PowerBI Desktop vs PowerBI Services

Those who are new in the world of Microsoft's Business Intelligence tool; they are little bit confused Power BI Desktop vs Power BI Services

We will go through the below points to get some Idea.

Power BI Desktop vs Power BI Service

      1.Power BI Desktop is Offline or Desktop application.

      1.Power BI Service is Online or Cloud based service

      2.From Power BI Desktop we can Publish report to Power BI             services.

      2.Report created through Power BI services itself published                 or available online/cloud based.

      3.Can not share report directly to end user through Power BI           Desktop.

      3.From Power BI service you can share report directly to end           user.

      4.Dashboard feature not available in Desktop version.

      4.Can create Dashboard though Power BI service online.

      5.Can edit the Queries/Data to perform the operations like                 Merge,Split,..

      5.Can not perform operation on Data or queries.

      6.In Desktop version can not see the usage matrix details of             the reports.(Number of view and visitors to report)

      6.In Services can see the usage matrix details of the reports             in graphical and tabular format.(Number of view and                       visitors to report)

      7.Easily manage Data table relationship in Desktop.
      7.No option available to manage the relationship in Services.

      8.Can not manage user permission/access to whom we want to show the report.
      8.In service option available to manage the user permission.

      9.New measure, calculated column facility available to perform the operations on data.
      9.Can not add measure or column in services.

My First Report in Power BI - Step By Step

Lets start Hello World! 

We will start with our First Simple report in Power BI which is easy to understand for the beginner too. 

Our Problem:- We have flat Text file Data (IndiaGDPPopulation.txt)

Our Target:-     Make quick Graphical report.

We will achieve our target with help of Power BI desktop.(this can be done in Power BI services too; without any installation, that we will see later)

Below is our flat text data 

State          GDP Population
Mahatashtra    8        11,12,00,000
MadhyaPradesh 5         8,12,00,000
Gujrat    6         6,18,00,000
Bihar    4         7,32,00,000
Rajstan    4.5 9,62,00,000
Delhi    9         3,12,00,000
Kerla    6.5 4,52,00,000

To start Power BI , Click on the below Icon.(Will see later installation)

Power Bi Icon

Below start up screen will open, Click on the Get data

Power BI Startup Screen

From the shown list, Select on Data source, Text/CSV option. (as our file is notepad file). Click on Connect to continue.

Data Source selection

Open file from your local path. (IndiaGDPPopulation.txt)

Select Data source File

You will see the file will open like below.

CSV File opened

Now by Default Comma is the Delimiter; we will Select Delimiter as Tab; and now our data will be pretty cool as below. Click on Load  to continue.

Data Delimited by Tab

Now you can see there are unwanted columns created like _1, _2, _3; to remove the same click on Edit and will open Query Editor (below screen shot)

Select the unwanted columns, and click on Remove Columns. 

Click on Close and Apply button to apply our changes.

Query Editor - Column Removal

Now it will back to Power BI desktop application, and you will see the Fields  from our Text/CSV file will appear here.

Fields

Now just select the State fields; will see the below magic. Will automatically detect the Map and locate states on India map. And that's the beauty of Power BI, No coding, No object declaration, no compilation, and no....

States on Map

Its not ending, its just beginning; now you just click any desired chart from Visualization (Pie chart, Bar chart and so on); chart Will appear accordingly without any extra efforts (Depend on filed selections).

PowerBI - BI Tool - Why Power BI

Power BI is the Business Intelligence tool (Power BI Desktop and Power BI Services) by the Microsoft; Currently Market leaders are Tableau and QlikView. But you will see MS-Power BI are very user friendly and easy to learn tool. Note that Power BI Desktop is for offline development and Power BI Services is to share the reports/dashboards online. 

Why Power BI?

There are many reason to select the Power BI; but below are mention some of them.

• Brand:- This is the Business Intelligence tool provided by Top Brand of Computer/IT; that is Microsoft.(Name is enough).

• Easy to Use:- Not only user friendly but easy to use; even beginner can start this after having look on online forum or training videos.

• Cost:- Cost is the major factor for Business Intelligence tool as many people/industry avoid this due to high cost. But the MS-PowerBI is comes with 10 time less than Market leader like Tableau or QlikView. (100$ per year approx)

• Community:- Pleasure news is the community creation by Microsoft where you will find many Experts/developers are ready to give you answer. http://community.powerbi.com You will find there are 2-3 posts per minute in community.

• Security:- This provides good security features as they allow to access only for organizational e-Mail account. (sorry Gmail,Yahoo users ). You can share with only for the organizational accounts. (note you can create Public link with limited features)

• Cloud Based:- Power BI is SaaS (Software As A Service) , even you can design and access your reports and design same from anywhere, where Internet network connectivity available.(this saves lot of physical hardware investment)

• Mobile Friendly:- Unlike many another tool, no need to design separately for the Mobile phone devices. Easily convert functionality available for the Smart phone devices.

• Data Access:- You can import Data set not only from Microsoft but another providers too like Oracle,MySQL,From website,IBM DB2, SAP Hana, Google Big Query and lot more.

Below is the screen for Power BI Desktop, where you can get idea. explains chart for India's population state wise for some states.   ↓

                                                    Power Bi Desktop look