Summary  
This chapter covers the fundamentals of setting up a data integration and modeling pipeline: importing data from multiple sources, cleaning and transforming it, constructing a unified data model, and defining calculations to drive interactive visualizations.  

General domain of usage  
Business intelligence and data analytics.

Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform, and it's quickly become one of the most in-demand skills for analysts, finance professionals, and anyone who works with data. In this chapter, you'll learn what Power BI is, how it fits into the analytics landscape, and why organizations are adopting it to replace manual Excel reporting workflows.

You'll also get a clear picture of how this course is structured and what you'll build along the way: a complete, interactive dashboard for Summit Gear Co., a fictional outdoor retail company. By the end of this chapter, you'll understand the difference between Power BI Desktop, the Power BI Service, and Power BI Mobile, and you'll know exactly why Power BI is worth adding to your toolkit.


Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service, and Power BI Mobile each serve a different purpose. Which tool is used to build reports, create data models, and write DAX calculations?

Master the skills needed to turn raw data into professional, interactive reports using Power BI. You'll connect to data sources, clean and transform data with Power Query, build data models, write DAX measures, and publish polished dashboards to Power BI Service. No prior experience required.

Get hands-on experience with Power BI Desktop: understand where it fits in the modern data stack, install it, explore the interface, connect to your first dataset, and build your first bar chart.

Master the skills needed to clean, transform, and combine data using Power Query – from filtering rows and adding columns to merging tables and reshaping data with pivot operations.

Explore the essentials of relational data modeling and DAX – build star schemas, define relationships, write measures, and use time intelligence functions to answer real business questions.

Dive into the fundamentals of Power BI visuals – choose the right chart type, configure slicers and filters, add drillthrough navigation, and create bookmark-driven interactive experiences.

Transform the way you present data by applying layout and design principles, building multi-page reports, setting up row-level security, and publishing to Power BI Service with scheduled refresh.

Gain a solid understanding of the end-to-end Power BI workflow by completing a guided project – from data preparation and modeling to building a multi-page dashboard and publishing it to the Service.

What is Power BI?