Power BI Service

Power BI content, when published to Power BI, splits into three different content types: Dashboard,
Report, and Dataset. Each content type has some properties of its own.

If you have the Power BI Desktop file open, the report and dataset are separate. When you save it
and close the application, the data in the model and the layout of the report all will be persisted and
saved in a *.pbix file.

When you publish a *.pbix file to the Power BI website, you publish both the report and the data at
the same time. The publishing process in Power BI is simple; you just need to click on Publish option
in the home tab menu in Power BI Desktop as the below screenshot illustrates.

When you click on Publish, you need to be logged in to Power BI desktop. To ensure that you are
logged in, you can check the top right-hand side part of your Power BI Desktop application and see if
you can find your username there. If you see your username, it means you are logged into Power BI
desktop. Otherwise, just click on the sign-in option there and log in with your account. If you are not
logged into Power BI desktop, when you click on the Publish button, it will bring up the sign in the
window for you. In any scenario, you need to sign in to the Power BI Desktop for publishing.

Publish into desired workspace

After this step, you will see a message shortly that mentions the report published and indicates that
publication was successful. You can click on the link for the report to open it in Power BI website.

Click on the Open Pubs.pbix in Power BI link. The Power BI website will open in a new browser
window. After logging in with the same Power BI account, you will be able to see the report in the
browser
Power BI Report
After publishing Pubs.pbix file into the Power BI service, you’ve seen that the report can be opened
through a web browser. A Power BI report is a visualization content (sometimes split into multiple
pages in one report) that gets the data from a dataset. You can even edit a report on the website by
clicking the Edit report button. And remember that the report is a visualization element. If you click
on the Edit icon on top of the report on the website, you can go to edit mode, where you can make
any changes in the visualization layer.

desktop interface for editing the visualization, and it is just for editing the visualization. You cannot
modify the data model or dataset from here.
Structure of Dashboard, Report, and Dataset in Power BI service

Dashboard
Another element of Power BI Service is Dashboard. The dashboard is a visualization element.
However, there are some differences between dashboard and report, which you will learn about
later in this chapter. The dashboard is usually the navigation point and high-level view of the content
in Power BI. A dashboard can be created on top of one or more reports. To create a dashboard in
Power BI, you can start from a report. Click on the Pubs. pbix report in the service, then with your
mouse hover on top of one of the visualizations (except slicer); then you will see few icons, one of
which is Pin. which is toward the very right-hand side of the image.
You may now Pin the element to a new or existing dashboard.
Each dashboard can contain visuals from multiple reports

Dashboard vs. Report

This question is one of the main questions that people ask when they are in the preliminary stages of
building a Power BI solution. There is a misconception that Report is a detailed tabular report, and
the dashboard is interactive visualizations with charts. However, this definition isn’t for the Power BI
reports and dashboard. There are differences in these two main components of a Power BI solution;
understanding differences will help you to leverage their power in the best way. In this section, you
will learn what are the differences are between these two and Where, When, Why, and which is the
best to use?

Definitions Following are two definitions to help you distinguish between reports and dashboards:

• A Power BI Report is a combination of multiple visual elements (charts, texts, values…) on a page
that can be interrelated with each other. Data visualized in the report can be sliced and diced with
slicers. Power BI report is fully interactive for user interaction. And It can be filtered based on some
criteria.

• A Power BI Dashboard is a high-level view of key performance indicators from one or more reports.
The purpose of the dashboard is not slicing and dicing, but merely to present a fast view of existing
reports in order to aid in executive decision making.
Power BI Reports
Reports in Power BI can have multiple pages. In each page, there might be multiple visualization
elements. Slicing and dicing, hovering and highlighting are possible in the Report. You can drill down
through a hierarchical data structure, or you can select a column in a column chart and see the
related data to it in other visualization elements.

