LEARN POWER BI

Step by Step Guide to Building Your Own Reports

Derek Wilson

CDO Advisors
 Learn Power BI
Step by Step Guide to Building Your Own Reports
 Learn Power BI
Step by Step Guide to Building Your Own Reports

When the archer misses the mark, he turns and looks for the
fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull's eye is never the
fault of the target.
To improve your aim -- improve yourself.

Gilbert Arland

Derek Wilson
CEO and Founder – CDO Advisors
www.cdoadvisors.com
 Copyright © 2020 Derek Wilson

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written
permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456

Cover design by: Art Painter

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
1 -Introduction
Who should read this book?
Why you should select this book
2 - Sample Data and Project for this Book
3 - The Power BI Ecosystem
What is Power BI?
Installing Power BI Desktop
Power BI Updates
4 - How to Add Data in Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop Basics
Power BI Desktop Ribbon
Common Data Sources
Load Data from Excel File
Step By Step – Load Excel Data
Step by Step – Format a Date
Step by Step – Format a Value
5 - Visualizations
Step by Step – Add Visualizations from the Marketplace
6 - Building Reports
Step by Step – Build Sales Map Report
Step by Step – Build Sales Trend Report
Step by Step – Build KPI Report
Step by Step – Build Sales Detail Drill Through Report
7 - Interacting with Visuals
Step by Step - Drill Through
Step by Step - Drill Down
8 - Using Filters on Reports
Step by Step - Filter Sales Map
Step by Step - Filter Sales Trends
9 - Exporting Data from Power BI
Step by Step - Export Data
10 - Publishing Power BI Desktop
Step by Step – Publish a Report
Step by Step – Accessing a Report on PowerBI.com
Conclusion
About CDO Advisors
1 -Introduction
Who should read this book?

If you are interested in data visualization, data storytelling and improving

your business with data. This book is designed for people that want to solve
business problems with data and need a quick guide to get them started
without fluff. If you have plenty of data and are stuck with Excel charts and
Pivot Tables. Then give yourself a new skill and learn a leader in data
visualization Microsoft Power BI. You will find this book gives you all of
the core knowledge you need to create, modify and publish Power BI reports
that enable self-service analytics and dashboards.
Why you should select this book.
For the price of 2 name brand coffees, you can learn everything you need
to get started building reports in Power BI Desktop. It also provides an
overview of the Power BI ecosystem so you can make a better decision to
determine if implementing Microsoft Power BI is the right data visualization
solution for your company.
The examples provide a quick background on the topic and the provide
step by step instructions with images to make sure you can get started with
Power BI quickly.
From start to finish this book should take you between 2 to 4 hours to
complete while learning critical skills required to build and modify Power BI
Reports on your own.
2 - Sample Data and Project for this Book
This book uses a sample data file to walk you step by step to building your
own Power BI Report. As you build the project you will learn the core
components of Power BI and what is required to build a report in Power BI
Desktop. Publish the report to PowerBI.com and share the report with others
in your organization.

The sample data file contains 50,000 rows of sales orders for a fictional
bulk wholesale company. Each row represents a single transaction with an
Order ID, Dates, Pricing, Costs and Revenue. As you use this example think
about the existing Excel files or reports your applications generate that would
be good choices for you to build a Power BI report upon finishing this book.

The example file can be found on Google Drive using this link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YciOcaPoJacX0L1SkmJHiFcqZAL2VMBe?
usp=sharing

Roadmap to Success
The book is structured to ensure a roadmap to success. Follow along in
each chapter and complete the Step by Step guide. As you become familiar
with Power BI Desktop, go back and try out different options and formats on
your reports. Each section is designed to build upon the next. When you
complete all of the exercises you will have the core knowledge required to
build and publish your own Power BI reports.
3 - The Power BI Ecosystem
What is Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics solution that allows you to

create and share data across your organization. These same data
visualizations can be used withing apps or websites to get a single version of
the truth.
Connect to hundreds of data sources and allows you to mash data up on
the fly when required or connect to a traditional data warehouse. As a leader
on the Gartner Magic Quadrant this software is cutting edge with releases on
a monthly basis. Power BI Desktop is priced at a user per month cost. There
are other pricing options as well. However, for the price point there is no
alternative that provides a greater Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
How much does Power BI Cost? Currently, it is $10 per user per month.
For a small team to get started it is very affordable. For larger installations,
upgrade to an enterprise level, there are other pricing options available such
as Power BI Premium.
Power BI is made up of a set of software and services. These programs
together enable a modern data analytics architecture that enables you to get
more value from your data. These services include:

Power BI Service (www.powerbi.com)

Power BI Desktop
Power BI Premium
Power BI Mobile
Power BI Embedded
Power BI Report Server

I often get asked “is Power BI free”. Yes, Power BI has a free pricing
model that gives you full features with limited sharing. You can test the
product and see how it looks on your data with the free license. To get the
most from Power BI you need to upgrade to Power BI Pro.

