Power BI Interview Questions and Answers
1.What is Power BI?
Power BI was introduced by Microsoft to combine the multiple data visualization features into one.
Power BI is the new term for the data-driven industry and thus carries a lot of opportunities on its shoulders. It comes as a package of three major components:
Power BI services
Power BI Desktop
Power BI mobile app
With these three components, Power BI lets you create a data-driven insight into your business.
Based on various roles, you can leverage Power BI to your benefits like creating reports, monitor progress, integrate APIs, and many more.
2.Why Power BI?
Power BI has simplified the workaround of getting data from various sources and collating them into one tool for proper management. We can share these interactive reports for different industries like retail, for free.
Power BI is the new flash word in the data-driven tech industry today. The power BI opportunities are umpteen and spread across versions. With proper knowledge of the tool you can easily grab
opportunities as a:
Power BI data analyst
Power BI developer
Power BI software engineer
Power BI project manager
SQL Server Power BI developer
Power BI consultant
With good compensation, you get to work with a product’s data and learn about its insights to make important decisions. Not just this, with the latest Gartner’s BI and Analytics report, Power BI has emerged as the winner. With so much hype, learning Power BI is worth it.
3.How would you define Power BI as an effective solution?
Power BI is a strong business analytical tool that creates useful insights and reports by collating data from unrelated sources. This data can be extracted from any source like Microsoft Excel or hybrid data warehouses. Power BI drives an extreme level of utility and purpose using interactive graphical interface and visualizations. You can create reports using the Excel BI toolkit and share them on-cloud with your colleagues
4.What are the various refresh options available?
Four main refresh options are available in Power BI:
Package/OneDrive refresh: This synchronizes Power BI desktop or Excel file between the Power BI service and OneDrive
Data/Model refresh: This means scheduling the data import from all the sources based on either refresh schedule or on-demand.
Tile refresh: Refresh the tiles’ cache on the dashboard every time the data changes.
Visual container refresh: Update the reports’ visuals and visual container once the data changes.
5.What is a Power BI desktop?
To access the Power BI features, visualize data, or model them to create reports, you can
simply download a desktop version of Power BI. With the desktop version, you can extract
data from various data sources, transform them, create visuals or reports, and share them
using Power BI services
6.Where is the data stored in Power BI?
Primarily, Power BI has two sources to store data: Azure Blob Storage: When users upload the data, it gets stored here. Azure SQL Database: All the metadata and system artifacts are stored here. They are stored as either fact tables or dimensional tables.
7.What are the available views?
In power BI, you have various kinds of views viz:
Data View: Curating, exploring, and viewing data tables in the data set. Unlike, Power Query editor, with data view, you are looking at the data after it has been fed to the model.
Model View: This view shows you all the tables along with their complex relationships. With
this, you can break these complex models into simplified diagrams or set properties for them at once.
Report View: The report view displays the tables in an interactive format to simplify data
analysis. You can create n number of reports, provide visualizations, merge them, or apply
any such functionality.
8.What are the available formats?
Power BI is available in various formats:
Power BI desktop: For the desktop version
Power BI mobile app: For using the visualizations on mobile OS and share it
Power BI services: For online SaaS
9.Power BI can connect to which data sources?
The data source is the point from which the data has been retrieved. It can be anything
like files in various formats (.xlsx, .csv, .pbix, .xml, .txt etc), databases (SQL database, SQL Data Warehouse, Spark on Azure HDInsight), or form content packets like Google
Analytics or Twilio.
10.What are the building blocks of Power BI?
The major building blocks of Power BI are:
Datasets: Dataset is a collection of data gathered from various sources like SQL Server, Azure, Text, Oracle, XML, JSON, and many more. With the GetData feature in Power BI, we can easily fetch data from any data source.
Visualizations: Visualization is the visual aesthetic representation of data in the form of maps, charts, or tables.
Reports: Reports are a structured representation of datasets that consists of multiple pages.
Reports help to extract important information and insights from datasets to take major business decisions.
Dashboards: A dashboard is a single-page representation of reports made of various datasets. Each element is termed a tile.
Tiles: Tiles are single-block containing visualizations of a report. Tiles help to differentiate each report.
11.What are content packs in Power BI?
Content packs are packages comprising different Power BI objects such as reports, dashboards, datasets, etc. The two types of content packs are:
Service provider content packs: Service providers such as Google Analytics, Salesforce, etc.
provide pre-built content packages User-created content packs: Users can create their content packages and share them within the organization
12.What are the various Power BI versions?
The three major versions of Power BI are as follows:
Power BI Desktop: The free interactive tool that connects multiple data sources, transforms
data, and creates visualized reports. Power BI Premium: The premium version is used for larger organizations with a dedicated storage capacity for each user. With premium, data sets up to 50GB storage capacity can be hosted along with 100TB storage on the cloud as a whole. It costs $4995 per month.
Power BI Pro: With the pro version, you get full access to the Power BI dashboard, creation
of reports, along with unlimited sharing and viewing of reports. You also have a storage limit of 10GB per user
13.What are the purpose and benefits of using the DAX function?
DAX is much more than Power BI. If you learn DAX as a functional language, you become
better as a data professional. DAX is based on different nested filters which magnificently
improves the performance of data merging, modeling, and filtering tables.
14.What is Power Pivot?
Power Pivot enables you to import millions of rows from heterogeneous sources of data
into a single excel sheet. It lets us create relationships between the various tables, create
columns, calculate using formulas, and create PivotCharts and PivotTables.
At a time there can be only one active relationship between the tables which is
represented by a continuous line
15.What is Power Query?