Reports are for end users to manipulate with different slicers and visuals and filters to hone on in the
data they are interested in seeing. For example, a user might want to understand why the Sales
Amount in month August is lower than in another month? Or a user might wonder which product is
selling best, and how it is distributed through branches.
Power BI Dashboards
A Dashboard in Power BI is a navigation point to reports and provides a high-level day-to-day view of
key performance indicators. With dashboard visualization, elements from multiple reports and pages
can be pinned to one main place where they can be viewed together at a glance. See Figure 3-21 for
an example. This place then will work as a navigation point. By clicking on each of the visuals, the
user will be redirected to the report and page that has this element.
What Is Gateway?
The On-premises Data Gateway creates the connection between Power BI cloud-based data analysis
technology and the data source located on-premises. The gateway is an application that can be
installed on any servers in the local domain. The gateway is responsible for creating the connection
and passing data through.

The role of a gateway in connections.

You don’t need a gateway in all scenarios. You need it only if a data source is located on-premises.
For online or cloud-based data sources, no gateway is required. For example: if you are getting data
from CRM Online, you don’t need a gateway. However, if you are getting data from an SQL Server
database located on your local domain server, then you need a gateway. For Azure SQL Database
you don’t need a gateway. However, a SQL Server database located on Azure Virtual Machine is
considered as on-premises and needs a gateway.

Types of Gateways
Gateways come in two different modes: Personal Mode and Enterprise (labeled as On-premises
Data Gateway). The difference between these two is not the paid or licensing plan. Both gateways
are free to use. The difference is the way that you want to use the gateway. The personal mode is
mainly used for one-person use, not for a team. Enterprise mode, on the other hand, is a choice
when you want to work in a collaborative environment.
Installing Gateway

Data Source Configuration

The Data Source Name is only important for jogging your memory later. The first important option is
the Data Source Type. In this example, because my source is an Excel file, I choose File. However, this
can be an SQL Server database or any other data sources. After choosing the data source type, you
need to enter other configurations for that source. We have used the file, so we need to specify the
full path of the file. This path should be the path of the file from the machine that the gateway is
installed on. If the file is in a shared folder path, then that path should be accessible from the
machine that the gateway is installed on it. And this should also be the same path that has been
used in the data source configuration of Power BI Desktop.
You need to enter the username and password to access the data source as well. In this case,
because we have used a file, then the username and password should be the local username and
password that have access to that data source from the machine that the gateway is installed on it.
Username should always have a domain name leading it (domain\username)

Connecting Through the Gateway

Schedule Refresh
After adding all sources, then you can connect the gateway to the dataset. You can also schedule
the refresh of the dataset on a recurring basis.
After setting up the scheduled refresh, you can see the next refresh and the last refresh time in the
dataset properties.

Requirement to Schedule Refresh: In many BI scenarios, data will be refreshed overnight or on a

scheduled basis. However, sometimes the demand is to have data without delay. Import Data is not
capable of doing that. With Import Data, there is a need for the dataset to be refreshed. And it can
be scheduled to refresh up to 8 times a day (or 48 times a day with Power BI Premium).
Power BI Licensing
Power BI Free

Power BI Free enables you to connect to 70+ data sources, publish to the web, and export to excel.
There are some limitations to the free version. For example, you can’t do peer-to-peer sharing and
you can’t create App workspaces. However, the free version is great if you are doing your own
analysis and don’t need to distribute the analysis to other end users. You also have connectivity
options such as DirectQuery, live connection, and the use of the gateway. The same visualizations
that are available in Power BI Pro are available in Power BI Free.

Power BI Pro

The biggest difference between Free and Pro is that with Pro you can share your data, reports, and
dashboards with other users who also have a Power BI Pro license. You can also create App
workspaces. Both Power BI Free and Pro have a 10 GB per Pro user data storage limit. Here is a
screenshot from Microsoft’s Power BI website that summarizes the difference. Premium
Power BI Premium

Power BI Premium is an on-premise deployment and distribution of Power BI reports using the
Power BI Report Server. This allows you to maintain reports on-premise and move to the cloud when
your organization is ready.

Power BI Premium is designed to address the challenges of large enterprise deployments and
workloads. It enables your organization to use your own dedicated capacity and hardware rather
than relying on Microsoft’s shared capacity. You’ll need to provide that capacity and ensure you
have enough for your reporting and analysis purposes. This allows for much larger scale and better
performance if you size it properly. Microsoft offers three sizes for Premium capacity and each come
with a different number of v-cores and memory size.