What do you think?
Rate this book
Introducing Microsoft Power BI
Get started quickly with Microsoft Power BI! Experts Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo will help you bring your data to life, transforming your company’s data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize, allowing you to focus on what matters most to you. Stay in the know, spot trends as they happen, and push your business to new limits. This e-book introduces Microsoft Power BI basics through a practical, scenario-based guided tour of the tool, showing you how to build analytical solutions using Power BI. Get an overview of Power BI, or dig deeper and follow along on your PC using the book's examples.
306 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 7, 2016
838 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 7, 2016
If you've ever searched for Power BI and read up on it then this book isn't going to tell you anything new.
Would be good if you are an absolute beginner.
Would be good if you are an absolute beginner.
June 24, 2017
Ferrari is a BI expert and goes deep in his Microsoft BI stack knowledge. His website SQLBI (which he runs with Marco Russo) is the place to go for Microsoft BI related stuff (DAX, Power BI etc..).
This is not a "how-to" guide so much as it's a "why-to". Ferrari stops short of doing end-to-end guides on using individual features. You will work through some basic examples to get to grips quickly with learning the ins and outs of Power BI; but most because doing it is the best way to learn certain concepts.
If you're a complete beginner start with the intro tutorials from the Power BI website and then move on to here. That's what I did and it turned out to be a good move for me.
If you only want to do one particular thing with Power BI and then move onto to something else; don't bother with this book. It's more than you need. Just pick the Power BI tutorial you need and do that.
If you want to start integrating Power BI into your day to day analytics workflow and get started on your way to becoming a power user then this is the starting point for you. Power BI is evolving over time so individual features will change regularly. What isn't going to change are the core principles it's built on. You're going to need to know them to work out how this integrates into your workflows and (most likely) in order to be able to explain to your manager/s why you want to spend resources on this as opposed to another analytics solution.
All analytics solutions (much like all databases) solve the same core problems; but they each do it in different ways. It's those ways that determine how easily you can solve those core problems for your own use cases. This book will get you a long way down to the road to working that out.
This is not a "how-to" guide so much as it's a "why-to". Ferrari stops short of doing end-to-end guides on using individual features. You will work through some basic examples to get to grips quickly with learning the ins and outs of Power BI; but most because doing it is the best way to learn certain concepts.
If you're a complete beginner start with the intro tutorials from the Power BI website and then move on to here. That's what I did and it turned out to be a good move for me.
If you only want to do one particular thing with Power BI and then move onto to something else; don't bother with this book. It's more than you need. Just pick the Power BI tutorial you need and do that.
If you want to start integrating Power BI into your day to day analytics workflow and get started on your way to becoming a power user then this is the starting point for you. Power BI is evolving over time so individual features will change regularly. What isn't going to change are the core principles it's built on. You're going to need to know them to work out how this integrates into your workflows and (most likely) in order to be able to explain to your manager/s why you want to spend resources on this as opposed to another analytics solution.
All analytics solutions (much like all databases) solve the same core problems; but they each do it in different ways. It's those ways that determine how easily you can solve those core problems for your own use cases. This book will get you a long way down to the road to working that out.
January 23, 2018
Do you want to get started with Power Bi but don’t know where to start? Have you been wondering about the capabilities of power bi? Introducing Microsoft Power BI by Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo is the best available written introduction. Oh! and it’s free.
The book begins with a basic introduction to power bi. With no assumptions made about the expertise of the reader, the authors use a business analogy to guide the reader through the features of the tool. All datasets, reports and dashboards used in the books are made available for the reader to follow along as the book progresses. In a few pages, the beginner gets to wow!
I found this book fulfilling in that whatever was promised in the introduction is exactly what was delivered in the content. With nearly all the components of power bi explored in the short book, the ball is in the readers’ court to determine what they are most interested in for their further study.
Alberto and Marco are the founders of sqlbi.com where they regularly publish articles on various Microsoft analytics technologies. They have coauthored a lot of books on the same and are regular speakers at international conferences. While their experience in the field is enviable their simplified writing style is admirable.
