Why bother with Power BI?

Power BI
overview
Published

June 13, 2024

Previous attendees have said…

  • 20 previous attendees have left feedback
  • 100% would recommend this session to a colleague
  • 100% said that this session was pitched correctly

Three random comments from previous attendees
  • Heard of Power BI but having no experience, it was good to be able to see what this software / application does and how it works. I doubt I will need to use but at least I know what it is for.
  • I was blown away at the map example and had not seen anything like this before
  • Overall very positive, whipped through everything, did what was needed. As a person who is easily distracted, I do get a bit distracted when you reply to comments and go on tiny tangents involving programming with unfamiliar names and acronyms, but I get that the vibe overall is that you want people to be involved and commenting etc. I really appreciate these sessions as I try to get my head round new things.

Welcome

  • welcome to Why bother with Power BI?
  • this session is 🥬 - a non-technical introduction for pre-beginners
  • if you can’t access the chat, you might need to join our Teams channel: tinyurl.com/kindnetwork

The KIND network

  • a social learning space for staff working with knowledge, information, and data across health, social care, and housing in Scotland
  • we offer social support, free training, mentoring, community events, …
  • Teams channel / mailing list

Session outline

  • two minute overview of Power BI
  • strengths and weaknesses
  • making Power BI work for you
  • next steps and training

A brief overview of Power BI

  • new
  • integrates several existing Microsoft products (bits of Excel, PowerPivot, PowerQuery…)
  • produces interactive dashboards
  • proprietary, closed-source, paid-for

Central idea

  • data is complicated
  • good data analysis helps make services better
  • but predicting what data users will need is hard

Why are users so fussy about their data?

  • data can be used to answer lots of different kinds of questions
    • answering which/when questions
    • seeing effects of changes
    • comparing different areas
    • looking at services over time

Power BI

  • lets users re-arrange their data to suit (interactive)
  • provides a standard way of accessing data from lots of sources (data hub)
  • scales really well (dashboard example)

Power BI demo

take a spreadsheet and load that data

preview the data

work with the data in Power BI

tidy/wrangle the data in Power Query

### add a map visual

populate with our data

add a column graph

populate with drag and drop

add slicer

slicers change our visualisations

add a numeric summary

publish

See preview - although note that access might require permission

Five top tips

  • potentially has the power to get lots of new good out of existing data
  • Power BI needs tidy input data - so use Excel tables etc
  • don’t believe the no-code lies - you’ll need some DAX and Power Query M
  • publishing is complicated and potentially expensive, so needs investigating before building a product
  • complex IG picture across Scotland, so please get official guidance early

Chat, queries, questions

  • Teams channel: tinyurl.com/kindnetwork
  • weekly email update: tinyurl.com/kindupdate
  • Training mini-site: tinyurl.com/kindtrain