Have You Heard Of Power BI Desktop???

I had never heard of Power BI Desktop until recently when I inadvertently came across an article about it. I started to read it and I thought, “Wow, this is pretty cool stuff here.” So I naturally thought I needed to share this information with you.

Power BI Desktop is free*. It is a program that you can install on your local computer and it will let you connect to, transform, and visualize your data. Wow, how cool is that?  It’s like a dream come true for folks who work with lots and lots of data in Excel.

*[Ed note: Power BI Desktop offers a 60-day free trial period. Payment plans are available at this Power BI page.]

BI Desktop will let you connect to multiple different sources of data and combine them into a data model (i.e., modeling). Then this data model will let you build visuals and collections of visuals that you can then share with other people in your business!

Most often, the uses for Power BI Desktop are listed below.

Connecting to data:

1. Transforming and cleaning data to create a data model
2. Creating reports that are basically collections of visuals and one or more reports
3. Share reports with others using the Power BI service
4. Data Analysts and business professionals use Power BI Desktop to create reports or pull data from other sources. They build data models as well that they can then share with their colleagues and other organizations

Power BI Desktop is updated and released monthly and they also incorporate customer feedback and new features. So use only the most recent version of Power BI Desktop, which means that if you contact their support folks, you will be asked to upgrade to the most recent version.

Now, I do not have Power BI Desktop but I would be remiss if I did not let you all know about its existence. I think this sounds like a wonderful tool for folks who need it. Below, you will see that there are a couple of ways to get Power BI Desktop. No, I am not affiliated with it and I am not being paid to hype it.