Installing Power BI Desktop

 To follow along in the examples in this book. Please download the latest
version of Power BI Desktop from Microsoft. You can use either the 32 or
64-bit for the examples, whichever your computer supports. If possible, use
the 64-bit version to make sure you can leverage as much RAM as your
machine can support.

As of this writing the download link is

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494

Power BI Updates
Also, important to note are the regular updates Microsoft releases to
Power BI products and often releases new features each month. Make sure to
keep your version of Power BI up to date to take advantage of new features.
You can follow these updates on the Microsoft Power BI blog
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/
4 - How to Add Data in Power BI Desktop
In this section, you will connect to the sample Excel file and learn how to
do formatting on columns. You want to format your columns before you
begin building your visualizations. Data Formatting involves setting the data
type of the column as well as the default aggregation if any.

Power BI Desktop Basics

When you first open Power BI Desktop you will be presented with a blank
Power BI canvas as shown Figure 4.1. This is where you design your Power
Bi report starting with loading data, formatting your data and adding it to the
desktop as part of a visualization.

Figure 4.1 – Power BI Desktop Canvas

Power BI Desktop Ribbon

The Power BI Desktop ribbon is where you find options to create and
enhance your report. Each menu item contains submenus that present
available options for that area. Explore and get familiar with the options
available for each menu item as shown in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 – Power BI Desktop Ribbon Menu

Common Data Sources

Power BI offers the ability to access data from almost any data source.
The most common data sources have been pulled together in to a quick
launch menu under the Get data Option as shown in Figure 4.3. If you click
More… you can then see all of the available Power BI connection options.

Figure 4.3 – Get Data - Common Data Sources

Load Data from Excel File
The first step to building your Power BI Report is to connect to the data
you want to use. To get started you are going to load the transaction sample
file that is in an Excel format.

Step By Step – Load Excel Data

1. Click on Excel from the Home Ribbon
2. Select the Sales Sample file from the location you saved it as
shown is Figure 4.4, and then select Open.

Figure 4.4

3. The Navigator screen now opens that lets you select the worksheets
from the Excel file that you want to import into the model. You
can import 1 or more from the same file during this process. In this
example, select the Sales Data worksheet as shown in Figure 4.5.
Figure 4.5 – Excel Navigator
There are 2 options on the Navigator screen, Load and Transform Data.
Load immediately takes the data from the selected sheet and loads it into
Power BI Desktop. Transform Data opens Power Query Editor. For this
example, click on Load.
Once you are comfortable with Power BI Desktop, come back and explore
using Transform Data and all the available option in Power Query Editor.

4. The data is loaded from Excel into Power BI Desktop and returns
you to the Power BI Canvas now showing a Table in the Fields
menu on the far right. Figure 4.6 shows the Power BI Canvas with
data.
Figure 4.6 – Power BI Canvas with Sales Data Table
Each column from the Excel file has been imported into Power BI and the
data types have been assigned based on scanning each column. While Power
BI does a good job with setting the datatypes, be sure to double check the
columns are accurately reflecting the data in the way that you intend. Figure
4.7 shows a close up on the imported Excel file now loaded into Power BI
Desktop.
Figure 4.7 – Sales Data Loaded in Power BI Desktop
Note the icons of the Calendar and Sigma. Power BI has assigned a date
hierarchy to the Order Date and Ship Date. It has also assigned aggregations
to Order ID and Total Cost through Units Sold. Order ID has been set to a
Count Summarization.
Now that data has been imported. You will see 2 new menu options,
Table tools and Column tools. Click on Order ID and you will be able to see
the Summarization that Power BI determined from the import. In this case,
Count has been selected as shown in Figure 4.8.
Figure 4.8 - Order ID Default Summarization
Click on the other fields with default summarizations to see the assigned
aggregation. Each field is set to Sum. When you add any of these fields to
the report the Summarization that is set is what will be used in the
visualization.

