In this next part, you will learn about the basic building blocks of Power BI, which will provide a solid basis for turning data into reports and visuals. Everything you do in Microsoft Power BI can be broken down into a few basic building blocks. After you understand these building blocks, you can expand on each of them and begin creating elaborate and complex reports. After all, even seemingly complex things are built from basic building blocks. Let's take a look at these basic building blocks. These can include visualizations, datasets, reports, dashboards, and tiles. A visualization is a representation of data like a chart or a color-coded map that you can create to represent your data visually. Power BI contains many visualization types with more being added all the time. Visualizations can be simple, like a single number that represents something significant, or they can be visually complex, like a gradient colored map that shows voter sentiment about a certain social issue or concern. The goal of a visual is to present data in a way that provides context and insights, both of which would probably be difficult to discern from a raw table of numbers or text. A dataset is a collection of data that Power BI uses to create its visualizations. For example, you could have a simple dataset that's based on a single table from a Microsoft Excel workbook. Datasets can include a combination of data from many different sources. When combined, they can provide a unique collection called a dataset. An important and enabling part of Power BI is the multitude of data connectors that are included. Whether the data you want is in Excel or Microsoft SQL server database or in a service like Facebook or Salesforce, Power BI has built in data connectors that let you easily connect to that data. Focus on the data that matters to you by filtering data before loading it into Power BI. After you've loaded the dataset, you can create unique visualizations to gain new insights. You can generate a collection of related insights in the form of a report. In Power BI, a report is a collection of visualizations that appear together on one or more pages. Just like any other report you might create for a sales presentation or write for a college assignment, a report in Power BI is a collection of items that are related to each other. For example, you can generate a multi-page report in Power BI desktop. You can also create reports in the Power BI service. Reports let you create many visualizations on multiple pages if necessary, and let you arrange those visualizations in whatever way best tells your story. Whatever your subject, reports lets you gather and organize your visualizations onto one or more pages. When you're ready to share a report or a collection of visualizations, you create a dashboard. Power BI dashboard is a collection of visuals from a single page that you can share with others. Often, it's a selected group of visuals that provide a quick insight into the data or story that you're trying to present. A dashboard must fit on a single page, often called a canvas. The canvas is the blank backdrop in Power BI desktop or the service where you put visualizations. You can think of the canvas as a workspace where you create, combine and rework interesting and compelling visuals. You can share dashboards with other users or groups who can then interact with your dashboards from the Power BI service or on their mobile device. Finally, we have tiles. In Power BI, a tile is a single visualization on a dashboard. It's the rectangular box that holds an individual visual. For example, it's common for a dashboard to contain multiple tiles, where one tile is surrounded by other tiles. When you're creating a dashboard in Power BI, you can move or arrange tiles however you want. You can make them bigger, change their height or width, and reposition them with other tiles. Only the report administrator can edit the tiles. When sharing a report with users, it's worth noting that they can only view and interact with it. Those are the basics of Power BI and its building blocks. Let's take a moment to review. Power BI is a collection of services, apps, and connectors that lets you connect to your data wherever it resides. Data can be filtered if necessary, and then loaded into Power BI, allowing you to create visualizations that you can share with others. Using the basic building blocks of Power BI, you can create datasets that make sense to you or your organization. From there, you can create visuals and reports that tell a story. Stories told with Power BI can range from simple to complex. An example of simple implementation is the use of a single Excel table in a dataset. You can then share a dashboard with colleagues. An example of a complex implementation is the use of an Azure SQL Data Warehouse to build a near real-time dataset. Regardless of complexity, the process is the same. Create datasets, build compelling visuals, and share them with others. The result is the same. You harness your ever expanding world of data and turn it into actionable insights. Whether your data insights requires straightforward or complex datasets, Power BI helps you get started quickly and you can expand with your business requirements.
