduled to refresh (depends on the source and is it supporting for schedule data refresh or not). Dashboards can be created for the report, and it can be shared with others. Power BI website even gives you the ability to slice and dice the data online without requiring any other tools, just a simple web browser. You can built report and visualizations directly on Power BI site as well. screenshot below shows a view of Power BI site and dashboards built there;

Power Q&A

Power Q&A is a natural language engine for questions and answers to your data model. Once you’ve built your data model and deployed that into Power BI website, then you or your users can ask questions and get answers easily. There are some tips and tricks about how to build your data model so it can answer questions in the best way which will be covered in future chapters. Power Q&A and works with Power View for the data visualizations. So users can simply ask questions such as: Number of Customers by Country, and Power Q&A will answer their question in a map view with numbers as bubbles, Fantastic, isn’t it?

Power BI Mobile Apps

There are mobile apps for three main mobile OS providers: Android, Apple, and Windows Phone. These apps gives you an interactive view of dashboards and reports in the Power BI site, you can share them even from mobile app. You can  highlight part of the report, write a note on it and share it to others.

Power BI Pricing

Power BI provide these premium services for free! You can create your account in PowerBI.com website just now for free. Many components of Power BI can be used individually for free as well. you can download and install Power BI Desktop, Power Query add-in, Power Pivot add-in, Power View add-in, and Power Map add-in all for free! There are some features of these products that reserved for paid version however, such as Power BI Pro which gives you some more features of the product. If you want to learn more about pricing of the Power BI I encourage you to read this page . However create your free account today and give it a try, it won’t cost you anything except your precious time, which I’d say definitely worth it.

Preparation

To follow examples of this book download the latest version of Power BI Desktop from here . Most of examples will be demoed through this product, however there might be some exceptions, which I will mention at the beginning of the specific section if you need another tool to download. for the data source for some demos I’ll use AdventureWorks database examples , it might be the database itself or the tabular model or other versions and shapes of that, I’ll write more information about the requirement for running demo at the beginning of each demo. Files of demos will be shared, either *.pbix files (Power BI Desktop files) or Excel files for you as a reference. If you have any questions just use the comment section below each post.

If you want to have a clue about what to expect in this book read the table of content here .

What to Expect in Next Section

In summary you’ve read about what Power BI is, and what are Power BI components. You’ve learned that Power BI is cloud based data analysis tool that can be used by data analysts, business analysts and power users because it is easy to use, however it is so much powerful that can be used to answer complex BI requirements.  In next section I’ll explain how to use Power BI Desktop for a Hello world example. You’ll learn some great features of this product through a demo and you will have a better understanding of Power BI tools.

24 thoughts on “ Introduction to Power BI: What is Power BI? ”

Great post and great website!!! I am really looking to read all of your “book”. Many thanks. Nir.

Thanks Nir for visit, and reading. I’m glad to hear your great feedback.

Cheers, Reza

Thank you for your excellent work. I can figure out the effort you’re putting in realizing this online book. Your introduction was clear and served me to clarify some doubts about name and positioning of the various Power BI components. I’ll certainly follow your series to gain knowledge of this product.

Andrea (Italy)

Thanks Andrea for your great feedback and kind words. Cheers, Reza

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Excelent post Reza! I just wrote a brief post so people from IT, analysts and power users from latin-america are invited to read your posts.

Thanks David for your kind words, and many thanks for sharing this

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Thank you .I’m preparing a resersh about power BI but I have many questions .First I don’t know where the Datawarhouse is stored in Power BI?Second ,I don’t understand what’s the diffrence between ssas connector and personal gateway,also I need to know about the terme of direct Query. Can you please explain this point to me.

to answer your questions: There is no actual data warehouse when you work with power BI. you can build your model in Power BI solution. However the data source might be data warehouse or might not be. it can be on cloud or on-premises. SSAS connector is for connecting to Analysis Services on-premises. Personal Gateway is for connecting to on-premises data sources, but it can’t connect to SSAS on-prem. DirectQuery is a live connection to the source data. that means data shouldn’t be LOADED into Power BI. Power BI will query data LIVE, so the data connection shouldn’t be refreshed to provided up-to-date information

can we say that Power BI is just a visualisation tool as QlikView and Tabelau?

Hi Mouna, No Power BI is far beyond that. with Power BI you can transform the data as you want with complex data transformations available in Power Query. You can build the model and calculations with measures as you want in Power Pivot with DAX. and only the presentation layer is a visualization. There is also a Power Q&A engine on top of the model that answer your natural language questions from the model as well. So Power BI gives you a full end to end expereince.

thank you ,it was helpful for me

Thank you for your great post. your writing is fluent and I like it. I have questions. What is difference between (SSIS,SSAS,SSRS Microsoft) and Power BI? On the other hand, are the same their functionality? If the answer is Yes, Which one is better?

Thanks for your kind feedback. The main difference between Microsoft BI Suite in SQL Server and Power BI is that; SQL Server BI is mostly a corporate solution, and Power BI more self-service solution. There is no “better” here. each of these are serving different purposes. For an end-to-end BI solution you might need a bit of both, or only one of them. Requirement defines which one should be used. Cheers, Reza

Thank you for your reply. But can you explain what are these requirements? Because in this post you said: ” I’ve been using Power BI technology myself in many large enterprise scale systems and applications”

Power BI can be used as the whole BI solution, or part of it as a hybrid architecture. Some companies don’t have a BI solution at all, so depends on the size of their data, deployment approach, integration architecture…. Power BI or any other application might be used for the whole BI implementation. for some organizations who might have part of a BI solution like SSAS multi-dimensional, tabular, or even a SQL Server or database back end as data warehouse, then Power BI might be only the presentation layer. For some other requirements some other approaches might be useful. Wide range of requirements are in market, and the solution is highly depends on what each business want to achieve.

Thank you very much. It was helpful. Successful!

Excellent piece of work Mr. Reza Rad. stay blessed and caring

Good quality writing.

Great information given by you. Thanks……

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Microsoft Power BI Blog

• Announcements

Tell a story with your data. Announcing the all-new Power BI integration for PowerPoint.

