{"id":21386,"date":"2020-01-28T17:13:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T17:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/power-bi"},"modified":"2026-10-02T11:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:31:41","slug":"power-bi","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/power-bi","title":{"rendered":"Power BI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad wp-image-80067 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/power-bi-square-v2.jpg\" alt=\"Power BI\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/power-bi-square-v2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/power-bi-square-v2-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Power BI<\/strong> is Microsoft&#8217;s business analytics platform for connecting information sources, preparing and modelling data, creating interactive visualisations and distributing reports. Its main environments are Power BI Desktop, for developing models and reports, and the Power BI service, for publishing, sharing and administering them.<\/p>\n<p>Power BI is a core Microsoft Fabric workload. It can use data stored in files, databases, business applications, cloud services and other Fabric components.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Uses of Power BI<\/h2>\n<p>Power BI turns data from different systems into information that can be explored through charts, tables, maps, indicators and filters. <strong>Its purpose is to support data analysis and communication, not to replace the systems that generate or store the data.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It belongs to the field of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/business-intelligence\">Business Intelligence<\/a>. It is used to analyse sales and campaigns, prepare financial reports, monitor operations, track objectives and present metrics through reports or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/dashboard\">dashboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Power BI operation<\/h2>\n<p>The workflow depends on the sources, data volume and consumption method, but it commonly includes four stages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Connection and preparation:<\/strong> Power Query obtains data from files, databases, online services and other sources and can clean, combine and transform it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Modelling:<\/strong> the semantic model organises tables and relationships. DAX is used to create measures, calculated columns and other expressions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visualisation:<\/strong> report pages bring together charts, tables, maps, slicers and other interactive objects.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Publishing:<\/strong> content can be sent to the Power BI service to manage permissions, refreshes, apps, workspaces and distribution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Data can be imported into the model or queried through connection modes supported by the source and chosen architecture. <strong>The freshness, performance and level of detail of a report depend on this configuration as well as the quality of its model.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Power BI ecosystem<\/h2>\n<p>Power BI combines tools for content creation, publishing, consumption and deployment:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Power BI Desktop:<\/strong> a Windows application for connecting and transforming data, creating semantic models and designing reports.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Power BI service:<\/strong> the cloud environment for publishing, sharing, refreshing and administering models, reports, dashboards and apps.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mobile applications:<\/strong> provide access to reports and other content from phones and tablets.<\/li>\n<li><strong>On-premises data gateway:<\/strong> connects cloud services to particular on-premises or private-network data sources.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Power BI Report Builder and Report Server:<\/strong> support paginated reports and, in particular scenarios, content hosted within an organisation&#8217;s infrastructure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Power BI is a core Microsoft Fabric workload<\/strong>, while Fabric adds data integration, storage, engineering and data science services. This integration does not require existing reports and workspaces to be migrated. Microsoft maintains the official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/products\/power-bi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Power BI features and downloads<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Reports and dashboards<\/h2>\n<p>A report can contain multiple pages and visualisations based on a single semantic model. It supports filtering, slicing, drill-down and navigation between different views.<\/p>\n<p>A Power BI dashboard is a single page available in the online service. It contains tiles pinned from one or more reports and can combine information from different semantic models. <strong>Power BI Desktop focuses primarily on report creation, while dashboards are created and administered in the service.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Power BI licences<\/h2>\n<p>Power BI Desktop can be used free of charge to create reports locally. The service provides Fabric Free, Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium Per User licences, together with capacity-based options.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The required licence depends on who creates the content, where it is stored and who needs to receive it.<\/strong> A free licence supports personal use of the service, but collaboration commonly requires Pro or Premium Per User unless the content is distributed from a capacity that permits access by free users. Microsoft documents the <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/fundamentals\/service-features-license-type\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">features available by licence type<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Workspaces organise collaboration and administration. Power BI apps distribute collections of reports and dashboards to audiences without giving them direct access to the entire workspace.<\/p>\n<h2>Power BI governance<\/h2>\n<p>The quality of the results depends on the consistency of the sources, the model design and the definition of the metrics. <strong>A correctly rendered visualisation can lead to incorrect conclusions when it combines incompatible periods, dimensions or business rules.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Permissions, row-level security, credentials, sensitivity labels, refresh frequency and access to underlying data also need to be managed. The availability of these controls does not by itself guarantee a secure implementation.<\/p>\n<p>Large models, complex queries and connections to on-premises systems can affect performance and require additional capacity, gateways or administration. <strong>Power BI supports data analysis and distribution but does not replace data governance or metric validation.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Power BI is, how it connects, models and visualises data, which components and licences it offers and how it integrates with Microsoft Fabric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":80067,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1442,991,1444],"class_list":["post-21386","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-analysis-and-dashboards","encyclopedia-tag-dashboards-bi","encyclopedia-tag-web-analytics-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}