Power query is a function that filters transforms, and combines the data extracted from
various sources. It helps to import data from databases, files, etc and append data
16.Difference between Power BI and Tableau?
The major differences between Power BI and Tableau are:
While Power BI uses DAX for calculating columns of a table, Tableau uses MDX
(Multidimensional Expressions).
Tableau is more efficient as it can handle a large chunk of data while Power BI can handle only a limited amount.
Tableau is more challenging to use than Power BI
17.What is GetData in Power BI?
GetData offers data connectivity to various data sources. Connect data files on your local system. The supported data sources are:
File: Excel, Text/CSV, XML, PDF, JSON, Folder, SharePoint.
Database: SQL Server database, Access database, Oracle database, SAP HANA database, IBM, MySQL, Teradata, Impala, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, etc.
Power BI: Power BI datasets, Power BI dataflows.
18.What are filters in Power BI?
Page-level filters: These are applied on a particular page from various pages available within a report.
Visualization-level filters: These are applied to both data and calculation conditions for
particular visualizations.
Report-level filters: These are applied to the entire report.
19.What are the types of visualizations in Power BI?
Visualization is a graphical representation of data. We can use visualizations to create reports and dashboards. The kinds of visualizations available in Power BI are Bar charts, Column charts, Line chart, Area chart, Stacked area chart, Ribbon chart, Waterfall chart, Scatter chart, Pie chart, Donut chart, Treemap chart, Map, Funnel chart, Gauge chart, Cards, KPI, Slicer, Table, Matrix, R script visual, Python visual, etc
20.What do we understand by Power BI services?
Power BI provides services for its cloud-based business analytics. With these services, you
can view and share reports via the Power BI website. Power BI is a web-based service for
sharing reports. Power BI service can be best referred to as PowerBI.com, PowerBI
workspace, PowerBI site, or PowerBI portal.
21.What is the comprehensive working system of Power BI?
Data Integration: The first step is to extract and integrate the data from heterogeneous data sources. After integration, the data is converted into a standard format and stored in a
common area called the staging area.
Data Processing: Once the data is assembled and integrated, it requires some cleaning up.
Raw data is not so useful therefore, a few transformation and cleaning operations are
performed on the data to remove redundant values, etc. After the data is transformed, it is
stored in data warehouses.
Data Presentation: Now that the data is transformed and cleaned, it is visually presented on the Power BI desktop as reports, dashboards, or scorecards. These reports can be shared via mobile apps or web to various business users
22.What are custom visuals in Power BI?
Using Power BI visualizations, you can apply customized visualizations like charts, KPIs, etc. from the rich library of PowerBI’s custom visuals. It refrains the developers from creating it from scratch using JQuery or Javascript SDK. Once the custom visual is ready, it is tested thoroughly. Post testing, they are packaged in .pbiviz file format and shared within the organization.
Types of visuals available in Power BI are:
Custom visual files.
Organizational files.
Marketplace files.
23.What are the various type of users who can use Power BI?
Anyone and everyone can use PowerBI to their advantage. But even then a specific set of users are more likely to use it viz:
Business Users: Business users are the ones who constantly keep an eye on the reports to make important business decisions based on the insights.
Business Analysts: Analysts are the ones who create dashboards, reports, and visual representations of data to study the dataset properly. Studying data needs an analytical eye to capture important trends within the reports.
Developers: Developers are involved while creating custom visuals to create Power BI, integrating Power BI with other applications, etc.
Professionals: They use Power BI to check the data scalability, security, and availability of data
24.What is self-service business intelligence?
Self-Service Business Intelligence (SSBI)
SSBI is an approach to data analytics that enables business users to filter, segment, and,
analyze their data, without the in-depth technical knowledge in statistical analysis,
business intelligence (BI).
SSBI has made it easier for end-users to access their data and create various visuals to
get better business insights.
Anybody who has a basic understanding of the data can create reports to build intuitive
and shareable dashboards.
25.What is Power BI?
Power BI is a cloud-based data-sharing environment. Once you have developed reports
using Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View, you can share your insights with your
colleagues. This is where Power BI enters the equation.
26.How would you define Power BI as an effective solution?
PowerBI is a cloud based Business Intelligence tool to analyze and visualize raw data that can be fetched from a wide range of data sources. It consolidates business analytics with data visualization and helps any organization to make business decisions based on data.
27.What are the major components of Power BI?
Power Query: It is one of the most important components of PowerBI to transform data. Power Query helps to extract data from different data sources like Oracle, SQL, Text/CSV files, Excel, etc. and even delete data from different sources.
28.What are the various Power BI versions?
PowerBI has three versions currently:
Microsoft PowerBI Free/ Desktop – It is for anybody who wants to see their business
insights from the data with visualizations.
Microsoft PowerBI Pro – It is the full version of PowerBI which enables unlimited viewing,
reporting and sharing of reports which PowerBI Desktop doesn’t support.
29.What is Power BI Desktop?
Power BI Desktop is a free desktop application that can be installed right on your own
computer. Power BI Desktop works cohesively with the Power BI service by providing
advanced data exploration, shaping, modeling, and creating reports with highly interactive
visualizations. You can save your work to a file or publish your data and reports right to your Power BI site to share with others.
30.What do we understand by Power BI services?
PowerBI Services is a cloud based service or SaaS (software as a service). It helps to
connect to your data, analyse, visualize and share business insights with efficiency.
31.What data sources can Power BI connect to?
The list of data sources for Power BI is extensive, but it can be grouped into the following:
Files: Data can be imported from Excel (.xlsx, xlxm), Power BI Desktop files (.pbix) and Comma Separated Value (.csv).