Step by Step – Format a Date

The next step in setting up your data is to ensure the Data Type is correct
and the Format is configured to what you need in your reporting. In this
example, you will format a date and add the thousands separator.

1. Select the Order Date column while in data view. (Notice the
Yellow Bar on the left next to the data table) as shown in Figure
4.9.
Figure 4.9 – Select Order Date for Formatting

2. Select the Format dropdown to change the date from a long

description to a more appropriate short version for your reports

Figure 4.10 – Select Date Format for Order Date

3. Choose 03/14/2001 (mm/dd/yyyy) to apply that format to the Order

Date Column
Figure 4.11 – Completed Order Date Format

Step by Step – Format a Value

In this example you will update the Units Sold column to include a
thousands separator. In the Formatting area on the Column tools, you have
the options to format Currency, Percentages, Thousands, and number of
decimal points. Test out each option to see how they work.

1. Select the Units Sold column

2. Select the icon and apply thousands separator to the Units

Sold. Your column should look like Figure 4.12.
Figure 4.12 – Units Sold Formatted with Thousands Separator

3. Now update the following columns to use the appropriate

currency. In this example, I am using US Dollars $ English
United States as shown in Figure 4.13

Unit Price
Unit Cost
Total Revenue
Total Cost
Total Profit
Figure 4.13 – Select Common Currency Symbols
These columns should now be formatted as shown below in Figure 4.14.

Figure 4.14 – Completed Currency Formatting

5 - Visualizations
The ability for people to make better decisions starts with how you
visualize your data. There are lots of great books on data visualization best
practices. In this book, I am focused on making sure you know how to build
reports that enable self-service data analytics. Visualizations are interactive
by default, meaning when you select a part of a visualization. All other
visualizations are filtered by this value.

There are two types of Visualizations you can use in Power BI. First are
the default visualizations that are part of Power BI Desktop shown in Figure
5.1.

Figure 5.1 Default Visualizations in Power BI Desktop

There are also new visualizations that can be added to your report by
accessing the Power BI Visualization Marketplace. These visualizations can
be free or require a paid license. When exploring available options, be sure
to pay attention to the licensing model and understand additional costs that
may be required.

Step by Step – Add Visualizations from the Marketplace

1. On the Visualization menu click on the ellipse(…) on the bottom
right to bring up all options.
2. Select Get more visuals to open the Marketplace visualizations as
Figure 5.2 shows.
Figure 5.2 Get Marketplace Visualizations

3. You will now see the Power BI Visuals window they are grouped
by categories and are searchable as shown in Figure 5.3.

Figure 5.3 Power BI Visuals

 4. Click on Power BI Certified and then scroll to the Timeline Slicer
as shown in Figure 5.4 and select Add.

Figure 5.4 Power BI Timeline Slicer

5. If successful, you will see the Import custom visual window as seen
in Figure 5.5, click OK to close the window.

Figure 5.5 Import custom Visual Confirmation

 Any Marketplace visuals you add will be loaded below the default
visualizations. The Timeline Slicer circled in Red has been added as shown
in Figure 5.6.

5.6 Marketplace Visualizations Location for Timeline Slicer

6 - Building Reports
Now that you have loaded your data. Formatted it as necessary and know
where the data fields and visualizations are located. It’s time to start building
a report. Take a few minutes to review the Sales Data that you imported to
get familiar with the data that is in the file. What reports would a business
user want from this type of data? What trends would they want to see? What
relationships between the data will be important?

The following images show four reports built in a single Power BI

Desktop file using the sample data you have already loaded. These reports
are what you will be building in the following Step by Step examples. They
are designed to provide you with the knowledge required to quickly
transform your data into actionable self-service dashboards.
 The Sales Map report shows you how Power BI can generate maps from
location information. In this example, I am showing the regions that have
sales in the map. In the data table, I am showing the count of sales by Order
ID for all regions and countries. The data table can be sorted on any of the
columns by clicking on the header name. In addition, you can filter the data
table by clicking on blue dot in the Region map to filter the information to
just that region. All with no additional coding, just native Power BI
interactions.