When new to a tool, you often feel lost in a mass of information and wonder where you should start. Same case applies to power bi with there being lots of detailed blogs on the internet introducing power bi concepts. Most have the advantage that they are regularly updated. None that I found is better suited than this book. Grab yourself a copy, it’s free, and let’s meet on the other side of pro.
The book begins with a basic introduction to power bi. With no assumptions made about the expertise of the reader, the authors use a business analogy to guide the reader through the features of the tool. All datasets, reports and dashboards used in the books are made available for the reader to follow along as the book progresses. In a few pages, the beginner gets to wow!
I found this book fulfilling in that whatever was promised in the introduction is exactly what was delivered in the content. With nearly all the components of power bi explored in the short book, the ball is in the readers’ court to determine what they are most interested in for their further study.
Alberto and Marco are the founders of sqlbi.com where they regularly publish articles on various Microsoft analytics technologies. They have coauthored a lot of books on the same and are regular speakers at international conferences. While their experience in the field is enviable their simplified writing style is admirable.
When new to a tool, you often feel lost in a mass of information and wonder where you should start. Same case applies to power bi with there being lots of detailed blogs on the internet introducing power bi concepts. Most have the advantage that they are regularly updated. None that I found is better suited than this book. Grab yourself a copy, it’s free, and let’s meet on the other side of pro.
March 8, 2020
If you are a data scientist, you might have heard of Power BI. This book is a introduction o Power BI and its capabilities. It's not a walkthrough, it doesn't go step by step as a howto. That was somewhat frustrating to me. Because I learned Power Bi by watching random Youtube videos, I thought this book would help me fill the gaps in my learning curve. But nah, it has a lot of scope disclaimers, and even some merchandising inside. It added to my knowledge just a few things that will be useful to me. If you're like me who wants to get specific knowledge on Power Bi, do read books, go instead to Microsoft Learn, EdX or other learning platform. Otherwise, if you have never heard of Power Bi and can afford a 4-hour reading to learn something about it, then this book is for you. Happy reading!
May 22, 2021
If you have nobody to help you or teach you and you want to know what it is and what it can do then have a read. However, if your like me and cannot visualise this BI process working without seeing your own data and correlation between that and how it will work for you... Don't bother... Make an account, watch the video guides and just have a play... Best way to learn. Not sure why anyone writes books anymore in order to teach tech... Just video it.
January 8, 2018
This book used a case study to demonstrate the business case for using Microsoft PowerBI as an upgrade from Excel. The book also did a fantastic job of introducing the reader to PowerBI concepts and tools that are applicable to a data analyst or product manager role. Very helpful to me at work so far!
June 26, 2019
The book that really teaches you about a piece of software with results.
I thought this book really explained a lot of what I was missing. I even grasped a good deal of DAX, which I am definetely going to study more. I want to build powerfull data models.
I thought this book really explained a lot of what I was missing. I even grasped a good deal of DAX, which I am definetely going to study more. I want to build powerfull data models.
November 27, 2021
This book is a good introduction for end users to Microsoft Power BI. It is also currently available for free on amazon's kindle store (at the time of writing). I did find the book to be a bit insufficient for IT Administrators or Report Designers, but it is still a good overview of the topic.
July 15, 2018
A very good introduction to Power BI. From basic to advanced topics it takes you through all relevant features at the publishing date.
August 13, 2018
It is a good introduction but Power BI is more powerful and complex than a simple visualization
August 3, 2020
Very nice introduction
Without going into details good high-level insight into power bi mechanics possibilities. It is good that caveats are also reviewed.
Without going into details good high-level insight into power bi mechanics possibilities. It is good that caveats are also reviewed.
Currently reading
August 31, 2020NA
May 11, 2022
Un ottimo manuale introduttivo per BI, perfetto complemento al corso che sto seguendo su Udemy
Read
October 5, 2022It's a good start
February 20, 2020
Nice read
it's a good book spanning the basics and advanced soptions available in power bi...good for beginners....technical stuff kept to a minimum...
it's a good book spanning the basics and advanced soptions available in power bi...good for beginners....technical stuff kept to a minimum...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews