Getting started with Power BI sounds easy enough, but there are a number of moving pieces that make it a bit more difficult to get started. The goal of this post is to walk through all of the pieces so you can figure out which ones are important to you and which you can hold off on.
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is the main development tool for Power BI reports. With this tool, you’ll be able to load data into a data model, build reports, and deploy those reports to the Power BI Service. In some cases, you can develop reports directly in the Power BI Service, but at this point the vast majority of report development should be done in Power BI Desktop.
Also an important thing to note – Power BI Desktop will save your report in a .PBIX format. When you create a report and load data (assuming you’re using import mode and not DirectQuery or a live connection, which is a discussion for another blog post), that .PBIX file will contain all of your data. This can be a blessing or a curse. On the bright side, if you don’t have a license for the Power BI Service, you can simply send your .PBIX file to someone else and they can view your report. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with sensitive data, you must be very conscious about how you’re handling that .PBIX file when sending it to someone. Should that person be receiving the sensitive data? How are you sending it – via e-mail over the internet? Who could intercept that e-mail and see the file in transit? And do you trust whoever you’re sending it to as to how they’ll store it and share it?
Power BI Desktop is a free application, and can be downloaded from Microsoft. Do yourself a favor and download it from the Microsoft Store. The Microsoft Store application will automatically update when new versions are pushed out, which is a little easier to work with than downloading and installing new versions on your own. That said, if you don’t like new versions being applied automatically, download the standalone version.
Download is available here
Power BI Service
The Power BI Service is what you find at https://app.powerbi.com . This is the tool you will typically use to share content with others in your organization. When you click the “Publish” button in Power BI Desktop, you will select a workspace in the Power BI Service to publish your report to.
If you’re in an organization that already uses Microsoft products, someone probably already has access to let you into the Power BI tenant. Depending on your M365 Licensing level for your organization, you may already have licenses for Power BI. If not, there will be a per-user charge, unless you opt for one of the Premium options.
If you want to play with Power BI personally, it currently costs about $10/month ($20/mo if you opt for Premium Per User). There is a free trial available to get started as well. You can read Sign up or Purchase Power BI as an individual for more information.
Power BI Mobile App
There is a mobile app available in iTunes, Google Play, and the Microsoft Store. This will make it easier to view reports on a mobile device, but you can still access the Power BI Service through the web URL above from mobile devices. This is just for viewing reports, not for building.
Note that in the Microsoft Store, you will find both Power BI Desktop and the Power BI App. These are different things for different uses.
Links are available here
Power BI Report Builder
Despite the name, not everyone who is going to build reports needs Power BI Report Builder . The naming is a bit unfortunate here.
Power BI Report Builder is used specifically for building paginated reports. If you’re used to SQL Server Reporting Services, Power BI Paginated Rpeorts will feel right at home for you. Traditional Power BI reports are very interactive, but they don’t always print well, especially if you have data that creates scrolling in tables. Paginated reports are built to print nicely, and extends your data onto multiple pages very easily. It’s a very different experience than the traditional Power BI reports, but it can be the right tool for specific circumstances.
Paginated reports is a feature of Power BI Premium , which requires additional licensing. If you’re doing this personally, I’d recommend looking at Power BI Premium Per User, which starts at about $20/month per user. If you’re looking for an entire organization, you’ll want to consult a Microsoft licensing expert.
Power BI Report Builder is a free application (however you can’t send the .RDL files it creates to others and expect it to run if they don’t have access to the data sources) – publishing to the service is where the licensing costs come into play. You can download it here
On-Premises Data Gateway
When you’re building your Power BI report, you may find that some of your data comes from cloud-based sources, and other data may come from on-premises resources. If your data is not already in the cloud, you can use the On-Premises Data Gateway to make those on-prem resources available in the cloud. This is only needed if you want to schedule automatic refresh of your data – you can also republish your report with fresh data on a regular basis, in which case a gateway is not necessary.
There are 2 modes you can install the gateway in – personal or enterprise. In personal mode, you’ll install it on your own computer, and the Power BI Service will look to your computer to provide the connection when your scheduled refresh occurs. If you’re a small organization, or if you’re working independently on your own tenant, this can be a good solution. The important detial to remember is that your computer must be running, or the scheduled refresh will fail. To eliminate this, enterprise mode will allow you to install it on a server in your organization and share connections with people who are building reports.
You can learn more about the On-Premises Data Gateway here
On-Premises Report Server
If your organization is not comfortable in publishing reports to the cloud, you can install Power BI Report Server . This acts as an add-on to SQL Server Reporting Services which allows you to publish Power BI reports on your own servers. There are many features of Power BI that are missing from this version, and it’s a very limiting solution – but it can be the right option for the right situation. There are different licensing considerations for this entirely, so see the above linked article for more information.
Power BI Desktop External Tools
There are a lot of third party tools for Power BI Desktop that can make your development life easier. I will likely do a blog post in the future about these more in-depth, but you can read more about them on the Documentation Page
Conclusion
I hope this quick summary of the tools to Power BI can give you a good starting point for creating your own Power BI solutions, whether it’s for you personally or for a large organization. You can get started for free with Power BI Desktop, and then start paying as needed if you want to continue your learning or take advantage of the features available.