R in Power BI

Eric Bragas, Jr. DesignMind BI Consultant Trainer for Power BI, Master Data Management, other BI topics SQL Saturday Power BI Dashboard In A Day In-depth MDM Passionate about learning, design, and data

Agenda What is R in Power BI? When to use R in Power BI? How to use R in Power BI? Setup Data Source Script Visual Transformation R-powered Custom Visuals Other External IDEs Supported Packages in PBI Service

What is R? “R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics” Capabilities include Statistical Analysis Modeling and Data Visualization Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)

What is Power BI? Microsoft’s Self-Service BI application Capabilities include Connecting to a variety of data sources Data transformation through PowerQuery Data modeling Data Analysis via DAX Power BI: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/

What is R in Power BI An intersection of two tools Power BI provides multiple touch points for R Allows R scripts as data sources Data transformations as part of Power Query steps R visualizations R-powered custom visualizations Unlimited R script options when working locally Limited support for reports published to Power BI Service Does not include/require Microsoft R Server

When to use R in Power BI No dedicated modeling capability (read: small R implementations) Robust visualizations; beyond what Power BI can provide Augment Power BI, don’t try to replace it Data manipulation beyond DAX capabilities Integrating R modeling capabilities into PowerQuery

How to Use R in PBI

Setup Install R - https://cran.r-project.org/ (optional) Install R IDE R Studio R Tools for Visual Studio (RTVS) Install R Packages Power BI settings Options > R Scripting

R Script Data Source Reference all dependent packages Only data frames are imported (not vectors) All data frames available in navigator NA is translated to NULL 30 minute time out What other use cases do you have?

DEMO

R Script Visualization Augment Power BI visualizations using R base ggplot2 ggmap etc. Rendered to default R device Interactive and animated visuals not supported

DEMO

R Script Transformation Allow you to manipulate data via Query Editor steps Can be used to clean data generate additional values ie. model results run any R script ie. write.csv() Executes as part of the query, so only when the data set is refreshed

DEMO

Other Resources External IDEs R Studio R Tools for Visual Studio Supported Packages in the Power BI Service List of supported packages Request additional packages Additional Resources Download R from CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) or MRAN (Microsoft R Application Network) Power BI visuals in R Additional visualizations