Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence tool: you connect it to data, shape that data, and build interactive reports that other people can explore. This guide takes you from an empty screen to a working report in six steps, using a free dataset you can download.
You don’t need any experience with business intelligence software. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can follow along.
What you need
- Power BI Desktop. It’s free, for Windows. Install it from the Microsoft Store.
- Practice data. Download the free Power BI practice data: 700 sales rows from Microsoft’s Financial Sample.
- About an hour.
On a Mac or a work laptop where you can’t install software? Every step below is also an interactive lesson that runs in your browser.
Step 1: Get to know the three views
Power BI Desktop has three views, switched with the icons on the left edge:
| View | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Report | Building visuals: charts, tables, cards, slicers |
| Table | Looking at the rows and columns of your data |
| Model | Connecting tables with relationships |
Beginners spend most of their time in Report view. The other two matter as soon as something looks wrong.
Step 2: Load the data
- Home → Get data → Text/CSV, then choose the file.
- Power BI shows a preview. Click Load (or Transform Data to clean it first; more on that in step 5).
- In the Data pane on the right, rename the table to
financials.
Open Table view and look around: one row per sale, with Segment, Country, Product, Sales, Profit and two dates.
Step 3: Build your first visual
Back in Report view:
- Click an empty area of the page, then the clustered bar chart icon in the Visualizations pane.
- In the Data pane, tick Country, then Profit.
You now have Profit by Country. Power BI sorted it largest first: France leads with 3.78M. Interesting, because the United States has the most sales. Questions like that are what reports are for.
Step 4: Write your first measure
Dragging a column into a visual works, but professionals write measures: named calculations you can reuse everywhere.
- Home → New measure.
- Type
Total Sales = SUM(financials[Sales])and press Enter. - Add a card visual and put Total Sales on it: 118,726,350.26.
Now a ratio, which a plain column can’t do:
Profit Margin = DIVIDE(SUM(financials[Profit]), SUM(financials[Sales]))Set its format to percentage: 14.23%. DIVIDE returns blank instead of an error when the bottom number is zero. That’s the language called DAX. The DAX tutorial covers the formulas you’ll use most.
Step 5: Clean data with Power Query
Real data is messy: wrong types, extra spaces, columns you don’t need. Power Query fixes that before the data reaches your report.
Home → Transform data opens the Power Query Editor. Every change you make (change a type, remove a column, trim text) is saved as an applied step and repeated automatically on every refresh. The Power Query tutorial walks through the common steps.
Step 6: Make it interactive and share it
- Add a slicer with Country. Pick a country and every visual on the page filters.
- Click a bar in your chart: the other visuals cross-filter too.
- Home → Publish sends the report to the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com), where colleagues can open it. Sharing needs a Power BI work account.
What to learn next
- Data modeling: split data into fact and dimension tables. See star schema.
- CALCULATE: the function behind most business measures. See CALCULATE in plain English.
- Dates: a proper date table makes year-to-date and last-year comparisons work. See date tables.
The fastest way to get good is short, daily practice with an answer to check. That’s what the lessons on this site are: each one opens a practice copy of Power BI Desktop and checks every step as you go.
Sources
- Get started with Power BI Desktop, Microsoft Learn
- Financial Sample workbook, Microsoft Learn
- DIVIDE function, Microsoft Learn