1. Business Intelligence
13 Tips for Getting Started w/Power BI for Office 365
The Baker’s Dozen
Business Intelligence
13 SQL Server /
Productivity Tips
Kevin S. Goff
Microsoft SQL Server MVP

2. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
Kevin S. Goff – Brief BIO
Developer/architect since 1987 / Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Columnist for CoDe Magazine since 2004, “The Baker’s Dozen” Productivity Series”, 13 tips on a SQL/BI topic
Wrote a book, collaborated on a 2nd book
Frequent speaker for SQL Server community events and SQL Live!360 Conferences
My site/blog: (includes SQL/BI webcasts)
Releasing some SQL/BI video courseware in 2015
Intro to Power BI for Office 365

3. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
Today’s Topic
13 steps to get started w/Power BI for Office 365
This is an Introductory Session
Two objectives:
To provide you with steps to set up a Power BI for Office 365 site
Give a general roadmap of the major components of Power BI, and a quick glance at what can be built
Will provide some links at the end to study Power BI further, and a quick look at what’s coming in the future
Many detailed screen shots to use for reference, so going to limit tabbing around
Intro to Power BI for Office 365

4. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
Topics for today
What is Power BI and Power BI for Office 365?
Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
What can we build with Power BI for Office 365?
Getting Started: Creating a Power BI for Office 365 site/account
Creating Data Sources and Data Management Gateways
PowerPivot
PowerPivot DAX Formulas
PowerView
PowerMaps
PowerQuery
Deploying/Saving Content to Power BI for Office 365 sites
Setting up Data Refreshes back to On-Premise Sources
Recommended Reading/Links
Intro to Power BI for Office 365

5. 1: What is Power BI for Office 365?
One way to look at it – there are 2 major parts
The first is a set of Excel 2013 add-ins (Power BI itself)
Power Pivot (a simple way to create analytic pivot tables)
Power View (a new data visualization tool for creating “image” reports and charts)
Power Map (formerly GeoFlow, creates 3-D geographic visualizations using Bing Maps under the hood)
Power Query (search and query data from public sources – ETL inside Excel)
The second is based on Office 365 Cloud Services
Office 365 Power BI sites that offer a cloud-based version of SharePoint portals for sharing Excel content
Data Management Gateway so that IT can control data sources published on Power BI sites (as well as user access)
Mobile BI device support for Windows 8, Windows RT and iOS tables (iPads) to view visualizations using HTML5
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

6. 2: Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
In a traditional SharePoint 2010 or 2013 environment:
Works well, but requires SharePoint licenses and maintenance
Users then publish the Excel content to a SharePoint site collection
SharePoint Enterprise Server
Site Collections for Excel, PowerPivot, Power View Galleries
Other document libraries containing Business Intelligence Data
Business Users/Developers take data from SQL Server (or other sources), create Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts in Excel
Larger set of users interact with the data in SharePoint
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

7. 2: Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
But what if….???
What if this piece could exist “in the cloud”, in an external portal that could render all the Excel content , and even work with newer versions of Excel add-ins?
Users then publish the Excel content to a SharePoint site collection
SharePoint Enterprise Server
Site Collections for Excel, PowerPivot, Power View Galleries
Other document libraries containing Business Intelligence Data
Business Users/Developers take data from SQL Server (or other sources), create Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts in Excel
Larger set of users interact with the data in SharePoint
And what if mobile users could access this site with a Surface table or an iPad?
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

8. 2: Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
That’s the basis of Power BI for Office 365
Office 365 site, managed by Microsoft, that contains stripped down version of SharePoint, with simpler management features
Users then publish the Excel content to an Office 365 site
Office 365 Server (with SharePoint support)
Site Collections for Excel, PowerPivot, Power View Galleries
Other document libraries containing Business Intelligence Data
Business Users/Developers take data from SQL Server (or other sources), create Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts in Excel
Larger set of corporate users interact with the data by accessing Office 365 site (either with desktop or laptop or mobile device
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

9. 2: Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
That’s the basis of Power BI for Office 365
Office 365 site does not contain ALL features of SharePoint Enterprise (such as PerformancePoint Services and Reporting Services Integration)
Users then publish the Excel content to an Office 365 site
Office 365 Server (with SharePoint support)
Site Collections for Excel, PowerPivot, Power View Galleries
Other document libraries containing Business Intelligence Data
Max workbook upload is 250 MB (compressed)
Business Users/Developers take data from SQL Server (or other sources), create Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts in Excel
Larger set of corporate users interact with the data by accessing Office 365 site (either with desktop or laptop or mobile device
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