Data culture is about putting data into the hands of business users who need data and insights in decision making. When the same users need to drive a conversation and enable decision making, they usually use PowerPoint presentation to lead that conversation. However, while the data in Power BI is up to date, live, and interactive – when it’s usually added to the presentation in the form of screen captures, stripped of interactivity, and doesn’t update. As a result, it’s up to you to manually create new screenshots to keep your presentations up to date.

Guess what? No more. Today we’re very happy to announce the preview of Power BI data storytelling in PowerPoint. We’re thrilled to be shipping an add-in that lets you add Power BI reports and bookmarks to your slides and enjoy the delightful interactive experience of Power BI inside your presentations. With data storytelling, data will always be up to date in your slides, whether you’re building a presentation or presenting it live to others. From today, using Power BI data storytelling, you can respond to people’s requests to get more information, without leaving your presentation and while maintaining the flow of your meetings.

How to get started?

Starting from powerpoint.

For those who are using Microsoft 365, we’ve added a new Power BI button to your PowerPoint ribbon.

If the Power BI button is not there yet, you can still get the add-in from the Office store. Just search for the Power BI add-in published by Microsoft.

Once the add-in is in your slide, all you need to do is bring the URL of a report page or bookmark you want to add to the presentation.

Starting from Power BI

You can also start with a Power BI report you wish to use. Use the Share button and then choose PowerPoint , or select Export > PowerPoint > Embed live data . Both options will present you with this dialog.

Now, you have a URL you can use in an existing presentation, or if you wish, you can use the Open in PowerPoint button to create a new presentation with this report page ready for you.

Using Power BI storytelling

Once the report is loaded to the presentation, it is live and interactive, also when you show the presentation as a slideshow. You can enjoy all of Power BI’s “slice & dice” capabilities and really engage with your audience based on the data and insights you have on the slide. With storytelling, you’re now able to respond to questions and feedback raised during a presentation, and to look at a different view of the data by making new data selections to create more relevant views.

Any change that you make in the view when you’re editing the presentation, such as updating a slicer or changing a filter, is automatically saved in the presentation, so you can tailor the view of the data you want to present to the context of your meeting in advance.

Freezing the view

Sometimes you might want your data view to remain static. For this you have the option to freeze the current live view, and make it into an image. Go to the top-right corner of the add-in, open the menu, and select Show as Saved Image . This will turn the add-in into an image until you reselect this option.

Sharing the presentation and permissions

When you share the presentation with others, they’ll need an active Power BI account and access to the report to view the data in the presentation, unless you’ve frozen the view as an image.

To make sure people in your org can access the report and enjoy the live data experience, use the link generated in Power BI from the Share > PowerPoint option. Any person you share the presentation with via this link will get access to the report.

Users who don’t have permission can request access to the report from its owner directly from the presentation and will be able to view the data once they’re given access.

Try Power BI data storytelling today

With the Power BI storytelling add-in, the data in your slides is always fresh, so you can trust it with any decision you need to make.

We’re starting the rollout of Power BI data storytelling this week. First, we’re enabling it in Office’s beta channel and publishing the add-in in the Office add-in store. We’ll then continue the rollout in other rings based on Office’s standard feature deployment process. Stay tuned and look for the new Power BI button in the ribbon of your PowerPoint desktop application!

We are also lighting up the starting points in Power BI as well, so check out both your PowerPoint desktop application and Power BI for easy access to data storytelling.

And remember, even if you don’t see the Power BI button yet in your PowerPoint ribbon, you can get the add-in directly from the Office add-in store and start using it today. Just search for the Power BI add-in published by Microsoft.

As always, we’re looking for your feedback to help inform us about where to take the product next as we evolve and add more innovations and capabilities to this new experience. So please submit your feedback and ideas to the discussion in this blog.

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Present Power BI Reports in PowerPoint

Building a super-cool Power BI dashboard with full interactivity (slicers, bookmarks, drill-through, etc.) can be quite satisfying.

But what do you do if you need to present this interactive dashboard in a meeting where PowerPoint is your only means of presentation?

Power BI does have a feature that allows you to export the screen as an image, but the image lacks all the wonderful interactivity.  Plus, if you must give the presentation at a later date, you’ll need to update all the exported images because the data will likely have changed.

Hope is just around the corner.

Power BI released a feature that allows you to export the dashboard to PowerPoint while retaining most if not all the functionalities.

Let’s give a warm, XelPlus welcome to  Embed Live Data .

Watch video tutorial

In this tutorial:

• Obtaining the Power BI Add-In for PowerPoint
• Testing Report Interactivity
• Adding a Power BI Report to an Existing Presentation
• Deeper Analysis During a Presentation
• Additional Presentation Features
• Sharing the Report

Working with the Power BI service online, we have a dashboard with the following interactive features:

• Slicers that allow us to filter by years
• Buttons that switch us between pages
• Slicers that allow us to select departments and channels

We want to export this dashboard to PowerPoint and retain interactivity.

Power BI now has an option behind the  Export  button called  Embed Live Data .

When selected, we have the option to open the dashboard in PowerPoint with or without the current filter selections.

NOTE:  As of this post’s publish date (July 2022), this feature was still in preview release.  It has since become generally available with the March 2023 release .

Selecting the  Open in PowerPoint  option presents the following message.

Clicking the “ Trust this add-in ” will load the Power BI report into a PowerPoint slide.

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Fast Track to Power BI

We need to take a step back and talk about obtaining the Power BI add-in for PowerPoint.

Before we can just drop a Power BI report into PowerPoint as easily as has been demonstrated, you need to first visit the Microsoft Store and download and install the Power BI add-in for PowerPoint.

• Launch the Microsoft Office Add-Ins feature by selecting  Insert (tab) -> Add-ins -> Get Add-ins .
• Search the Office Add-Ins for “ Power BI ”.

Once added to PowerPoint, you will see the add-in on the  Insert  ribbon.

Power Excel Bundle

By having the Power BI add-in as part of PowerPoint, we have full interactivity in our PowerPoint slide, both in Presentation Mode and standard Slide Design Mode.

Notice that the only page we have from our report was the page displayed when we performed the  Embed Live Data  action.

If you need other pages from the report, those pages will need to be inserted separately.

One workaround to this is to include a page navigation interface on the needed pages.

Buttons and bookmarks are fully operational.

Excel Essentials for the Real World

When working with an existing presentation, we can easily add a Power BI report by creating a new, blank slide and selecting  Insert (tab) -> Power BI .

Our slide presents a placeholder that requests the link we saw earlier from the Power Bi service when we perform the initial export routine.

Click the  Copy  button to place the Power BI report link on the Clipboard.

Return to PowerPoint and paste the link in the placeholder and click  Insert .

In addition to the report’s slicers and buttons working during the presentation, we can also leverage Power BI’s filter controls.

This embedded report is arguably superior to embedding Excel dashboards as Excel’s interactivity does not carry over to PowerPoint.

Capturing a Screenshot

If you need to capture a screenshot of the report during the presentation, click the arrow button in the upper-right corner and select  Show as Saved image .

You can then right-click the report and copy it to the Clipboard for pasting it onto another slide or any other application.

To return to the interactive version of the report, click the arrow button in the upper-right corner and deselect  Show as Saved image .

Report Options

In the lower-right corner reside controls for hiding the filter pane, refreshing the data, and resetting the report.

Changing the Report’s Story

Any changes made to the Power Bi report in the PowerPoint slide  do not  flow back to Power BI.

However, changes to the Power BI report at the source  will  flow down to PowerPoint when the slide link is refreshed.

Deleting a Report from a Slide

Clicking a Power BI report on a slide and pressing the  Delete  key will not remove the report from the slide.

To remove the report from the slide, click the arrow button in the upper-right corner and select  Delete .

Hiding the Status Bar

If you don’t wish to display the bottom banner with the report add-in controls, click the down-arrow button in the lower-right of the report.

Viewing Report Status

The lower-left corner of the report displays the name of the Power BI report file as well as the date and time of the last refresh.

Clicking the report’s name will take you to the full report on the Power BI website.

If you share the report with an associate, the person with which you are sharing must have a Power BI account and have been granted access to the report and its underlying dataset.

The report and its data are not stored in the PowerPoint file, only a connection is created between PowerPoint and Power BI.  The interactivity is displayed in real-time as the presentation is being used.

All security permissions are retained and respected.

Leila Gharani

I'm a 6x Microsoft MVP with over 15 years of experience implementing and professionals on Management Information Systems of different sizes and nature.

My background is Masters in Economics, Economist, Consultant, Oracle HFM Accounting Systems Expert, SAP BW Project Manager. My passion is teaching, experimenting and sharing. I am also addicted to learning and enjoy taking online courses on a variety of topics.

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Introduction to Power BI

1 introduction to power bi, 1.1 overview of power bi.

Microsoft Power BI is a collection of apps, software services and connectors that come together to turn unrelated data into visually impressive and interactive insights. Power BI can work with simple data sources like Microsoft Excel and complicated ones like cloud-based or on-premises hybrid Data warehouses. Power BI has the capabilities to easily connect to your data sources, visualise and share and publish your findings with anyone and everyone.

Power BI is simple and fast enough to connect to an Excel workbook or a local database. It can also be robust and enterprise-grade, ready for extensive modeling and real time analytics. This means it can be used in a variety of environments from a personal report and visualisation tool to the analytics and decision engine behind group projects, divisions, or entire corporations.

As Power BI is a Microsoft product and has built in connections to Excel, there are many functions that will be familiar to an Excel user.

1.2 The parts of Power BI

Power BI constitutes of a Microsoft Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop, an online SaaS (Software as a Service) called Power BI Service and a mobile Power BI apps that can be accessed from Windows phones and tablets, and also available on Apple iOS and Google Android devices.

These three elements— Desktop , the Service , and Mobile apps - are the backbone of the Power BI system and lets users create, share and consume the actionable insights in the most effective way.

1.3 Use of Power BI and roles

The use of Power BI could depend on the role that you are in. For example: if you are the stakeholder of a project, then you might want to use Power BI Service or the Mobile app to have a glance at how the business is performing. But on the other hand, if you are a developer, you would be using Power BI Desktop extensively to publish Power BI desktop reports to the Power BI Service.

In the upcoming modules we would be discussing about these three components - Desktop , Service and Mobile apps - in more detail.

1.4 Power BI flow

Generally, the flow starts at the Power BI Desktop, where a report is created. This created report can be published to the Power BI Service and finally shared so that the users can use it from the Mobile apps.

This is the most common approach for sharing reports. There are other approaches but we will stick to this flow for this entire tutorial to help learn the different aspects of Power BI.

1.5 Use Power BI

The common flow of activity in Power BI looks like this:

• Bring data into Power BI Desktop, and create a report.
• Publish to the Power BI service, where you can create new visualizations or build dashboards.
• Share dashboards with others, especially people who are on the go.
• View and interact with shared dashboards and reports in Power BI Mobile apps.

Depending on the user role, the user might spend most of the time in one of the three components than the other.

1.6 Building blocks of Power BI

The basic building blocks in Power BI are:

Visualizations

1.6.1 Visualizations

A visualization is a representation of data in a visual format. It could be a line chart, a bar graph, a color coded map or any visual way to present the data.

Visualizations can be a simple number representing a significant calculation or it could be more complex like multiple charts showing the proportion of users participating in a survey. The main idea of visualisation is to show the data in a way that tells the story that is lying underneath it. Like the saying goes: a picture says a thousand words.

1.6.2 Datasets

A dataset is a collection of data that Power BI uses to create its visualizations. You can have a simple dataset that’s based on a single table from a Microsoft Excel workbook, similar to what’s shown in the following image.

Dataset can also be a combination of many different sources, which can be filtered using Power BI and combined into one to use.

For example: One data source contains countries and locations in the form of latitude and longitude. Another data source contains demographics of these countries like population and GDP. Power BI can combine these two data sources into one dataset which can be used for visualizations.