Figure 6.1 Sales Map

The Sales Trend report uses the Timeline Slicer visualization to build out a
view that lets you see your data over time using a variety of visualizations.
Sales profit and Order Count are shown over time with more details in the
data tables. You can click on any field and all of the visuals will be filtered
to that element.
Figure 6.2 Sales Trends
The KPI Report shows a few different ways you can present KPIs. Often
these types of reports will be used in presentations or handouts so you want
to focus the design on how your team will use the report. I added a logo to
this page only, as it takes of valuable report space if it is not required on
every page.
Figure 6.3 KPI Report Example
The final report is a drill through report that enables you to pass a
parameter by right clicking on a column to this report. It will then be
automatically filtered for that parameter and is very useful to develop reports
that enable self-service.
Figure 6.4 Sales Detail Drill Through

Step by Step – Build Sales Map Report

1. While on the report tab, right click and rename Page 1 to Sales Map
as show in Figure 6.5.

-
Figure 6.5 Rename Page in Power BI

2. Add the map visual to the report by clicking on the map visual,
outlined in red in Figure 6.6.
Figure 6.6 Add Map Visual to Power BI

3. Add fields to the report, Drag Region from the Fields menu to the
Location area under the visualizations area.
4. Then add Order ID to the Size area under the visualizations area as
shown in Figure 6.7.
Figure 6.7 Add Fields to Map Visual in Power BI

5. Next add a table visual outlined in red in Figure 6.8, by clicking on

the icon.
Figure 6.8 Add Table Visual to Power BI

6. Add Region, Country, Order ID to the values area under

Visualizations to complete the Sales Map report as shown in Figure
6.9.
Figure 6.9 Add Fields to Table Visual in Power BI

Step by Step – Build Sales Trend Report

1. Create a new page by clicking on the + sign, similar to Excel. Then
Rename it as before by right clicking, rename and name the page
Sales Trend as shown in Figure 6.10.
Figure 6.10 Create and Rename Page to Sales Trend

2. Add the Timeline Slicer visual to upper right and resize as shown.
The add the Order Date to the Time Field, like Figure 6.11.

Figure 6.11 Add Timeline Slicer to Sales Trend

3. Add a Stacked Bar Chart in the upper right as shown in Figure

6.12. Add Sales Channel to the Axis and Order ID to the Values.
Figure 6.12 Add Stacked Bar Chart

4. Add a Sales Trend Line and Stacked Column Chart to the bottom
left as shown in Figure 6.13.

Figure 6.13 Add Sales Trend Line and Stacked Column Chart to Sales Trend

5. Then add the Order Date to the Shared Axis, Total Profit to the
Column Values and Order ID to the Line Values. You report
 should look like Figure 6.14.

Figure 6.14 – Add Fields to Line and Stacked Column Chart in Sales Trend

6. Add a Data Table to the canvas as shown in Figure 6.15 below to

the right of the Line and Stacked Column Chart
Figure 6.15 Add Data Table to the Canvas

7. Add Sales Channel, Item Type, Units Sold, Total Revenue to the
Values area to populate the tables as shown in Figure 6.16.

Figure 6.16 Add Fields to Data Table

8. To increase the size of the font in the data table. Click on the
design button and scroll down to the Grid section as you see in
Figure 6.17.
Figure 6.17 Change Format of Data Table

9. Now increase the Text Size to 12 pt by typing the number or

clicking the up arrow like shown in Figure 6.18.

Figure 6.18 Increase Text Size in Grid Format Area

10. Add another data table to below on the bottom right as shown
in Figure 6.19.
Figure 6.19 Add Additional Data Table to Canvas

11. Add Region, Units Sold, Total Revenue to the Values Area.
Then increase the Text to size 12pt as you did in Step 9. The
completed Sales Trend report is shown in Figure 6.20.

Figure 6.20 Add Values and Change Text Size

Step by Step – Build KPI Report

1. Add a new page and rename it KPI Report as shown in Figure 6.21.

Figure 6.21 Add New Page KPI Report

2. To add a logo to the report, click on Insert and then the Image
icon as seen in Figure 6.22.

Figure 6.22 Add Image to Power BI Desktop Canvas

3. Find an image that you want to add in the pop up window as shown
in Figure 6.23. I am using the CDO Advisors logo.
Figure 6.23 Add logo to Power BI Report Page

4. You can resize the image and move it around the canvas. Place it
on the top left.
5. Add a Text Box, to add a title to the report as shown in Figure
6.24.
Figure 6.24 Add Text box to Power BI Canvas

6. Move the text box to the top and add in the title for your report.
CDO Advisors Sales KPIs is shown in Figure 6.25.

Figure 6.25 Move Text box to Reposition

 7. Change the font size to 24 in the black text menu and center the
text using the center icon in the black text menu as shown in Figure
6.26.

