Microsoft Power BI enters a new phase with recent release

PowerBI 2.0 was released recently (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/07/24/power-bi-is-generally-available-today.aspx).  According to the link there appears to be two items, Power BI Service and Power BI Desktop. Power BI Visualization framework and its library will be available on GitHub as well. Microsoft seems to have included an unbelievable sources of data which you can use to create and enjoy your visualization (Review screen shots at the conclusion of this post).

Review articles on\using previous version here:

Power BI Unchained
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/power-bi-unchained.html
Spin out a cutting edge report with Power BI
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/spin-out-cutting-edge-report-with-power.html
Visualizing data on SAP's SQL Anywhere
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/powerbi-preview-reporting-from-sql_13.html
Excel data visualization with Power BI
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/powerbi-preview-reports-using-data-on.html

Power BI Service: Cloud Hosted Bi and Analytics
Power BI Service download is from this link.
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/?WT.mc_id=Blog_GA_James

I used Sign-in on the above linked page with my personal live.com acccount. It appears you cannot use just your Microsoft account (that anybody can get for free) but the Office 365 or enterprise account.

PowerBI_01

However this did not work for me. I am trying to resolve this issue with Microsoft.
Well, the mantra, 'five seconds to sign up, five minutes to WOW' did not work for me. I shall WOW later.

Installing the Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop can be downloaded from here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/desktop

Install double clicking the Windows Installer Package PBIDesktop_x64 (55.6MB).

PBIDesk02.png
Agree to licensing terms. Accept default location. After one or more screens page with Install button will be displayed. Click Install. User Control Access window is displayed. Click OK. Progress page is displayed.

PowerBI Desktop is installed quite rapidly.

PBIDesk06.png

A new desktop icon replacing the one from the preview version is created.

Launching the application displays the following window.


PBIDesk07.png

 

Dismiss the start up screen and you will see the Power BI Desktop with the 'ribbon'.

PBIDesk08.png

Happy Visualizing Data!

How does this stack up against Tableau and Qlik?

Sources of data which you can use to create your visualization

These are the most popular data sources:

PBI_getData1

Here is the complete listing

 PBI_getData2

 PBI_getData3

 

Querying SQL Server 2012 with Power Query

Power Query is a great way to access data and Power View is a great way to view a report.

Some details of Power Query can be found here,
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-is-microsoft-power-query.html
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-is-difference-between-ms-query-and.html

Power View is covered in detail in my book,

This post shows how you may connect to SQL Server 2012 Express and query the databases therein using Power Query.

Step 1. If you have not installed the add-in do it now. Get it from this link here,
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39379

Step 2. Launch MS Access 2010 ( or your version). You should see in the splash screen that the add-in is also loaded.

Step 3. Anyway verify it from the Excel Options window that you can access from File menu as shown.

Step 4. Click menu item Power Query followed by From Database as shown.

Step 5. Click From SQL Server Database. In the window that pops-up type in the server name as shown. There is no browse feature here, you have to manually enter as shown.

Step 6. Click OK after entering SQL Server name and the following window pops-up.

Step 7. You can choose encrypted or unencrypted for you connection. Here Unencrypted is chosen.

Step 8. Click Save. The query window appears with a default name Query1 as shown. Here Northwind has been expanded to show the tables.

Step 9. Click on Categories as shown. The table content gets shown on the right side.

Step 10. You can further process the query using the built-in controls which can be displayed by right clicking the corner of the table as shown.

Step 11. The chosen options updates the steps, each time you make a choice a step is added as shown. Note that this next query is from AdventureWorksLT2012 database.

This will be saved to the workbook which you may name appropriately by completing this window. Right now there is no link to publish this result except saving it to the SkyDrive and use it later.

Enjoy