Power BI is a Business Intelligence application offered by Microsoft that uses a collection of services that work in tandem to turn your data into interactive visually appealing reports. You can think of it as an excel spreadsheet on steroids composed of data that can be pulled automatically from different sources.
How to get Power BI?
Windows users can download Power BI Desktop locally by launching the Software Center application from their system and selecting Power BI Desktop from the applications list (your LCPO sys admin may need to make it available if you aren’t seeing it). You can also download it from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494
If you do not have a Windows system there are still a couple options for UCAR staff. Please see the Power BI wiki for additional information.
You can also browse to https://app.powerbi.com/ to access the Software as a Service (SaaS) web application by signing in with your CIT credentials.
Who Can Use Power BI?
Any Windows user can download Power BI and run it for free. Signing into the web application requires an account in Azure, which is limited to a specific set of employee types, which can be seen on the Power BI Wiki
If you have a CIT account but do not have one of the listed employee statuses, you can use it by requesting an Office 365 exception.
Power BI Desktop vs. Power BI Pro?
Power BI Desktop is a free application that can be installed on any Windows system. You can use it to fully build out your reports. However, if you wish to share your report with other users you need Power BI Pro. It is the licensed version which allows users to publish reports to the cloud and share them with others. A user must have the Power BI Pro license to share or access a shared report.
When to switch between Power BI Desktop and the SaaS web application?
It is considered best practice to build your reports locally using Power BI Desktop and then upload them into the SaaS web application at https://app.powerbi.com/. Logging into the web application gives you access to your workspace in the cloud. Your workspace is where you want to upload your reports and datasets.
Basic Concepts
Microsoft has some great documentation on the Power BI Basics. Please browse to the link below and check out the information on some of the basic concepts such as datasets, dashboards, and workspaces.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-basic-concepts
Free Pro Trial
Logging into the web application allows you to activate a free 60 day Pro trial if you would like to test out the sharing features. Please do not activate the per capacity trial as we do not provide that capability. You will not lose your data if your Pro trial expires. However, anyone that you have shared data with will lose access to and you will lose access to any data shared with you.
Requesting Power BI Pro
You can request Power BI Pro by submitting a request on the Enterprise Service Desk.
More Information
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/power-bi-overview
https://wiki.ucar.edu/display/EIPS/Power+BI (UCAR Staff only)