Content Packs: It is a collection of related documents or files that are stored as a group. In
Power BI, there are two types of content packs, firstly those from services providers like Google Analytics, Marketo, or Salesforce, and secondly those created and shared by other users in your organization.
Connectors to databases and other datasets such as Azure SQL, Database and SQL, Server
Analysis Services tabular data, etc.
32.Where is the data stored in Power BI?
Primarily, PowerBI uses two repositories to store its data: Azure Blob Storage and Azure
SQL Database. Azure Blob Storage typically stores the data that is uploaded by the users.
Azure SQL Database stores all the metadata and artifacts for the system itself.
33.What are Building Blocks in Power BI?
The following are the Building Blocks (or) key components of Power BI:
Visualizations: Visualization is a visual representation of data.
Example: Pie Chart, Line Graph, Side by Side Bar Charts, Graphical Presentation of the source data on top of Geographical Map, Tree Map, etc.
Datasets: Dataset is a collection of data that Power BI uses to create its visualizations.
Example: Excel sheets, Oracle or SQL server tables.
Reports: Report is a collection of visualizations that appear together on one or more pages.
Example: Sales by Country, State, City Report, Logistic Performance report, Profit by Products report etc.
Dashboards: Dashboard is single layer presentation of multiple visualizations, i.e we can integrate one or more visualizations into one page layer.
34.What is the comprehensive working system of Power BI?
Power BI’s working system mainly comprises four steps:
Data Importing: The first step is to import the data and convert it into a standard format and store it in a staging area.
Data Cleaning: After assembling the data, it requires transformation or cleaning to remove
unimportant values. Data Visualization: Now the data is visually represented on the Power BI desktop as reports and dashboards using powerful visualization tools.
Save and Publish: Finally when your report is ready you can save and publish these reports that can be shared across users via mobile apps or web.
35.What are content packs in Power BI?
Content packs for services are pre-built solutions for popular services as part of the Power
BI experience. A subscriber to a supported service, can quickly connect to their account
from Power BI to see their data through live dashboards and interactive reports that have
been pre-built for them. Microsoft has released content packs for popular services such as
Salesforce.com, Marketo, Adobe Analytics, Azure Mobile Engagement, CircuitID, comScore
Digital Analytix, Quickbooks Online, SQL Sentry and tyGraph.
36.What are the available views?
The different views in PowerBI are:
Report View : It is the default view which shows the visualization of the data in reports.
You can create multiple report pages here with a wide range of templates and
visualizations.
37.What are the available formats?
Power BI is available in different formats:
Power BI desktop: You can download and install PowerBI Desktop on your personal
computer where you can connect to the data source, transform your data, analyze and
visualize it with templates.
Power BI services: It is a cloud based service or SaaS (software as a service). You can
connect to data here as well but the modeling is limited.
Power BI mobile app: One can securely access dashboards and reports on any device with
the PowerBI app which is available for iOs, Android and even Windows.
38.What are the types of visualizations in Power BI?
In PowerBI, we can represent the data in graphs and visualizations. The visualization can be of any type, for example:
Bar and Column Charts: It is a standard visualization for looking at a specific value across
various categories. Area Charts( Basic and Stacked ) : It is based on the line chart and the area under the line. It depicts the magnitude of change over time.
Card: Card shows aggregate value of a certain datapoint, can be one or more but one per row.
Doughnut and Pie Charts: They show the relation in parts of a whole. Doughnut charts have ahollow in the centre while pie charts don’t.
Maps: To show categorical and quantitative data with spatial locations.
Matrix: It’s a type of table with easier display that shows aggregated data
Slicers: Slicer is used to filter other visuals on the page.
39.What are custom visuals in Power BI?
In PowerBI you can create your own visualizations from the library of custom visualizations.
A development project has to be created then test the visual in PowerBI service. Once the
visualization is customized, it is thoroughly checked and tested before posting. After testing, the visualization is saved in .pbiviz file format before sharing. But you need to be a PowerBI Pro user in order to make custom visualizations.
40.Why and how would you use a custom visual file?
A custom visual file is used when none of the pre existing visuals fit the business needs.
Custom visual files are generally created by Developers which can be used in the same
way as prepackaged files.
41.What are the various type of users who can use Power BI?
PowerBI can be used by anyone for their requirements but there is a particular group of users who are more likely to use it:
Report Consumers: They consume the reports based on a specific information they need
Report Analyst: Report Analysts need detailed data for their analysis from the reports
Self Service Data Analyst: They are more experienced business data users. They have an indepth understanding of the data to work with.
Basic Data Analyst: They can build their own datasets and are experienced in PowerBI Service Advanced Data Analyst: They know how to write SQL Queries and have hands-on experience on PowerBI. They have experience in Advanced PowerBI with DAX training and data modelling.
42.What are the critical components of the Power BI toolkit?
The most important components of PowerBI are:
Power Query
Power View
Power Pivot
Power Map
Power Q&A
Power Desktop
Power Website
PowerBI Mobile App
43.What is the maximum data limit per client for the free version of Power BI?
With a Power BI Free licence a user can use 10 GB of storage in the cloud for hosting Power BI reports. The maximum size a Power BI report can be used in the cloud is 1GB.
44.Where do you reshape data in Power BI?
The data can be reshaped in Data Editing of PowerBI.
45.How can you refresh data in PowerBI?
The data can be refreshed in the Gateway in PowerBI by scheduling refresh.
46.Which is a single-page canvas that uses visualizations to depict a story?
PowerBI service dashboard is a single-page canvas that uses visualizations to depict a story.
47.Mention some advantages of Power BI?