An important feature of Power BI is the ability to connect to various data sources using its connectors. Whether the data you want is in Excel or a Microsoft SQL Server database, in Azure or Oracle, or in a service like Facebook, Salesforce, or MailChimp, Power BI has built-in data connectors that let you easily connect to that data, filter it if necessary, and bring it into your dataset.

After you have a dataset, you can begin creating visualizations that show different portions of it in different ways, and gain insights based on what you see. That is where reports come in.

1.6.3 Reports

In Power BI, a Report is a collection of visualizations that appear together on one or more pages. A report in Power BI is a collection of items that are related to each other. We will be working with the gapminder data to create the report below that looks at the GDP, population and life expectancy by global regions.

Reports let us create and structure visualizations on pages based on the way the we want to tell the story.

1.6.4 Dashboards

A Power BI dashboard is a collection of visuals from a single page that you can share with others. Often it is a selected group of visuals that provide quick insight into the data or story you are trying to present.

A dashboard must fit on a single page, often called a canvas (the canvas is the blank backdrop in Power BI Desktop or the service, where you put visualizations). Think of it like the canvas that an artist or painter uses — a workspace where you create, combine, and rework interesting and compelling visuals. You can share dashboards with other users or groups, who can then interact with your dashboards when they’re in the Power BI service or on their mobile device.

1.7 Power BI Services

1.7.1 overview of power bi desktop.

Power BI Desktop is a free application for PCs that lets you gather, transform, and visualize your data. In this module, you’ll learn how to find and collect data from different sources and how to clean or transform it. You’ll also learn tricks to make data-gathering easier. Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service work together. You can create your reports and dashboards in Power BI Desktop, and then publish them to the Power BI Service for others to consume.

• Ribbon - Displays common tasks that are associated with reports and visualizations.
• Report view, or canvas - Where visualizations are created and arranged. You can switch between Report , Data , and Model views by selecting the icons in the left column.
• Pages tab - Located along the bottom of the page, this area is where you would select or add a report page.
• Visualizations pane - Where you can change visualizations, customize colors or axes, apply filters, drag fields, and more.
• Fields pane - Where query elements and filters can be dragged onto the Report view or dragged to the Filters area of the Visualizations pane.

Working in Power BI desktop and creating visuals will be the focus of todays session.

1.7.2 Power BI Service

Power BI Service is the online component of Power BI where you can publish your dashboards and reports. You can also view other dashboard and reports that have been shared with you. Monash staff members have access to this, all you need to do is log in with you Monash account at Power BI service. We will cover this in more detail later in the workshop. One thing to be aware of is that once the report is published, the report and underlying data will be stored on Microsoft servers and is not private. Be aware of any privacy or confidentiality issues with your data and we suggest using another approach or tool if cannot anonymise your data.

1.8 Power BI licence

We will be covering the free version of Power BI desktop in this session. This version allows you to use all the functionalities of the desktop version such as loading, analysing and visualising data. You can create as many visuals and reports as you would like with the free license. However publishing and sharing your reports and visuals online with another person or publically requires a Power BI license. This means that you can still share your report and data files between users and computers through other means, like a shared drive, and only require one user with a Power BI license to publish and share the final report online. Please contact the Monash Business Intelligence team for more information on licensing.

10 May 2018

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Power BI Introduction: Tour of Power BI — Part 1

Power BI has been available for a number of years, but new functionality is added regularly. In this new series from Robert Sheldon, you will learn about the latest developments or get started with Power BI if you are new to it. Robert provides an overview of Power BI, the services and tools available in this article.

The series so far:

• Power BI Introduction: Tour of Power BI — Part 1
• Power BI Introduction: Working with Power BI Desktop — Part 2
• Power BI Introduction: Working with R Scripts in Power BI Desktop — Part 3
• Power BI Introduction: Working with Parameters in Power BI Desktop — Part 4
• Power BI Introduction: Working with SQL Server data in Power BI Desktop — Part 5
• Power BI Introduction: Power Query M Formula Language in Power BI Desktop — Part 6
• Power BI Introduction: Building Reports in Power BI Desktop — Part 7
• Power BI Introduction: Publishing Reports to the Power BI Service — Part 8
• Power BI Introduction: Visualizing SQL Server Audit Data — Part 9

Microsoft’s Power BI is not just a cloud service. It’s a suite of integrated business intelligence (BI) tools for accessing and consolidating data and then presenting it as actionable insights. If you haven’t checked out Power BI lately, you might not be aware of how aggressively Microsoft has been expanding its features and extending its reach into additional sources of data.

With Power BI, you can shape and transform data, aggregate and summarize data, apply complex calculations and conditional logic, and produce a wide range of visually rich reports that you can distribute to both internal and external users.

Power BI has, in fact, become a force to be reckoned with in the BI universe and is well worth trying out for yourself. Unfortunately, all the new and improved features, while in themselves have made Power BI a more robust offering, have also made it more difficult to understand how all the pieces fit together, a process helped little by the sometimes confusing and often obscure marketing hype.

In this article, the first in a series about Power BI, I try to make sense of the main components that are part of the Power BI ecosystem. The article takes a high-level look at these components in order to provide you with a foundation for delving into more specific details later in the series. I wrote several Simple Talk articles about Power BI back in 2015 and 2016, but much has changed this then, and this seems to be a good time to revisit the topic and fill in some of the newly added details.

Introducing Power BI

Microsoft describes Power BI as a “suite of business analytics tools that deliver insights throughout your organization.” With Power BI, you can retrieve data from hundreds of data sources, shape the data to fit your specific requirements, perform ad hoc analytics, and present the results through various types of visualizations. Power BI greatly simplifies the entire BI process, making it possible for business users and data analysists to take control of their own reporting needs, while providing enterprise-grade security and scalability.

Microsoft makes Power BI available as part of the Microsoft Business Application Platform, a somewhat confusing umbrella term that refers to several related technologies, including Power BI, PowerApps, and (according to some documentation) Microsoft Flow. You should already have a sense of what Power BI is about, but you might not be familiar with the other two. PowerApps is a point-and-click application development platform, and Microsoft Flow is a workflow and business process management platform.