Figure 6.26 Resize Text and Center in Text Box

8. Add a Card Visualization and move it to the top right next to the
Text Box created in step 7. The Card Visualization is outlined in
red in Figure 6.27.

Figure 6.27 Add Card Visualization to Power BI

9. Add Region from the fields list to the Field area in the
Visualizations. This is shown in Figure 6.28.
Figure 6.28 Add Field to Card Visualization

10. To resize the text, scroll to the Data Label area under
Visualizations and change the Text Size to 18pt as seen in Figure
6.29.
Figure 6.29 Resize Data Label

11. Currently the label is showing First Region. You want to

rename it to Region. Click on the down arrow on the First Region
field as seen in Figure 6.30 and the select rename, type in Region.
Figure 6.30 Rename Field in Card Visualization

12. The completed Card Visualization is shown below in Figure

6.31.
Figure 6.31 Completed Card Visualization

13. Add a KPI Visualization and position it on the left under the
visualizations that were completed as seen in Figure 6.32.
Figure 6.32 Add KPI Visualization to Power BI

14. Add Total Revenue to the KPI card by adding it to the Fields in
the Visualizations area shown in Figure 6.33.

6.33 Add Total Revenue Field to KPI Visualization

15. Change the data label color scroll down to Data label in the
Format area of the KPI Visualization as shown below in Figure
6.34 Select the down arrow under color and select white.

Figure 6.34 Change Color of Data Label in Power BI

16. To change the background color, scroll down to the

Background in the Format area and change the color from white to
 blue as show in Figure 6.35.

Figure 6.35 Change Color of Background in Power BI KPI Visualization

17. The final KPI should look like the example in Figure 6.36.
6.36 Completed KPI Visualization Example

18. Add another KPI Visualization and position it next to the Total
Revenue KPI. Then add Total Cost to the Fields to create a Total
Cost KPI as Shown in Figure 6.37.
Figure 6.37 Add Total Cost to KPI Visualization

19. Add a Gauge to the report from the Visualization and move it
next to Total Cost and add Total Profit to the Field list as shown in
Figure 6.38.
Figure 6.38 KPI Gauge Added to Power BI

20. Add on more KPI to the report to show Units Sold and move it
to the right of the Total Profit Gauge as seen in Figure 6.39.

6.39 Add Units Sold to Power BI Report

Step by Step – Build Sales Detail Drill Through Report

The final report is a drill through report that the other reports can jump to
and filter. In this exercise you will build and enable drill through capabilities.

1. Add a new page and rename it to SalesDetail_DT, as shown in

Figure 6.40. The DT abbreviation added to a report is an easy way
to denote a page designed for drill through.

Figure 6.40 Add New Page SalesDetail_DT

2. Add a data table to the report and resize it to the full page as seen in
Figure 6.41.
Figure 6.41 Add Data Table and Resize to Page

3. Add Order ID and Order Date to the data table fields as shown in
Figure 6.42. By default, Power BI added Order ID as a Count and
Order Date with a hierarchy. For this detail report, you want to see
each row not aggregations.
Figure 6.42 Add Order ID and Order Date to Data Table

4. Change the Order ID from Count to Don’t Summarize by click the

down arrow on Order ID and changing the aggregation as seen in
Figure 6.43.
Figure 6.43 Change Order ID from Count to Don’t summarize

5. Next change the date hierarchy to a regular date with no hierarchy

by selecting the down arrow on Order Date and then select Order
Date to change the format as seen on Figure 6.44.

Figure 6.44 Change Order Date from Date Hierarchy to Order Date

6. Now add the remaining fields to the Data Table, Region,

Country, Units Sold, Unit Cost, Unit Price, Sales Channel, and
 Order Priority. As shown in Figure 6.45.

Figure 6.45 Add Remaining Fields to Data Table for Drill Through

You will now have a report that looks like Figure 6.46. and is ready to be
modified to allow drill through from other reports to this report.
Figure 6.46 Completed Drill Through Report

7. To enable drill through add Country, Item Type and Region to the
Drill Through area. Scroll down on the Fields list under
Visualization to see the Drill Through options as shown in Figure
6.47.
Figure 6.47 Drill through area under Visualizations
Any report visualization on the prior 3 pages that have Country, Item Type
or Region will be able to filter this report enabling a user to perform self-
service analytics.