Few advantages of using Power BI are :
PowerBI can input a huge quantity of data
Information can be visualized using powerful templates and visualizations
Users get cutting edge intelligence technologies and powerful algorithms that are updated regularly
User can have personalised dashboards which are easy to access and understand
Users can perform queries on reports using DAX language
48.List out some drawbacks/limitations of using Power BI.
Some disadvantages of PowerBI are:
Complex in nature:
One major drawback of PowerBI is it is designed in a complex manner. One needs complete
knowledge of PowerBI in order to start working with PowerBI.
Large data:
PowerBI cannot handle large supply of data and might time out while processing a large data.
PowerBI cannot process data more than 1 GB.
49.What is DAX?
To do basic calculation and data analysis on data in power pivot, we use Data Analysis Expression (DAX). It is
a formula language used to compute calculated column and calculated field.
DAX works on column values.
DAX can not modify or insert data.
We can create calculated column and measures with DAX but we can not calculate rows using DAX.
50.What are the most common DAX Functions used?
Below are some of the most commonly used DAX function:
SUM, MIN, MAX, AVG, COUNTROWS, DISTINCTCOUNT
IF, AND, OR, SWITCH
ISBLANK, ISFILTERED, ISCROSSFILTERED
VALUES, ALL, FILTER, CALCULATE,
UNION, INTERSECT, EXCEPT, NATURALINNERJOIN, NATURALLEFTEROUTERJOIN,
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS, ISEMPTY,
VAR (Variables)
GEOMEAN, MEDIAN, DATEDIFF
51.What are the three fundamental concepts of DAX?
Three fundamental concepts of DAX are:
Syntax: Syntax is the formula which includes the functions. If a Syntax is incorrect, it will result in an error.
Functions: Functions are arguments with specific orders to perform. It helps to calculate any particular order as required.
Context: Context are of two types: Row Context and Filter Context. Row Context is used when a formula has a Function that applies a filter to identify a row in a table. Filter Context is used when one or more filters are used to get a value.
52.What are the purpose and benefits of using the DAX function?
DAX or Data Analysis Expression is a functional language which can create calculated columns and/or measures for smarter calculations to limit the data the dashboard has to fetch and visualize.
53.How is the FILTER function used?
The FILTER function returns a table with a filter condition applied for each of its source table rows. The FILTER function is rarely used in isolation, it’s generally used as a parameter to other functions such as CALCULATE.
FILTER is an iterator and thus can negatively impact performance over large source tables.
Complex filtering logic can be applied such as referencing a measure in a filter expression.
FILTER(MyTable,[SalesMetric] > 500)
54.What is special or unique about the CALCULATE and CALCULATETABLE
functions?
These are the only functions that allow you modify filter context of measures or tables.
Add to existing filter context of queries.
Override filter context from queries.
Remove existing filter context from queries.
Limitations:
Filter parameters can only operate on a single column at a time.
Filter parameters cannot reference a metric.
55.What is the common table function for grouping data?
SUMMARIZE()
Main groupby function in SSAS.
Recommended practice is to specify table and group by columns but not metrics.You can use ADDCOLUMNS function.
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS
New group by function for SSAS and Power BI Desktop; more efficient.
Specify group by columns, table, and expressions.
56.What are some benefits of using Variables in DAX ?
DAX or Data Analysis Expression is a functional language which can create calculated
columns and/or measures for smarter calculations to limit the data the dashboard has to
fetch and visualise.
57.How would you create trailing X month metrics via DAX against a non standard calendar?
The solution will involve:
CALCULATE function to control (take over) filter context of measures.
ALL to remove existing filters on the date dimension.
FILTER to identify which rows of the date dimension to use.
Alternatively, CONTAINS may be used:
CALCULATE(FILTER(ALL(‘DATE’),…….))
58.What are the different Excel BI add-in?
Below are the most important BI add-in to Excel:
Power Query: It helps in finding, editing and loading external data.
Power Pivot: Its mainly used for data modeling and analysis.
Power View: It is used to design visual and interactively reports.
Power Map: It helps to display insights on 3D Map.
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59.What is Power Pivot?
Power Pivot is an add-in for Microsoft Excel 2010 that enables you to import millions of rows of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook. It lets you create
relationships between heterogeneous data, create calculated columns and measures using
formulas, build PivotTables and PivotCharts. You can then further analyze the data so that
you can make timely business decisions without requiring IT assistance.
60.What is Power Pivot Data Model?
It is a model that is made up of data types, tables, columns, and table relations. These data tables are typically constructed for holding data for a business entity.
61.What is xVelocity in-memory analytics engine used in Power Pivot?
The main engine behind power pivot is the xVelocity in-memory analytics engine. It can
handle large amount of data because it stores data in columnar databases, and in memory
analytics which results in faster processing of data as it loads all data to RAM memory.
62.What are some of differences in data modeling between Power BI Desktop and Power Pivot for Excel?
Here are some of the differences:
Power BI Desktop supports bi-directional cross filtering relationships, security, calculated
tables, and Direct Query options.
63.What is GetData in Power BI?
With “Get Data” in PowerBI, you connect to different data sources to import data for
analysis and visualization. You can select from a range of various data sources to
import the desired data.
Eg. Text/CSV, Excel, PDF, JSON, Amazon Redshift, SQL Server database, Access
database, SAP HANA database, IBM, MySQL, Oracle database, Impala, Google
BigQuery,etc.
64.What is Power Query?
Power query is a ETL Tool used to shape, clean and transform data using intuitive interfaces
without having to use coding. It helps the user to:
Import Data from wide range of sources from files, databases, big data, social media data,
etc.
Join and append data from multiple data sources.