For this series, we’re concerned primarily with Power BI, which provides a number of tools for delivering BI insights through browsers or mobile apps as well as embedding them within custom applications. In addition to the online service, Power BI includes Power BI Desktop, the Power BI mobile apps, the Power BI API, and Power BI Report Server. The rest of the article goes into more detail about each component.

Power BI Service

The Power BI service lies at the heart of the Power BI offering, providing a cloud-based platform for connecting to data and building reports. Users can access the service through a web-based portal that provides the tools necessary to retrieve, transform and present business data. For example, the following figure shows the portal with the Human Resources Sample dashboard selected. The dashboard includes several visualizations that are part of the Human Resources Sample report. (Microsoft provides several sample datasets, reports, and dashboards for learning about Power BI.)

Notice that the My Workspace section in the left navigation pane is expanded, showing links to dashboards, reports, workbooks, and datasets. These four items represent the primary components that go into the Power BI presentation structure:

• Dataset: Collection of related data that you import or connect to. A dataset is similar to a database table and can be used in multiple reports, dashboards, and workspaces. You can retrieve data from files, databases, online services, or Power BI apps published by other people in your organization.
• Report: One or more pages of visualizations based on a single dataset. A report can be associated with only one workspace, but it can be associated with multiple dashboards within that workspace. You can interact with a report either in Reading view or Editing view, depending on your granted level of permissions.
• Dashboard: A presentation canvas that contains zero or more tiles or widgets. A dashboard can be associated with only one workspace, but it can display visualizations from multiple datasets or reports. You can pin an individual visualization to a tile or pin an entire report to a dashboard. If you’re a Power BI Pro or Premium subscriber, you can also share dashboards.
• Workspace: A container for datasets, reports, and dashboards. The Power BI service supports two types of workspaces: My Workspace and app workspaces, which you access through the Workspaces section in the left navigation pane. My Workspace is a personal work area provided automatically when you log into the service. Only you can access this space. An app workspace is used to share and collaborate on content. You can also use an app workspace to create, publish, and manage Power BI apps (collections of dashboards and reports).

Microsoft offers several Power BI subscription plans. At the entry level is the Power BI Free service. To register, you must use a work email account, not a personal account such as Gmail. If you try, you’ll receive a polite message denying you access. In addition, you’re limited 10 GB of storage, and you can use only the basic features, although these are actually fairly robust. For example, you can connect to all the supported data sources, clean and prepare the data, and build and publish reports. You can even embed the reports in public websites.

The next level up is the Power BI Pro service, which builds on the Free service but adds such features as sharing, collaboration, auditing, and auto-refresh. The Pro service also lets users create app workspaces. As with the Free service, Pro users are limited to 10 GB of storage; however, they can also create app workspaces that support up to 10 GB of storage each. Microsoft currently offers of a 60-day free trial of the Pro service.

The Power BI Premium subscription level builds on the Pro service, but also provides an organization with dedicated resources (capacities) for deploying Power BI at scale, with up to 100 TB of storage per capacity. In addition, an organization can distribute Power BI content to non-licensed users as well as embed content in customized applications. Plus, the Premium service includes Power BI Report Server, an on-premises solution for publishing reports in-house.

Microsoft also offers versions of the Power BI service for US government customers and European Union customers. The services are separate from the regular commercial services. Microsoft does not offer a free version of either one. (Contact Microsoft for more details.)

Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is a downloadable application that Microsoft provides for free. The application is essentially a report-building tool that provides capabilities similar to the Power BI service, but kicks them up a notch. With Power BI Desktop, you can build advanced data queries and models, create sophisticated reports and visualizations, and publish the consolidated report packages to the Power BI service or Power BI Report Server.

Both conceptually and physically, Power BI Desktop can be divided into three categories, or views, for how you interact with data and create reports:

• Report view: A canvas for building and viewing reports based on the datasets defined in Data view.
• Data view: Defined datasets based on data retrieved from one or more data sources. Data view offers limited transformation features, with many more capabilities available through the Query Editor , which opens in a separate window.
• Relationships view: Identified relationships between the datasets defined in Data view. When possible, Power BI Desktop identifies the relationships automatically, but you can also define them manually.

To access any of the three views, click the applicable button in the navigation pane at the left side of the Power BI Desktop interface, shown in the following figure. In this case, Report view is selected, displaying a one-page report that includes two visualizations, one table and one bar chart.

The data for the report comes from the AdventureWorks2017 sample database, running on a local instance of SQL Server 2017. However, you can define datasets based on data from a variety sources, including files such as Excel, CSV, XML, and JSON; databases such as Oracle, Access, DB2, and MySQL; and online services such as Azure, Salesforce Reports, Google Analytics, and Facebook.

Power BI Desktop also provides generic connectors for accessing data not available through the predefined connectors. For example, you can use an interface type such as ODBC, OLE DB, OData, or REST to connect to a data source, or you can run an R script and create a dataset based on the results.

Where Power BI Desktop really shines, when compared to the Power BI service, are in the features available in the Query Editor to shape and combine data, some of which are shown in the following figure. In this case, the Sales.vSalesPerson dataset is open, which is based on a view in the AdventureWorks2017 database with the same name.

In the Query Editor , you can rename datasets or columns, filter out columns or rows, aggregate or pivot data, and shape data in numerous other ways. You can also combine datasets, even if they come from different sources. In addition, Power BI Desktop provides the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) language for performing more complex transformations.

After you’ve gotten the data in the format you need, you can use Report view to create multiple types of visualizations, including bar chats, line charts, scatter charts, pie charts, treemaps, tables, matrices, and maps. Report view provides numerous options for configuring and refining the charts so you’re presenting the data as effectively as possible. In addition, you can import and display key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as add dynamic reference lines to visualizations to focus on important insights. Once you have your reports the way you want them, you can publish them to the Power BI service or to Power BI Report Server.

There are plenty of other features available to Power BI Desktop than what I’ve covered here, and most of them are easy to access and understand. The UI is powerful and intuitive enough to support a wide range of users, from data stewards to business users to data analysts.

