Power BI Desktop is a free application you install on your local computer that lets you connect to, transform, and visualize your data. With Power BI Desktop, you can connect to multiple different sources of data, and combine them (often called modeling) into a data model. This data model lets you build visuals, and collections of visuals you can share as reports, with other people inside your organization. Most users who work on business intelligence projects use Power BI Desktop to create reports, and then use the Power BI service to share their reports with others.
The most common uses for Power BI Desktop are as follows:
- Connect to data.
- Transform and clean data to create a data model. When you import two or more tables, oftentimes you’ll need to create relationships between those tables. The Power BI Desktop includes the Manage Relationships dialog and the Relationships view, where you can use Autodetect to let the Power BI Desktop find and create any relationships, or you can create them yourself. You can also very easily create your own measures and calculations or customize data formats and categories to enrich your data for additional insights.
- Create visuals, such as charts or graphs that provide visual representations of the data.
- Create reports that are collections of visuals on one or more report pages.The Power BI Desktop includes the Report View. Select the fields you want, add filters, choose from dozens of visualizations, format your reports with custom colors, gradients and several other options. The Report View gives you the same great report and visualizations tools just like when creating a report on power BI
- Share reports with others by using the Power BI service.
There are three views available in Power BI Desktop, which you select on the left side of the canvas. The views, shown in the order they appear, are as follows:
- Report: You create reports and visuals, where most of your creation time is spent.
- Data: You see the tables, measures, and other data used in the data model associated with your report, and transform the data for best use in the report’s model.
- Model: You see and manage the relationships among tables in your data model.
The following image shows the three views, as displayed along the left side of the canvas:
To get started with Power BI Desktop, the first step is to connect to data. There are many different data sources you can connect to from Power BI Desktop.
To connect to data:
From the Home ribbon, select Get Data > More. The Get Data window appears, showing the many categories to which Power BI Desktop can connect.
To connect Power BI to a data source such as NetSuite, using ODBC driver select ODBC. Click Connect to confirm the choice..
When you select a data type, you’re prompted for information, such as the URL and credentials, necessary for Power BI Desktop to connect to the data source on your behalf.
After you connect to one or more data sources, you may want to transform the data so it’s useful for you.