10. 2: Power BI for Office 365 vs SharePoint On-Premises
But when the content in the database changes, do we need to rebuild and redeploy the Excel spreadsheet?
Power BI for Office 365 site
Step 4: Set up a Data Refresh , so that the deployed content can refresh from the on-site, on-premises data source
But it requires that we configure a Data Gateway and Data Source on the Power BI for Office 365 site
Deployed Excel sheet contains data (compressed using xVelocity)
Step 3: Users can access Excel content on the site, in the browser or from a mobile device, even if they don’t have Excel
Step 2: Deploy (Save) Excel Power BI Content to Power BI for Office 365 site. Remember, it contains the actual static content from the original database
Step 1: Created PowerPivot / Power View content in Excel against SQL Server database
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

11. 3: What can we build with Power BI for Office 365
Excel Spreadsheet
Built against SQL Database
Deployed to Power BI site
Can Navigate against it without Excel in browser or mobile device!
DAX formulas for KPIs, Return %, and Ranking
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

12. 3: What can we build with Power BI for Office 365
DAX formulas for Moving Average
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

13. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
First, load up on the Excel Add-Ins for Excel 2013
Get PowerPivot, Power View, and (maybe) Power Maps
(Power Pivot)
Install/Configure steps for PowerPivot
PowerView is an add-in that comes with Excel 2013 Pro
(Power Maps)
(Power Query)
“Getting started” information for Power Query & Power Maps
A great overview of the components of Power BI
These are KILLER add-ins that allow Microsoft to compete with other self-service BI tools like QlikView and Tableau
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

14. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
Main Power BI Site
Power BI Blog
Power BI Support/FAQ
Pricing and Free Trial
A free trial starts with basic credentials and a user ID
Main portal only has ADMIN enabled to start. Must do some provisioning
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

15. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
Admin dashboard – need to add any additional users and start services
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

16. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
Either use new domain (based on original ID) and then add any additional users
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

17. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
Final checklist
Remember
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

18. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
The main SharePoint portal admin center.
At this point we have a public SharePoint site
Our next step is to configure and provision a Power BI
New public Office 365 SharePoint site
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

19. 4: Getting Started with Power BI for Office 365
Power BI Admin Center
Our objective is to deploy some BI content, where refreshes will point “back” on on-site, on-premise data source
Need to establish Data Source and Gateway
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

20. 5: Creating a Data Source/Gateway
But when the content in the database changes, do we need to rebuild and redeploy the Excel spreadsheet?
Power BI for Office 365 site
Step 4: Set up a Data Refresh , so that the deployed content can refresh from the on-site, on-premises data source
But it requires that we configure a Data Gateway and Data Source on the Power BI for Office 365 site
Deployed Excel sheet contains data (compressed using xVelocity)
Step 3: Users can access Excel content on the site, in the browser or from a mobile device, even if they don’t have Excel
Step 2: Deploy (Save) Excel Power BI Content to Power BI for Office 365 site. Remember, it contains the actual static content from the original database
Step 1: Created PowerPivot / Power View content in Excel against SQL Server database
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

21. 5: Creating a Data Source/Gateway
Back in the Power BI Admin Center, if you try to define a data source, it will prompt to install a Gateway first
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

22. 5: Creating a Data Source/Gateway
Must download Microsoft Gateway Management client
When gateway client loads, enter the Gateway key from above
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

23. 5: Creating a Data Source/Gateway
Now that we have a gateway established, we can define an on-site data source for the Gateway
Provide credentials for when Gateway reads “back” to on-site source
Define Connection, on-site database server, and database name
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

24. 6-PowerPivot Users can point Excel to database content
Can create the equivalent of a “mini-cube”, compressed using xVelocity compression
The Power Pivot Data Model lives “inside” the Excel Sheet
Users can create many Pivot Tables or Pivot Charts off the Model
Users can also create Power View report visualizations off the data model
Compressed Star Schema Model “in the basement” of the Excel Sheet
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

25. 6-PowerPivot
Model can come from physical relational tables or database views
Must create relationships if source was views
This is somewhat like building SSAS OLAP cubes, except it doesn’t support advanced fact/dimension relationships
Can implement dimensional hierarchies
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

26. User can look at sales and quotas by Employee for a year or a quarter
6-PowerPivot
KPI scorecards in Excel, similar to other SharePoint dashboarding tools
User can look at sales and quotas by Employee for a year or a quarter
Garrett’s sales as % of Quota was 80.18%. That’s “OK”, so status is yellow. But his sales one year ago was 85.13% of quota – so his % of quota is trending down, and that’s not good
The % of Quota last year represents a DAX formula to express the % of quota for “same time period last year”
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

27. Excel Generic Feature, % of Row Parent
6-PowerPivot
Geography Hierarchy, and evaluating sales in 2 different sale channels (customer internet and reseller/vendor
Visual Slicers
Excel Generic Feature, % of Row Parent
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