Power BI Mobile Apps

Microsoft offers Power BI mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows mobile devices. The apps make it possible to provide specific users with access the Power BI dashboards, reports, and apps, while taking into account the form factor of the smaller devices. For example, the following figure shows the Human Resources Sample dashboard (in landscape mode), as it is rendered by the Power BI app for iPhone.

With a Power BI app, you can connect to either the Power BI service or to a Power BI Report Server instance. Because you’re dealing with an app rather than a website, you can view the Power BI content offline. Once you’re reconnected, Power BI automatically refreshes the data. When you’re connected via a 3G network, the data is refreshed every 24 hours. When you’re connected via Wi-Fi, the updates occur every two hours.

A Power BI app lets you zoom in on individual visualizations, add annotations, and share snapshots of a report or visualization. You can also filter content by owner, search content, or tag content as favorites. With a Power BI Pro or Premium license, you can share a link with colleagues so they can view your dashboards. There are plenty of other features as well, and since the apps are free, there’s no reason not to try one out, as long as you’re signed up for the Power BI service.

When you’re creating Power BI reports, you can optimize them for mobile devices. This causes Power BI to add features to the reports specific to mobile usage, such as allowing users to drill down into visualizations. In addition, you can add slicers to your reports that let users filter the displayed data. Plus, you can create a QR code for a report and distribute it to colleagues, who can then scan the code from within their Power BI app to view the report.

Although the mobile apps are similar from one platform to the next, there are some differences. For example, only the iOS and Android apps let users annotate visualizations, share snapshots, or view a report via a QR code. Despite these differences, the main functionality is the basically the same from one platform to the next, allowing users to view a wide range of information, no matter where they’re working or how they’re connected.

Organizations that use Microsoft Intune to manage mobile devices can also use the service for managing the Power BI mobile apps. By configuring the necessary policies, administrators can control how data is handled and when application data should be encrypted.

Power BI API

Microsoft offers development teams a REST API that provides programmatic access to Power BI resources. Developers can use the API with any programming language that supports REST calls.

One of the most important capabilities that the API supports is the ability to embed reports, tiles, and dashboards into customized applications. The reports are fully interactive and are automatically refreshed whenever the data changes. Depending on the organization’s subscription level, developers can embed components into applications for internal users who are licensed for Power BI or for users who do not have Power BI accounts.

Another option for developers using the API is the ability to create customized visualizations that can be used in Power BI reports. Customized visualizations are written in TypeScript, a JavaScript superset that Microsoft developed for large-scale JavaScript applications. The visualizations also incorporate cascading style sheets (CSS) and support such features as variables, nesting, mixins, loops, and conditional logic.

Developers can also use the Power BI API to push data into a dataset. In this way, they can extend their business workflows to the Power BI environment. Any reports or dashboards that incorporate the dataset are automatically updated to reflect the new data.

Power BI Report Server

One of the newer tools in the Power BI arsenal is Power BI Report Server, an on-premises solution for creating, deploying and managing Power BI reports. The product is included with a Power BI Premium subscription to provide customers with a tool for delivering reports from within their own data centers. Users, in turn, can view the reports via their browsers or Power BI mobile apps or as email attachments.

If you choose to install Power BI Report Server, you must use the Report Server Configuration Manager to specify such settings as the service account, web service URL, SQL Server database, and web portal URL, as shown in the following figure. You need to set up your configurations before you can start working with the actual reports.

The Report Server Configuration Manager is included in the Power BI Report Server installation, but it is separate from the tools you use to manage the reports. For report management, you must use the Report Server web portal, which is enabled after you configure the necessary settings. Through the web portal, you can access all your reports and KPIs, as well as carry out such tasks as schedule data updates or subscribe to published reports.

Like the Power BI service, Power BI Report Server works in conjunction with Power BI Desktop. You can create reports and then save them to Power BI Report Server. For example, you can save a report such as the one shown in the following figure to Power BI Report Server.

The report is based on data from the Titanic dataset, available as a CSV file from the site https://vincentarelbundock.github.io/Rdatasets/datasets.html . The report includes one table and one ribbon visualization. To save the report to Power BI Report Server, you must use the Save As command and provide the web portal URL.

When you connect to the Power BI Report Server web portal, you’re taken to your Home page, which lists any reports you’ve added to the server. For example, the following figure shows the two reports I added on my system: AdventureWorksSales and Titanic . I had created both of these reports in Power BI Desktop.

To view the Titanic report, click the applicable report icon. This takes you to the report page shown in the following figure.

Notice that the report looks similar to what we saw in Power BI Desktop, although the colors are a bit different from the original. Even so, this should give you an idea of how Power BI Report Server works and how easy it is to copy your reports from Power BI Desktop to Power BI Report Server.

Keep in mind, however, that Power BI Report Server is still a young product and, as such, you might run into some odd behavior along with way. For example, if you install the product on a standalone server that is not part of a domain, you might have trouble viewing reports in the Edge browser. Worse still, the error messages you receive might send you down a rabbit hole that can waste much of your time (as it did me). However, the Chrome browser appears to work fine for viewing reports in Power BI Report Server, and I’ve also read that running Internet Explorer as an administrator can get the reports to render properly.

Another problem you might run into has to do with the Power BI Desktop version that you’re using. You must use one that’s optimized for Power BI Report Server, which is not always the most current release. This can be problematic if you create reports in a newer version of Power BI Desktop and then discover you have to revert back to an older version to save the reports to Report Server. The older version of Power BI Desktop might not be able to properly process the report files. Last I checked, the most recent Power BI Desktop release was April 2018, but Power BI Report Server required a March 2018 release of Power BI Desktop.

I’ve no doubt that, with time, Microsoft will get many of these bugs worked out and will be adding new features along the way. It will be interesting to see what Power BI Report Server looks like a year from now, or even over the next six months.

More to Come

As Power BI continues to evolve and grow, new features will continue to come online, as well as services related to the Power BI ecosystem. For example, Microsoft now offers Power BI Embedded, a service for ISVs and developers looking for an easier way to embed Power BI analytics into their applications. Microsoft also now provides features for better integrating Excel and Power BI. In addition, Microsoft will soon be offering insights, line-of-business apps that apply advanced intelligence to data for better understanding that data. Two insight apps—Power BI for Sales Insights and Power BI for Service Insights—are expected to preview in the very near future. What will come after that is anyone’s guess.

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Robert Sheldon

Robert is a freelance technology writer based in the Pacific Northwest. He’s worked as a technical consultant and has written hundreds of articles about technology for both print and online publications, with topics ranging from predictive analytics to 5D storage to the dark web. He’s also contributed to over a dozen books on technology, developed courseware for Microsoft’s training program, and served as a developmental editor on Microsoft certification exams. When not writing about technology, he’s working on a novel or venturing out into the spectacular Northwest woods.

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AI + Machine Learning , Announcements , Azure AI Content Safety , Azure AI Studio , Azure OpenAI Service , Partners

Introducing GPT-4o: OpenAI’s new flagship multimodal model now in preview on Azure

By Eric Boyd Corporate Vice President, Azure AI Platform, Microsoft

Posted on May 13, 2024 2 min read

• Tag: Copilot
• Tag: Generative AI

Microsoft is thrilled to announce the launch of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new flagship model on Azure AI. This groundbreaking multimodal model integrates text, vision, and audio capabilities, setting a new standard for generative and conversational AI experiences. GPT-4o is available now in Azure OpenAI Service, to try in preview , with support for text and image.

Azure OpenAI Service

A step forward in generative AI for Azure OpenAI Service

GPT-4o offers a shift in how AI models interact with multimodal inputs. By seamlessly combining text, images, and audio, GPT-4o provides a richer, more engaging user experience.

Launch highlights: Immediate access and what you can expect

Azure OpenAI Service customers can explore GPT-4o’s extensive capabilities through a preview playground in Azure OpenAI Studio starting today in two regions in the US. This initial release focuses on text and vision inputs to provide a glimpse into the model’s potential, paving the way for further capabilities like audio and video.

Efficiency and cost-effectiveness

GPT-4o is engineered for speed and efficiency. Its advanced ability to handle complex queries with minimal resources can translate into cost savings and performance.

Potential use cases to explore with GPT-4o

The introduction of GPT-4o opens numerous possibilities for businesses in various sectors: 

• Enhanced customer service : By integrating diverse data inputs, GPT-4o enables more dynamic and comprehensive customer support interactions.
• Advanced analytics : Leverage GPT-4o’s capability to process and analyze different types of data to enhance decision-making and uncover deeper insights.
• Content innovation : Use GPT-4o’s generative capabilities to create engaging and diverse content formats, catering to a broad range of consumer preferences.

Exciting future developments: GPT-4o at Microsoft Build 2024 

We are eager to share more about GPT-4o and other Azure AI updates at Microsoft Build 2024 , to help developers further unlock the power of generative AI.

Get started with Azure OpenAI Service

Begin your journey with GPT-4o and Azure OpenAI Service by taking the following steps:

• Try out GPT-4o in Azure OpenAI Service Chat Playground (in preview).
• If you are not a current Azure OpenAI Service customer, apply for access by completing this form .
• Learn more about  Azure OpenAI Service  and the  latest enhancements.  
• Understand responsible AI tooling available in Azure with Azure AI Content Safety .
• Review the OpenAI blog on GPT-4o.

Let us know what you think of Azure and what you would like to see in the future.

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View and present live Power BI data in PowerPoint

• 5 contributors

As soon as you add a live Power BI report page or visual to PowerPoint, you can start interacting with your data just as you would in Power BI. The initial view is determined by the URL you used. The following image shows a report page loaded into the add-in, with the add-in features labeled. The same add-in features are available when you load an individual visual.

Understanding what you see

In the add-in, you see:

• The report page or visual . The report page or visual is fully interactive, in both edit and slideshow modes, unless it has been frozen as a static image . The left-hand report page navigation pane that you see in the Power BI service isn't included. If there are page navigation visuals in the report itself, you can use them to navigate to other pages in the report.
• A toolbar across the bottom of the report page . The toolbar contains info and menus with controls that help you work with the data and set up your presentations. See the Controls section for more detail.
• A Show/Hide arrow at the upper right side that opens the add-in side pane (desktop application only). The add-in side pane contains more controls for working with the add-in, such as deleting the add-in or forcing a refresh of the report while the add-in is open. See Add-in side pane for more detail.

Tip : To get a cleaner view and more space, you can collapse the toolbar by toggling the Expand/Collapse the toolbar in the bottom right corner of the add-in.

Interact with data

You interact with the data just as you would in the Power BI service. You can apply filters and slicers, select data points, and drill down on data.

The live report page or visual is interactive in both edit and slide-show modes. Changes you make to the report or visual's state (via filtering, selection, slicing, etc.) in edit mode while setting up your slides are saved. By contrast, changes you make to the report or visual's state in slide show mode aren't saved. When you exit the show, the report or visual returns to the state it was in when you left edit mode.

As you work with the report or visual in edit mode, you can always restore the initial view if you want to go back to it. Use the Reset option in the Data options menu.

Prepare a slide show

To get more space and a cleaner display for your slide show, you can collapse the toolbar across the bottom of the report page or visual using the Expand/collapse toolbar control.

If you need to present a slide show multiple times, you most likely want to set it up just once, and have it automatically return to its beginning state when it's finished, so you're ready to go for the next time. The add-in makes this easy. Since data selections you make in edit mode are saved, while selections you make in slide show mode aren't, you can set up the presentation just once in advance in edit mode, and then present it as a slide show multiple times without having to set it up again each time, no matter how much slicing, dicing, and filtering you do in the course of the show - when the slide show is over, the report page or visual goes back to the state it was in at the beginning of the slide show.

Automatically refresh data during slide shows

PowerPoint allows you to continuously play back a presentation in slide show mode. This feature is especially useful when you want to present information in public displays without any human interaction. For information about setting up a continuously running slideshow, see Create a self-running presentation .

If a presentation that is running continuously has slides that include the Power BI add-in, the data in the add-in might become outdated, since normally the add-in only gets the data from Power BI when the slide is loaded or when the user manually refreshes the data being presented.

To prevent the data in the add-in from becoming stale while being played back as part of a slideshow, you can set the add-in to automatically pull fresh data from Power BI while the presentation is in slide show mode. This ensures that the presentation will always show the most recent data.

To enable automatic refresh, go to the add-in footer, select Add-in options , choose Slide show settings , check Automatic refresh in slide show , and set the desired frequency.

This feature requires that your Office version meet the add-in's minimum Office version requirement . Auto refresh only happens in slide show mode, and not while you're editing the presentation.

Add styles to your presentation

You can improve the appearance of your presentation by applying styles to the add-in. Currently, you can put a border around the add-in to give it a clear definition on the slide.

To put a border around the add-in, open Style options and select Outline . To change the line color, width, style, or transparency, expand the Outline option.

Enrich your presentation with data insights

Data insights help you explore and find insights such as anomalies and trends as you consume and interact with your data. With the add-in, you can easily generate insights, which you can then paste directly into your slide or copy to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere, such as in the slide's notes.

Not all visuals can generate insights. See Smart narrative considerations and limitations for details.

Once you've copied an insight to the slide or clipboard, the text is static and won't change when the data changes. To update the insight, you need to re-generate it.

The following animation shows how you can generate data insights, edit them in the Data insights dialog, and then paste them directly into the slide or copy them into the notes.

To generate data insights:

Select Data options > Data insights .

The insight appears in the Data insights dialog. The text is editable and you can change it as desired. When you're satisfied with the text, you can either paste it directly onto the slide as a PowerPoint textbox, or you can copy it onto the clipboard, from where you paste it wherever you like - into the slide notes, for example.

Freeze a snapshot of the current view

Every time you open your presentation, the report page or visual reloads into the add-in, bringing fresh data from the Power BI service. There might be times when you don't want this to happen, and instead would like the data to remain static. For this you can use the View menu in the toolbar. Choosing one of the snapshot options turns the current live view into a static, non-interactive image. Then, when you next open the presentation, you'll see the static view you saved.

The menu allows you to set the view to live data or to a snapshot. Two snapshot options provide you some control over who will be able to see the Power BI content in the snapshot:

Snapshot : When you choose Snapshot, only users who have permission to view the report in Power BI will be able see the static image of the Power BI content. Users who don't have permission will be able to request access. This option helps keep you from inadvertently showing Power BI content to unauthorized users.

Public snapshot : If you choose Public snapshot, anyone who can view the presentation to be able to see the static image of the Power BI content, regardless of their permissions in Power BI.

To restore the interactive view, select Live data . The live report page or visual will reload in the state it was last in, but with the latest data from Power BI.

The view menu with the snapshot options requires Office version 2312 (Build 17126) or later. If you're Office version meets this requirement, don't use the Save as image option located the add-in side pane.

You can only switch between Live Data and Snapshot in the PowerPoint desktop application - you can't do this in PowerPoint for the web. However, PowerPoint for the web does respect the the choice you made in the desktop application. So whatnever view you selected in the desktop app will be the view that you'll see in PowerPoint for the web.

Share your presentation

When you share the presentation with others, to be able to view the data in the presentation they'll need an active Power BI account and a Microsoft Fabric free license, as well as access to the data. If the Power BI report or visual isn't located in a Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or greater capacity, they'll need a Power BI Pro license. None of this applies if you've frozen the view as a static image.

To make sure people in your organization can access the report or visual and take advantage of the live data experience, when you add a live report page or visual to a presentation, be sure to use the link generated in Power BI by the Share > PowerPoint option . This ensures that the people in your org who you shared the presentation with will be able to see the live data when they open the presentation.

Users who don't have permission to view the report or visual can request access directly from the presentation, and will be able to view the data once they've received access.

Controls that help you work with your data in PowerPoint are described below.

• Hyperlinked title : Report name and page or visual name. Select the title to open Power BI to that report page or visual.
• Report sensitivity label : Shows the sensitivity label applied to the report in Power BI. Note: this isn't the sensitivity label (if any) applied to the PowerPoint file itself.
• Last update from source : Shows the time and date of the last data update from the data sources.

Data options

• Filter : Shows or hides the filters pane, where you can filter your data, just like in the Power BI service. This option is available only if filters have been defined on the page or visual.
• Data Insights : Generates insights displays them in a dialog as editable text. You can then either paste them directly onto the slide or copy them to the clipboard for use elsewhere.
• Refresh : Refreshes the report page or visual with the latest data from the Power BI service. Note: Refresh doesn't trigger getting data from the data sources.
• Reset : Restores the state of the report page or visual to the state it was in when it was first added to the PowerPoint presentation.

Style options

• Outline : Puts a border around the add-in. Select the expand arrow to access border line-style formatting options.

Add-in options

• Clear data : Removes the report page or visual from the add-in and returns you to the add-in Insert screen, where you can start over by pasting in the URL of a different report page or visual.
• Slide show settings : Controls data refresh during slide shows. With this setting, you can turn on/turn off automatic data refresh during a slide show, and set the refresh frequency. For more information, see Automatically refresh data during slide shows .
• Learn : Opens help pages.

Expand/collapse toolbar

Expands or collapses the toolbar across the bottom of the report or visual. This feature is useful in Slide Show mode, when you need more space and want a cleaner display.

Add-in side pane

Delete : Removes the add-in from the PowerPoint slide.

Reload : The report page reloads every time PowerPoint is opened, so you need to use this option only if the report has changed while you’ve had PowerPoint open.

If all you want to do is refresh the data, use the Refresh option in the Data options menu instead.

The add-in side pane is available only in the PowerPoint desktop application. It isn't supported in PowerPoint for the web.

Keyboard Shortcuts

To get around the report, you can use the usual Power BI keyboard shortcuts , with the following exceptions:

Related content

• About storytelling with Power BI in PowerPoint
• Add live Power BI data to PowerPoint
• Information for Power BI administrators
• Troubleshoot the Power BI add-in for PowerPoint
• More questions? Try asking the Power BI Community

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