Power BI is a powerful tool for Data Visualization. However, what does visualization means? Visualization means simplifying the complex facts used for critical decision-making.
You can use the reports to check how your sales are going. Are you following the right marketing decisions and business operations?
Microsoft Power BI can work efficiently along with other data platforms and provides you with all your information in the form of visuals. Depending on your organization or client’s requirement, you can choose the report themes and charts to add to it.
This tutorial will discuss what simple steps you can follow to create your first custom dashboard.
Steps to create a Power BI Dashboard
Step 1: Install Power BI
Like every other software, you need to download the Power BI set up first. You can get it from the following link.
Power BI can only work with the Windows system, so you need to consider your operating system. Read along to get guidance on How to install Power BI.
After installing the Power BI, all you need is to log in from your organizational account. If you have a corporate email, use it to sign in to the account. However, if you are a student, Try using your student email address.
Step 2: Get Data
As you install and register your Power BI account, you need to connect with the data source. This data source can be of many types, i.e., a flat-file, excel sheet, or database. Click on the “Get Data” option located on top of the screen and choose your data source. Once you have selected the data source, there will be a blank workspace in front of you. Thus, you are ready to create your first dashboard.
Are you having problems with importing your data? Read: How to import data from Excel and Database.
Step 3: Exploring the Dashboard
As you are done with getting data, you will now see two bars on the right side of your screen.
These are
- Visualizations, where lie different types of charts. Through “Drag and Drop,” you can add it to your report.
- Fields, where the tables you have imported from data sources lie. Here, you can select between different data fields and choose relevant columns for your report.
For example, you want to create a relationship between the department and the number of students each department has in it. For that, you will tick the department for the x-axis as “Axis” and select a calculation as the value to display on the y-axis “Value.”
Here, DAX measurements are used, which you will see in the following tutorials.
Step 4: Choose the Right Chart
While you plan to display several facts on your report, you need to choose what type of chart is best for your intended information.
You can generally classify the charts into 4 general categories as
- Distribution
- Composition
- Comparison
- And Relationship
As for the chart types, you can use pie charts to show the composition in percentages. Make sure all the values add up to 100.
For showing distribution and comparison, Bar and Column Charts are used. Hence, you can display how many students each department has and how many males and females an institute has with these types of charts.
Whereas Line and Area charts are used for comparison. For example, you wish to see the progress of a student over the year, you can do it via these charts.
Stacked charts show the comparison and composition together.
Scatter plots can show relationships between the variables.
Step 5: Save your dashboard
As you have added all the information on your dashboard, click on the Save button on the toolbar. You can also publish it on the Power BI service if you have access to it.
Note that if the data is in excel updates, the charts will update by themselves, so you don’t need to create the same charts twice or thrice.
About the Author:
Arsala Zahid is a Software Engineering graduate and a passionate content writer. She aims to make these technologies easy to learn so that you get motivated to gain a skill up your sleeve.