Shape data as per requirement by removing and adding data.
65.What are the data destinations for Power Queries?
There are two destinations for output we get from power query:
Load to a table in a worksheet.
Load to the Excel Data Model.
66.What is query folding in Power Query?
Query folding is when steps defined in Power Query/Query Editor are translated into SQL and executed by the source database rather than the client machine. It’s important for processing performance and scalability, given limited resources on the client machine.
67.What are some common Power Query/Editor Transforms?
Changing Data Types, Filtering Rows, Choosing/Removing Columns, Grouping, Splitting a
column into multiple columns, Adding new Columns ,etc.
68.Can SQL and Power Query/Query Editor be used together?
Yes, a SQL statement can be defined as the source of a Power Query/M function for additional processing/logic. This would be a good practice to ensure that an efficient database query is passed to the source and avoid unnecessary processing and complexity
by the client machine and M function.
69.What are query parameters and Power BI templates?
Query parameters can be used to provide users of a local Power BI Desktop report with
a prompt, to specify the values they’re interested in.
The parameter selection can then be used by the query and calculations.
PBIX files can be exported as Templates (PBIT files).
Templates contain everything in the PBIX except the data itself.
Parameters and templates can make it possible to share/email smaller template files and limit the amount of data loaded into the local PBIX files, improving processing time and experience.
70.Which language is used in Power Query?
A new programming language is used in power query called M-Code. It is easy to use and similar to other languages. M-code is case-sensitive language.
71.Why do we need Power Query when Power Pivot can import data from mostly
used sources?
Power Query is a self-service ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool which runs as an Excel add-in. It allows users to pull data from various sources, manipulate said data into a form that suits their needs and load it into Excel. It is most optimum to use Power Query over Power Pivot as it lets you not only load the data but also manipulate it as per the users needs while loading.
72.Name some commonly used tasks in the Query Editor.
Some commonly used tasks in the Query Editor are:
Connect to Data: Get Data from various sources and Transform data.
Shape Data: Transform your data according to requirement to clean and shape it
Group Rows: You can group the values of many rows into one single value by summarizing
Pivot Columns: Pivot columns and create a table with aggregated values
73.What is Power Map?
Power Map is an Excel add-in that provides you with a powerful set of tools to help you
visualize and gain insight into large sets of data that have a geo-coded component. It can help you produce 3D visualizations by plotting upto a million data points in the form of column, heat, and bubble maps on top of a Bing map. If the data is time stamped, it can also produce interactive views that display, how the data changes over space and time.
74.What are the primary requirement for a table to be used in Power Map?
For a data to be consumed in power map there should be location data like:
Latitude/Longitude pair Street, City, Country/Region, Zip Code/Postal Code, and State/Province, which can be geolocated by Bing
75.What are the data sources for Power Map?
The data can either be present in Excel or could be present externally. To prepare your data, make sure all of the data is in Excel table format, where each row represents a unique record.
Your column headings or row headings should contain text instead of actual data so that
Power Map will interpret it correctly when it plots the geographic coordinates.
76.Difference between Power BI and Tableau?
Both PowerBi and Tableau are business intelligence tools for generating reports and data
visualization but they do have a few significant differences.
Data Source:
PowerBI does not have as wide access to data sources as Tableau when compared. Tableau has a wider range of access to various data sources.
77.What is Power View?
The following pages provide details about different visualizations available in Power View:
Charts
Line charts
Pie charts
Maps
Tiles
Cards
Images
Tables
Power View
Multiples Visualizations
Bubble and scatter charts
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
78.What is Power BI Designer?
It is a stand alone application where we can make Power BI reports and then upload it to
Powerbi.com, it does not require Excel. Actually, it is a combination of Power Query, Power
Pivot, and Power View.
79.Can we refresh our Power BI reports once uploaded to cloud (Share
point or Powebi.com)?
Yes we can refresh our reports through Data Management gateway(for sharepoint), and
Power BI Personal gateway(for Powerbi.com)
80.What are the different types of refreshing data for our published reports?
There are four main types of refresh in Power BI. Package refresh, model or data refresh, tile refresh and visual container refresh.
81.Is Power BI available on-premises?
No, Power BI is not available as a private, internal cloud service. However, with Power BI and Power BI Desktop, you can securely connect to your own on-premises data sources. With the On-premises Data Gateway, you can connect live to your on-premises SQL Server Analysis Services and other data sources. You can also schedule refresh with a centralized gateway. If a gateway is not available, you can refresh data from on-premises data sources using the Power BI Gateway – Personal.
82.What are the data management gateway and Power BI personal gateway?
Gateway acts a bridge between on-premises data sources and Azure cloud services.
83.What is Power BI Q&A?
Power BI Q&A is a natural language tool that helps in querying your data and getting the
results you need from it. You do this by typing into a dialog box on your Dashboard, which the engine instantaneously generates an answer similar to Power View. Q&A interprets your
questions and shows you a restated query of what it is looking from your data.
84.What happens when you click the Infocus mode of a tile on the PowerBI
dashboard on the browser?
When you click the Infocus mode of a tile on the PowerBI dashboard on the browser, the
selected tile expands and takes the full space
85.How do you consolidate inquiries in Power BI?
Join Queries are used to consolidate inquiries in Power BI.
86.What are some ways that Excel experience can be leveraged with Power BI?
Below are some of the ways through which we can leverage Power BI:
The Power BI Publisher for Excel:
Can be used to pin Excel items (charts, ranges, pivot tables) to Power BI Service.
Can be used to connect to datasets and reports stored in Power BI Service.
Excel workbooks can be uploaded to Power BI and viewed in the browser like Excel Services.
