Power BI Desktop connections
1. Power BI Desktop connections
Let's start creating some connections in Power BI. For our course, we will be using data related to the fictional company World Wide Importers, a wholesale novelty goods importer and distributor operating from San Francisco. The company data is contained in several different sources - CSV files, MySQL server database, and Web sources. Our primary focus throughout each chapter is the dataset sources and connections that can be created, not so much what the data can tell us in terms of analysis and visualizations. We will start off with a Power BI Desktop file that already has two connections created - one through a CSV file and the other through a Web source. In the Data view, we can see the two tables and examine the data that we have brought into the report. Now we will connect to our final data source using a database connection. The database that is used by WWI is MySQL Server. We can go to the Home tab and click on Get data. As this is a database connection, we will click on the More option, as our desired source is not listed in the dropdown menu. Once the Get Data window opens, we can click Database on the menu on the left, select the MySQL database option, and click on Connect. A new pop-up window appears. At the top of this window are the Server and Database fields. These are related to the MySQL database connection details specific to each company or user’s database management system and must be filled in for the connection to be set up. As we are connecting to a database, we can apply filtering to the data that we connect to Power BI. This can be done by clicking on Advanced options. Here, we can write code in the native language of the database connection to bring in data from specific tables. We will leave this section blank for now, and revisit it later on. We can now click OK, in order to carry on with the setup process. A new window will appear that requires us to select the specific table in the database that we want to bring into Power BI. We will select the WWWI_FactSale table for our report. After we click Load, we have completed the setup of our MySQL database connection. Let’s create a card visual from the table constructed using the MySQL Server data. This will show the number of distinct invoices issued by WWI. Great, we have three different data connections to three different sources, all in one Power BI Desktop file, and we have started creating visuals from our data models. One last step we will carry out is to Publish the report to the Power BI Service. In order to do this, we have to be logged in to our Microsoft account, which is either a Pro or Premium account. The next step is to save our report. Then we have to click on the publish button located at the top of the window. A new window will appear that allows you to choose which workspace you can store your report in. Let's choose My Workspace for now. Once we click Select, we will see a message in a similar popup window that is informing us that the report is being published to Power BI. If this process is carried out without any problems, then a success message will appear. Now it's time for you to test your knowledge and try it out. Good luck!2. Let's practice!
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