7 - Interacting with Visuals

Once a report is built users can use it for interactive self-service. This
means they can get to many of there own answers without asking for
additional views of the data. Interacting with the visuals is critical for users
to understand their data and how they can improve the performance of their
business units.

Step by Step - Drill Through

In this exercise, you will see how to use the Drill Through report that was
created in prior section. You can have drill through enabled on none or
many of your reports. Each report that has drill through enabled is accessed
the same way using these steps.

1. Navigate to the Sales Trend Report Page

2. On the bottom right chart, right click on Asia in the Region and you
will see a menu popup with an option for Drill Through.
3. Select the Drill Through option and SalesDetail_DT report as
shown in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1 Right Click to See Drill through menu

4. Power BI will use Asia as filter and automatically open the

SalesDetail_DT report filtered to only the Region of Asia as shown
in Figure 7.2.
Figure 7.2 Drill through to SalesDetail_DT report

Step by Step - Drill Down

Power BI creates the ability to drill down and drill up in your data to
enable faster analysis and user self-service. Using the Total Profit and Order
ID by Year you will learn to drill into the data to get different views on the
fly.
1. Open the Sales Trends report
2. Move the cursor over the Total Profit and Order by Year and you
will see a menu popup on the top as shown in Figure 7.3.
Figure 7.3 Drill Options Menu on a Visualization

3. These are the available options on this visualization. The ones that
have arrows indicate what you can do on the visualization. Click
on the side by side down arrows to drill down to the next level of
the hierarchy. In this case Quarters as shown in Figure 7.4. All
data from 2010 to 2017 is shown at a quarterly level.
Figure 7.4 Drill down to quarters

4. To return to the prior view, click on the Up Arrow.

5. Change the Timeline Slicer to Year and select 2015 and 2016 as
shown in Figure 7.5.
Figure 7.5 Modify Sales Trends Report Date Filter

6. To change the level of detail on the bar graph click on the Expand
Hierarchy arrow (4th from left on the menu) to see quarters for
these 2 years as seen in Figure 7.6.
Figure 7.6 Drill Down to Next Level in Hierarchy Quarter

7. To drill down to months, click on the same down arrow and you
will see months as shown in Figure 7.7.
Figure 7.7 Drill Down to Next Hierarchy Level Month

8. To get back to the upper level of the hierarchy, click the up arrow.
Users can navigate any data built with a hierarchy in this way.
9. Drill up to the top level at year and then click the single down
arrow it will change to a circle background to enable drill down.
This option lets you drill into a single area. Then click on 2016.
As you see in Figure x7.8, you only drill down into the quarters in
2016.
Figure 7.8 Drill into 2016 By Quarter

10. Click on Quarter 3 to drill into just those months as shown in

Figure 7.9.
Figure 7.9 Drill Down into Months from Quarters

11. To turn drill down off, click on the single down arrow again.

8 - Using Filters on Reports

Visualizations are interactive by default in Power BI. Meaning when you
select a value in a visualization it will filter the other visuals on that value. In
this section, you will see how filtering works using the report pages that you
just built.

Step by Step - Filter Sales Map

1. On the Sales Map report, click on the Blue Circle on North
America to filter the data table to North American Sales as shown
in Figure 8.1. You will notice the other countries circles turned
light blue.
Figure 8.1 Sales Map Report with North America Filter

2. To remove the filter, click on North America again.

Step by Step - Filter Sales Trends

1. Open the Sales Trend Report and click on the Online Sales Channel
on the upper right chart as seen in Figure 8.2.
Figure 8.2 Filter on Online Sales

2. All the visuals are not filtered to Online sales only. Click on
Online Sales to turn the filter off.
3. Now click on Europe in the bottom right data table. This will filter
the results to only sales in Europe as shown in Figure 8.3.
Figure 8.3 Filter on Europe

4. To add another region to the filter, hold down CTRL and select
Asia. The report is now filtered to Europe and Asia as seen in
Figure 8.4. The same process works on graph visualizations
Figure 8.4 Filter on Europe and Asia

9 - Exporting Data from Power BI

One of the most common tasks within Power BI is to get the data filtered
and ready for use. Often, users will want to export this data and send it to
others to review or make changes. In this section, you will learn how to
export data in Power BI.