Excel reports in the Power BI service can be shared via Content Packs like other reports.
Excel workbooks (model and tables) can be exported to service for PBI report creation.
Excel workbook Power Pivot models can be imported to Power BI Desktop models.
87.What is a calculated column in Power BI and why would you use them?
Calculated Columns are DAX expressions that are computed during the model’s
processing/refresh process for each row of the given column and can be used like any other
column in the model.
88.How is data security implemented in Power BI ?
A DAX expression is applied on a table filtering its rows at query time.
Dynamic security involves the use of USERNAME functions in security role definitions.
Typically a table is created in the model that relates users to specific dimensions and a role.
89.What are many-to-many relationships and how can they be addressed in
Power BI ?
Many to Many relationships involve a bridge or junction table reflecting the combinations of two dimensions (e.g. doctors and patients). Either all possible combinations or those combinations that have occurred. Bi-Directional Crossfiltering relationships can be used in PBIX.
CROSSFILTER function can be used in Power Pivot for Excel.
DAX can be used per metric to check and optionally modify the filter context.
90.Why might you have a table in the model without any relationships to other
tables?
There are mainly 2 reasons why we would have tables without relations in our model:
A disconnected table might be used to present the user with parameter values to be exposed and selected in slicers (e.g. growth assumption.)
DAX metrics could retrieve this selection and use it with other calculations/metrics.
A disconnected table may also be used as a placeholder for metrics in the user interface.
It may not contain any rows of data and its columns could be hidden but all metrics are
visible.
91.What is the Power BI Publisher for Excel?
The user can manage the tiles – refresh them, remove them, in Excel.
Pinned items must be removed from the dashboard in the service (removing in Excel only
deletes the connection).
The Power BI Publisher for Excel can also be used to connect from Excel to datasets that are hosted in the Power BI Service.
An Excel pivot table is generated with a connection (ODC file) to the data in Azure.
The Publisher installs all necessary drivers on local machine to establish connectivity .
92.What are the differences between a Power BI Dataset, a Report, and a
Dashboard?
Dataset: The source used to create reports and visuals/tiles.
A data model (local to PBIX or XLSX) or model in an Analysis Services Server
Data could be inside of model (imported) or a Direct Query connection to a source.
Report: An individual Power BI Desktop file (PBIX) containing one or more report pages.
Built for deep, interactive analysis experience for a given dataset (filters, formatting).
Each Report is connected to atleast one dataset
Each page containing one or more visuals or tiles.
Dashboard: a collection of visuals or tiles from different reports and, optionally, a pinned.
Built to aggregate primary visuals and metrics from multiple datasets.
93.What are the three Edit Interactions options of a visual tile in Power BI
Desktop?
The 3 edit interaction options are Filter, Highlight, and None.
Filter: It completely filter a visual/tile based on the filter selection of another visual/tile.
Highlight: It highlight only the related elements on the visual/tile, gray out the non-related items.
None: It ignore the filter selection from another tile/visual.
94.How does SSRS integrate with Power BI?
Certain SSRS Report items such as charts can be pinned to Power BI dashboards.
Clicking the tile in Power BI dashboards will bring the user to the SSRS report.
A subscription is created to keep the dashboard tile refreshed.
Power BI reports will soon be able to be published to SSRS portal
95.What is Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is an open-source application designed and developed by Microsoft. Power BI Desktop will allow users to connect to, transform, and visualize your data with ease. Power BI Desktop lets users build visuals and collections of visuals that can be shared as reports with your colleagues or your clients in your organization.
96.What is Power Pivot?
Power Pivot is an add-on provided by Microsoft for Excel since 2010. Power Pivot was
designed to extend the analytical capabilities and services of Microsoft Excel.
97.What is Power Query?
Power Query is a business intelligence tool designed by Microsoft for Excel. Power Query
allows you to import data from various data sources and will enable you to clean, transform
and reshape your data as per the requirements. Power Query allows you to write your query once and then run it with a simple refresh.
98.What are Custom Visuals in Power BI?
Custom Visuals are like any other visualizations, generated using Power BI. The only difference is that it developes the custom visuals using a custom SDK. The languages like JQuery and JavaScript are used to create custom visuals in Power BI.
99.What is GetData in Power BI?
Get Data is a simple icon on Power BI used to import data from the source.
100.Mention some advantages of Power BI.
It helps build an interactable data visualization in data centers
It allows users to transform data into visuals and share them with anyone
It establishes a connection for Excel queries and dashboards for fast analysis
It provides quick and accurate solutions
It enables users to perform queries on reports using simple English words
101.List out some drawbacks/limitations of using Power BI.
Power BI does not accept file sizes larger than 1 GB and doesn’t mix imported data accessed from real-time connections.
There are very few data sources that allow real-time connections to Power BI reports and
dashboards. It only shares dashboards and reports with users logged in with the same email address. Dashboard doesn’t accept or pass user, account, or other entity parameters.
102.What are some differences in data modeling between Power BI Desktop
and Power Pivot for Excel?
Power Pivot for Excel supports only single directional relationships (one to many),
calculated columns, and one import mode. Power BI Desktop supports bi-directional crossfiltering connections, security, calculated tables, and multiple import options.
103.Name the different connectivity modes available in Power BI?
There are three main connectivity modes used in Power BI.
SQL Server Import An SQL Server Import is the default and most common connectivity type used in Power BI. It allows you to use the full capabilities of the Power BI Desktop.
104.What are the various types of refresh options provided in Power BI?
Package refresh – This synchronizes your Power BI Desktop or Excel file between the Power BI service
and OneDrive, or SharePoint Online.
