BI for Beginners Session 2
Power BI
beginner
Session materials
Previous attendees have said…
- 60 previous attendees have left feedback
- 100% would recommend this session to a colleague
- 97% said that this session was pitched correctly
Three random comments from previous attendees
- Very useful and it was particularly interesting seeing/hearing of the different issue users were having because of the differences in the version of Excel/Power Bi they had available to them. My heart goes out to eHealth because it’s incredibly difficult to keep everyone right and happy at the same time.
- Detailed,
- I’m a beginner with some previous experience of being an end user getting data from powerBi so I have an understanding of the possibilities. I found the method of clicking along very helpful tied with Brendan’s positive presentation skills in openly checking issues and answering queries most beneficial. The level of content was right for me until the last session - I have no experience of DAX so this was all newer. I have been able to apply the skills I have learned with confidence. I feel I’m still lacking a better understanding of the semantics model and if I have a recurring set of data ie datix incidents, how I can update the data in a dashboard without having to rebuild the dashboard each time.
Session outline
If you’d like to get a sense of the core content, you might have a look at the video outline for this session:
Visualisation overload!
- we’re going to build several visualisations
- we’ll use some tidied data for this - today is all about using data to do interesting things
- next time, we’ll get into the data wrangling needed to sort that data out
ETL
(as a preview of the next session)
- extract
- transform
- load
Today’s visualisations
- maps
- column charts
- line graphs
- numeric summaries of data
- filtering and slicing tools
The goal
Task
Open BfB_s02.pbix
to have a look
Today’s data
Task
- Start a new report in Power BI
- Open
data/s02_data.xlsx
- Select the two tables (
gp_size
andweekend_service
) and have a look at the preview - Load those tables
Visualising service use
Finding our data
Task
- Go to the data view
- Open the
weekend_service
table and inspect the data
Add a line chart
Task
- Go to the report view
- Go to the visualisation pane, and add a line chart
- Expand it to fill the bottom three-quarters of the visualisation area
Add data
Task
- Click the date column in the data pane, and drag the Date Hierarchy to the X-axis field
- Drag the three site columns to the Y-axis field
Add a slicer
Task
- Click off your line graph, then add a slicer
- Drag the year field from the Date Hierarchy into the slicer Field
- Add a second slicer in the same way
- This time, drag the weekend column into the Field
- Select the Format your visual menu
- Format the slicer to use a dropdown
Add some cards
Task
- Add a card
- Drag site_a into the Field
- Use the dropdown on Sum of site_a to select average
- Repeat for site_b and site_c
- Adjust the decimal places via the Callout value section of the format menu
Tidy up the names
Task
- Go round using Rename for this visual to tidy up the names
- Name the page of the report appropriately
End result
GP practice size
Add a map
Task
- Add a new page to your report
- Add a map and expand to fill the left-hand half of the visualisation area
- From the gp_size table, drag the Postcode column to the Location field
- Now drag the ListSize column to the Bubble size field
Format the map
Task
- From the Format visual menu, change the map style to greyscale
- (feel free to play around with the bubble size too)
Colour the bubbles by health board
Task
- Can you find a way of colouring the bubbles by health board?
(add the HBName to the Legend field)
Add a slicer
Task
- Add a slicer for health board
- Use the Format visual options to change this to a dropdown
- Test what happens when you change this
Add a practice details card
Task
- Add a card (new)
- Drag the ListSize and SIMD2020v2 columns to the Fields area
- Make sure that the SIMD2020v2 value is set to Min
- Add a title showing the practice name via the Format Visual options
- Format to suit
Add a column chart
Task
- Add a column chart
- Add the Name on the X-axis, the ListSize on the Y-axis, and the HBName in the legend
Tidy up the names
Task
- Go round using Rename for this visual to tidy up the names
- Name the page of the report appropriately
End result
Homework tasks
- Is there any relationship between practice size and SIMD2020 deprivation scores in the GP data? How could you show that relationship in a visual?
- Is there any month-to-month or seasonal change in the weekend service use data? How could you show that relationship in a visual?