Produce high-quality, visually attractive analysis quickly and effectively with Microsoft’s key BI tool. This book teaches analysts, managers, power users, and developers how to harness the power of Microsoft’s self-service business intelligence flagship product to deliver compelling and interactive insight with remarkable ease. It then shows you the essential techniques needed to go from source data to dashboards that seize your audience’s attention and provide them with clear and accurate information.

As well as producing elegant and visually arresting output, you learn how to enhance the user experience through adding polished interactivity. This book shows you how to make interactive dashboards that allow you to guide users through the meaning of the data that they are exploring. Drill down features are also covered that allow you and your audience to dig deeper and uncover new insights by exploring anomalous and interesting data points.

Reading this book builds your skills around creating meaningful and elegant dashboards using a range of compelling visuals. It shows you how to apply simple techniques to convert data into business insight. The book covers tablet and smartphone layouts for delivering business value in today’s highly mobile world. You’ll learn about formatting for effect to make your data tell its story, and you’ll be a master at creating visually arresting output on multiple devices that grabs attention, builds influence, and drives change.

What You Will Learn

• Produce designer output that will astound your bosses and peers
• Make new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before
• Create high-quality analyses in record time
• Create interdependent charts, maps, and tables
• Deliver visually stunning information
• Drill down through data to provide unique understandings
• Outshine competing products and enhance existing skills
• Adapt your dashboard delivery to mobile devices

Who This Book Is For

For any Power BI user who wants to strengthen their ability to deliver compelling analytics via Microsoft’s widely adopted analytics platform. For those new to Power BI who want to learn the full extent of what the platform is capable of. For power users such as BI analysts, data architects, IT managers, accountants, and C-suite members who want to drive change in their organizations.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Dashboard Basics

Chapter 2: Table Visuals

Chapter 3: Advanced Table Visual Techniques

Chapter 4: Matrix Visuals

Chapter 5: Card Visual Types

Chapter 6: Charts in Power Bl Desktop

Chapter 7: Advanced Chart Types

Chapter 8: Formatting Charts

Chapter 9: Other Types of Visuals

Chapter 10: Third-Party Visuals

Chapter 11: Drill down and Drill up

Chapter 12: Maps in Power Bl Desktop

Chapter 13: Filtering Data

Chapter 14: Slicers and Cross-Filtering

Chapter 15: Enhancing Dashboards

Chapter 16: Multipage Dashboards

Chapter 17: Bookmarks and Buttons

Appendix A: Sample Data

Appendix B: Visualization Icons

Appendix C: Blank Visual Representations

About the Author

Adam Aspin is an independent Business Intelligence consultant based in the United Kingdom. He has worked with SQL Server for over 25 years. During this time, he has developed several dozen reporting and analytical systems based on the Microsoft data platform.

A graduate of Oxford University, Adam began his career in publishing before moving into IT. Databases soon became a passion, and his experience in this arena ranges from dBase to Oracle, and Access to MySQL, with occasional sorties into the world of DB2. He is, however, most at home in the Microsoft universe when using the Microsoft data and analytics stack―both in Azure and on-premises.

Business Intelligence has been Adam’s principal focus for the last 20 years. He has applied his skills for a range of clients in finance, banking, utilities, leisure, luxury goods, and pharmaceuticals. Adam is a frequent contributor to SQLServerCentral.com and Simple-Talk. He is a regular speaker at events such as SQL Saturdays and SQLBits. A fluent French speaker, Adam has worked in France and Switzerland for many years.

Adam is the author of SQL Server Data Integration Recipes, Business Intelligence with SQL Server Reporting Services, High Impact Data Visualization in Excel with Power View, 3D Maps and Get and Transform, Data Mashup using Microsoft Excel using Power Query and M, and Pro Power BI Theme Creation―all with Apress.