Model or data refresh – This refreshes the dataset within the Power BI service with data from the original data source.
Tile refresh – This updates the cache for tile visuals every 15 minutes on the dashboard once data changes.
Visual container refresh – This refreshes the visible container and updates the cached report visuals within a report once the data changes.
105.Name the data sources can Power BI can connect to?
Several data sources can be connected to Power BI, which is grouped into three main types:
Files
It can import data from Excel (.xlsx, .xlxm), Power BI Desktop files (.pbix) and Comma-Separated
Values (.csv).
Content Packs
These are a collection of related documents or files stored as a group. There are two types of content packs in Power BI:
106.What is a dashboard in Power BI?
A dashboard is a single-layer presentation sheet of multiple visualizations reports. The main features of the Power BI dashboard are:
It allows you to drill through the page, bookmarks, and selection pane and also lets you create various tiles and integrate URLs
A dashboard can also help you set report layout to mobile view.
107.Explain how relationships are defined in Power BI Desktop?
Relationships between tables are defined in two ways:
Manually – Relationships between tables are manually defined using primary and foreign
keys.
Automatic – When enabled, this automated feature of Power BI detects relationships
between tables and creates them automatically.
108.Can you have more than one functional relationship between two tables
in a Power Pivot data model?
No. There can be multiple inactive relationships, but only one active relationship
between two tables in a Power Pivot data model. Dotted lines represent inactive
relationships, and continuous lines represent active relationships.
109.Can you have a table in the model which does not have any relationship with
other tables?
Yes. There are two main reasons why you can have disconnected tables:
The table is used to present the user with parameter values to be exposed and selected in
slicers. It uses the table as a placeholder for metrics in the user interface
110.What is the CALCULATE function in DAX?
The CALCULATE function evaluates the sum of the Sales table Sales Amount column in a
modified filter context. It is also the only function that allows users to modify the filter
context of measures or tables.
Moving ahead, you will step up to the following Power BI Interview Questions from the
Intermediate Level.
111.Where is data stored in Power BI?
Most of the time, power BI gets assisted by the cloud to store the data. Power BI can use a
desktop service. Microsoft Azure is used as the primary cloud service to store the data.
Azure SQL Database
Azure Blob Storage
112.What are the different views available in Power BI Desktop?
There are three different views in Power BI, each of which serves another purpose:
Report View – In this view, users can add visualizations and additional report pages and publish the
same on the portal.
Data View – In this view, data shaping can be performed using Query Editor tools.
Model View – In this view, users can manage relationships between complex datasets.
113.What are the various versions of Power BI?
Power BI Desktop
Power BI service
Mobile Power BI apps for iOS and Android devices
114.Explain the building blocks of Microsoft Power BI.
The important building blocks of Power BI are as follows:
Visualizations
Visualization is the process of generating charts and graphs for the representation of insights on business data.
Datasets A dataset is the collection of data used to create a visualization, such as a column of sales figures. Dataset can get combined and filtered from a variety of sources via built-in data plugins.
115.What are the critical components of the Power BI toolkit?
The critical components of Power BI are mentioned below.
Power Query
Power Pivot
Power View
Power Map
Power Q&A
116.What do you mean by the content pack?
A content pack is defined as a ready-made collection of visualizations and Power BI reports using your chosen service. You’d use a content pack when you want to get up and running quickly instead of creating a report from scratch.
117.What are the three fundamental concepts of DAX?
Syntax
This is how the formula is written—that is, the elements that comprise it. The Syntax includes functions such as SUM (used when you want to add figures). If the Syntax isn’t correct, you’ll get an
error message.
Functions These are formulas that use specific values (also known as arguments) in a particular order to perform a calculation, similar to the functions in Excel. The categories of functions are date/time, time intelligence, information, logical, mathematical, statistical, text, parent/child, and others.
118.What are some familiar sources for data in the Get Data menu in Power BI?
A few familiar data sources are Excel, Power BI datasets, web, text, SQL server, and analysis services.
119.Why and how would you use a custom visual file?
You will use a custom visual file if the prepackaged files don’t fit the needs of your business.
Developers create custom visual files, and you can import them and use them in the same way as you would the prepackaged files.
120.What are the categories of data types?
All
File
Database
Power BI
Azure
Online Services
Other
121.Name some commonly used tasks in the Query Editor.
Connect to data
Shape and combine data
Group rows
Pivot columns
Create custom columns
Query formulas
122.What do you mean by grouping?
Power BI Desktop helps you to group the data in your visuals into chunks. You can, however, define your groups and bins. For grouping, use Ctrl + click to select multiple elements in the visual. Right-click one of those elements and, from the menu that appears, choose Group. In the Groups window, you can create new groups or modify existing ones.
123.Explain responsive slicers in Power BI.
On a Power BI final report page, a developer can resize a responsive slicer to various sizes
and shapes, and the data collected in the container will be rearranged to find a match. If a
visual report becomes too small to be useful, an icon representing the visual takes its place, saving space on the report page.
124.What is query folding in Power BI?
Query folding is used when steps defined in the Query Editor are translated into SQL and
executed by the source database instead of your device. It helps with scalability and efficient
processing.
125.What is “M language.”
M is a programming language used in Power Query as a functional, case-sensitive language
similar to other programming languages and easy to use.
126.How is the Schedule Refresh feature designed to work?
Users can set up for an automatic refresh over data based on daily or weekly requirements.
Users can schedule only one refresh maximum daily unless they have Power BI Pro. The
Schedule Refresh section uses the pull-down menu choices to select a frequency, time zone,
and time of day.
127.What information is needed to create a map in Power Map?