Step by Step - Export Data

1. On the Sales Trend Report, Filter the Order Date to 2015 and
2016.
2. Filter to Online sales.
3. Right click on Cereal and Drill through to the SalesDetail_DT
report as shown in Figure 9.1.
Figure 9.1 Drill through to SalesDetail_DT

4. The SalesDetail_DT is now filtered based on the inputs just

selected as seen in Figure 9.2.
Figure 9.2 Filtered SalesDetail_DT Eeport Example

5. To export the results move to the top of the data table and click the
ellipse (…) and you will see a window with options. Select Export
Data as show in Figure 9.3.
Figure 9.3 Export Data using Ellipse

6. A new window opens that lets you save the file as seen in Figure
9.4.

Figure 9.4 Save Data Window Option

10 - Publishing Power BI Desktop
Once you have created your Power BI Report you publish the report to PowerBI.com to share the report
with other people in your organization. Users login to app.powerbi.com and then select the reports they
want to use to perform self-service analytics.

Step by Step – Publish a Report

1. Open the Power BI Report and click on Publish icon on the upper
right side as shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1 Publish Report to Power BI

2. Power BI will ask to save changes before publishing as shown in

Figure 10.2, click Save.
Figure 10.2 Save Power BI Prior to Publishing

3. Power BI Desktop connects to PowerBI.com and brings up the

available locations you can publish your report as shown in Figure
10.3. Choose the appropriate workspace and click Select.
Figure 10.3 Select Power BI Workspace Location

4. The report will now be uploaded to PowerBI.com under your

workspace settings. While it is uploading you will see a notice as
shown in Figure 10.4.
Figure 10.4 Saving Power BI Report to PowerBI.com

5. Once completed as shown on Figure 10.5, you should see a success

window that lets you know your report is available for use on the
Power BI service (powerbi.com)
Figure 10.5 Publish to PowerBI.com Successful

Step by Step – Accessing a Report on PowerBI.com

Users access the reports by logging in to the Power BI service
(powerbi.com). Each user will need to have a valid Power BI license for
your organization.

1. Login to app.powerbi.com with a email address and password

2. Navigate to the location you saved the report. In this example it the
Learn Power BI report is saved on the My workspace. You will see
the list of Report Names and Datasets as shown in Figure 10.6.
Figure 10.6 My Workspace on PowerBI.com

3. Selecting the Learn Power BI Getting Started Step by Step report

will open the report as shown in Figure 10.7.

Figure 10.7 Viewing Power BI Report on PowerBI.com

4. Select the Sales Trends report. Then change the time to 2013 to
2016, select online sales in the upper right chart as seen in Figure
10.8.
Figure 10.8 Sales Trend on PowerBI.com

5. If you select filters and want to quickly go back to the default

setting. Click on counter-clockwise circle highlighted in yellow on
the top right. That will restore all the original settings and filters
that were in place when the report was published. The Reset to
default window appears as shown in Figure 10.9. Click Reset.

Figure 10.9 Reset to Default Confirmation

 The report is now back to the original settings. This option is very useful
to train your users to ensure they know how to get back to default settings.

Conclusion
By completing the exercises in this book. You have learned the core
components of Microsoft Power BI Desktop and PowerBI.com. The skills
you have learned will enable you to access data, build interactive reports and
start to deliver self-service reporting solutions to yourself or others in your
organization. Often the hardest part of learning a new solution is how to get
started. While you have touched on the core elements of Power BI. There is
a lot more for you to explore. I encourage you to use what you have learned
and continue to expand your knowledge in data and analytics with Power BI.

To recap, you now have the required knowledge and experience to

perform the following actions with Power BI.

Install Power BI Desktop

Import Data Using a Sales Sample Excel File
Format Data Types
Build Different Types of Reports
Format Visualizations in Power BI Desktop
Filter Data in Power BI
Create Drill through reports
Publish a Report to PowerBI.com
Interact with Reports on PowerBI.com
About CDO Advisors
Business leaders struggle to have the data they need readily available in an
easy to use dashboard. At CDO Advisors, we’ll build you an amazing Power
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Contact me for details [email protected].

Learn more about CDO Advisors at

www.cdoadvisors.com

Follow me on the following platforms to stay up to date on Power BI and

Analytics. I hope you enjoyed this book.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekewilson/
YouTube – CDO Advisors Channel
Website – www.cdoadvisors.com
Blog – www.cdoadvisors.com/blog
Please let me know is you have any questions!
Derek Wilson