Power BI
Connecting data sources to visual reports and interactive dashboards
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform for building interactive data reports and dashboards. Analysts and data professionals connect it to databases, spreadsheets, cloud services, and APIs to transform raw data into charts, tables, and KPI tiles that business stakeholders can explore and filter. Reports can be published to the Power BI Service for browser-based sharing across an organisation, with row-level security controlling what each viewer can see. Power BI uses DAX — a formula language for calculated columns and measures — alongside its own query editor for data shaping before visualisation. It is the most widely adopted self-service BI tool in organisations already running Microsoft infrastructure.
Official Website
Power BI official site →Pricing
View pricing →Certification
Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300)Power BI Use Cases
- Building interactive dashboards that let business users filter and explore operational metrics without SQL knowledge
- Connecting to multiple data sources including databases, Excel files, and cloud APIs to consolidate reporting in one place
- Writing DAX measures to calculate custom KPIs such as year-over-year growth, moving averages, and weighted aggregations
- Publishing reports to the Power BI Service so stakeholders can access live-refreshing data through a browser or mobile app
- Embedding visualisations into internal tools and SharePoint portals to surface data where decisions are already being made
Power BI Learning Resources
Microsoft Learn at learn.microsoft.com offers a free guided Power BI learning path covering data modelling, DAX, and report building. The official Power BI documentation at learn.microsoft.com/power-bi is the reference for all features and connectors.