28. 6-PowerPivot
Monthly Sales + 12 month moving average, plotted as a line chart
(Requires a set of DAX formulas)
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

29. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
6-PowerPivot
Sparkline (compressed graphic, a line chart with markers for high and low month)
More Visual Slicers
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

30. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
7-DAX Formulas
For formulas and Expressions, PowerPivot provides a language called DAX
Very Loosely speaking, DAX is to PowerPivot as MDX is to OLAP Cubes
Some websites state that DAX is easier than MDX
That “depends”
For basic formulas, basically true
But for more complicated expressions, DAX can be just as involved as MDX
When comparing PowerPivot to SSAS OLAP, worth noting that PowerPivot does not directly support advanced fact/dimension relationships (like role-playing dimensions and many-to-many bridge tables). So DAX is necessary to manually set relationships through code.
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

31. DAX formula to express % of Quota in terms of one year ago
7-DAX Formulas
Calculate a ratio on the fly: not too bad
Express in terms of a year ago: arguably a bit more involved
DAX formula to express % of Quota in terms of one year ago
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

32. 7-DAX Formulas
More complicated DAX code to calculate a Moving Average
Must determine, for any one month, the 12 month range (start month and end month of range)
Must average the internet sales over the span of that range
DAX is sometimes advertised as “easier” than the MDX language used in SSAS/OLAP applications, but sometimes DAX can be just as involved
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

33. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
8: Power View
Report Visualization Tool for Power Users
Great for storyboard-type reporting, “face-style” reporting where a page or subset of a page tells a story
Not intended for full blown detail reports
Not as much developer functionality as Reporting Services
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

34. 8: Power View
Power View visualization against the Power Pivot Data Model
Scatter chart plotting city observations of Sales revenue and # of orders
User can filter on Country – State Province
Can use year as “Play axis” to show that while Beaverton is top city in Oregon across all years, it wasn’t top city in 2007
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35. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
8: Power View
While this has nice interactive features, advanced users might want to show a linear regression line, and also the correlation coefficient (impact of order count on sales)
Here is where tools like SSRS or even Excel Pivot Charts are a better option – Power View does not have these features
We can even select a single city and plot the progression of annual sales for a city over time
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

36. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
8: Power View
Cross filtering – I can click on the pie slice for Australia, and the bar chart above shades the monthly sales just for Australia
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

37. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
9: Power Maps
As name implies, ability to create map visualizations based on geography definitions
Geography Definitions can come from country / state / city names, or from latitude/longitude points
For those who used maps in SQL Server Reporting Services, these maps are more interactive
Power BI Blog has links to examples that showcase some very fancy maps!
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

38. 9: Power Maps
Can map based on geography labels or latitude / longitude points
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

39. 9: Power Maps Can use nav controls to zoom in/out TOC
Intro to Power BI for Office 365

40. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
10: Power Query
Essentially “ETL” against many data sources using a query language inside Excel
Can query from many public websites (Facebook, Wikipedia) with nothing but a URL
Can be used to shape and format data into an Excel Pivot Table
Strong book recommendation, by Chris Webb
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41. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
10: Power Query
We can point to a site, and then a table within the site, and utilize Power Query syntax
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42. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
10: Power Query
Regardless of whether opponents were scoring 15 points or 30 points, Chiefs generally surrendered same number of yards
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43. Intro to Power BI for Office 365
11: Deploying
Uploading is very easy – in the Power BI site, just take the option to Add/Upload a file, and then select an XLSX file saved locally
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Intro to Power BI for Office 365

44. 12: Setting up Data Refreshes back to On-Premise Sources
In the Power BI for Office 365 site, click the ellipsis button and take the option to schedule a data refresh
History page to show history of successful (or failed) refreshes
Verify the connection (there could be more than 1), and set frequently of schedule
Notifications
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45. 13: Power BI Future Enhancements/Reading
Power BI News from WPC:
WPC Demo (requires Windows Live ID sign-on - Power BI starts around 20 minute mark)
Rundown of new features:
New KPI/Dashboard Editor (possible replacement for PerformancePoint Services)
Support for new data visualizations
Support for SSRS Reports, which can point back to on-premises data sources (HUGE!!!)
Data Sources for SalesForce, MS Dynamics, Facebook, Google Analytics, Twitter
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46. 13: Power BI Future Enhancements/Reading
Deploy project to Power BI site
Local SSRS project
Power BI Site “in the cloud”
Secured Data Gateway, so cloud reports can access on-premises data
Users access reports in Power BI Dashboards
Company on-premises
database
Follow the blog of Chris Webb for details
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