Power Map can display geographical visualizations. Therefore, some location data is needed—for example, city, state, country, or latitude and longitude.
128.Mention important components of SSAS
Following are some of the important Components of SSAS:
OLP Engine An OLAP Engine is used to extensively run the ADHOC queries at a faster pace by the end-users
Data Drilling
It describes data Drilling in SSAS as the process of exploring details of the data with multiple
levels of granularity.
129.What are the three fundamental concepts of DAX?
Syntax: This is how the formula is written—the elements that comprise it. The syntax includes functions such as SUM (used when you want to add figures). If the syntax isn’t correct, you’ll get an error message.
Functions: These are formulas that use specific values (also known as arguments) in a certain order to perform a calculation, similar to the functions in Excel. The categories of functions are date/time, time intelligence, information, logical, mathematical, statistical, text, parent/child, and others.
130.Name the variety of Power BI Formats.
Power BI is available mainly in three formats, as mentioned below.
Power BI Desktop: Open-Source version for Desktop users
Power BI Services: For Online Services
Power BI Mobile Application: Compatible with mobile devices
131.What are the different stages in the working of Power BI?
There are three different stages in working on Power BI, as explained below.
Data Integration
Data Processing
Data Presentation
Data Integration
The primary step in any business intelligence is to establish a successful connection with the data source and integrate it to extract data for processing.
132.Which professionals use Power BI the most?
Beginners and experts prefer Power BI in business intelligence. Power BI is used mainly by the
following professionals.
Business Analysts
Business Owners
Business Developers
Business Analysts
A business analyst is a professional who analyses the business data and represents the insights found using visually appealing graphs and dashboards
Business Owners
Business owners, decision-makers, or organizations use Power BI to view the insights and
understand the prediction to make a business decision.
Business Developers
Business Developers are just software developers who get hired for business purposes to
develop custom applications and dashboards to help the business process be smooth.
133.What is SSBI?
SSBI stands as an abbreviation for Self-Service Business Intelligence. SSBI is a breakthrough in business intelligence. SSBI has enabled many business professionals with no technical or coding background to use Power BI and generate reports and draw predictions successfully.
134.Mention some applications of Power BI
There are multiple applications of Power BI; some of them are as follows:
Business Analysis
Data Analysis
Database Administration
IT Professional
135.How can you depict a story in Power BI?
Every individual chart or visualization report generated is collected and represented on a single screen. Such an approach is called a Power BI Dashboard. A Dashboard in Power BI is used to depict a story.
136.What are KPIs in Power BI?
KPI is abbreviated as Key Performance Indicator. Any professional organization has teams and employees follow the KPI protocols. The organizations set up KPIs for all the employees. These KPIs act as their targets. These KPIs are compared to previous performance and analyze the progress.
137.What is a Slicer?
Slicers are an integral part of a business report generated using Power BI. The functionality
of a slicer can be considered similar to that of a filter, but, unlike a filter, a Slicer can display a visual representation of all values and users will be provided with the option to select from the available values in the slicer’s drop-down menu.
138.Explain Power BI Designer.
It is a combined solution offered to upload the reports and dashboards to the PowerBI.com
website for reference. It consists of Power Pivot, Power Query, and Power Table.
139.How do you reshape data in Power BI?
Power BI offers a wide variety of data source connectivity options. Data Editor is one of the
tools used to manipulate rows and columns of the data and helps you reshape it according to the requirements.
With that, you have come to an end to this tutorial on “Top 50 Power BI Interview Questions and Answers for 2021”.
140.What is the use of the “Get Data” icon in Power BI?
When users in Power BI click on the icon “Get Data”, a drop-down menu displays all data sources from which data can be ingested. Data can directly get ingests from sources such as Excel, XML, PDF, JSON, CSV, and SharePoint folder databases and formats such as SQL, SQL Server Analysis Services, IBM, Access, Oracle, MySQL, and much more.
141.How to create and manage relationships in Power BI Desktop?
As the name suggests, relationships in Power BI are used to define connections or the relation between two or more tables. To perform analysis on multiple tables, relationships are used. To create and manage relationships in Power BI Desktop:
On the Home tab, select Manage Relationships > New.
In the Create relationship dialog box, in the first table drop-down list, select a table. Select the column you want to use in the relationship.
In the second table drop-down list, select the other table you want in the relationship. Select the other column you want to use, and then choose OK.
142.Are Power View and Power Query the same?
Power View can be used to download data to Excel as well as make nice transformations.
Example: Filter, merge multiple sources, calculate, etc.
Power View enables you to present the data in reports
143.Can you tell me what the difference between Power BI personal Gateway
and Data Management Gateway is?
Power BI Personal Gateway is used for reports that are deployed in Powerbi.com. On the other hand, data management is an app that installs the gateway on source data machines to deploy reports on Sharepoint and schedule to refresh automatically.
144.Explain DAX
DAX stands for Data Analysis Expressions. It is a collection of operators, functions, and
constants used to calculate formulas and return values. In other words, it helps you create new info from data you already have.
145.SUM() vs SUMX(): What is the difference between the two DAX functions?
The sum function (Sum()) takes the data columns and aggregates them totally but the SumX function (SumX()) lets you filter the data which you are adding.
SUMX(Table, Expression), where the table contains the rows for calculation. Expression is a
calculation that will be evaluated on each row of the table.
146.List the benefits of using variables in DAX.
Improve performance
Improve readability
Reduce complexity
Simplify debugging
147.What is the Power Map?
Power BI is a business intelligence and Analytics tool for non-technical and
technical users to manage, analyze, visualize and share data with others. One of
its key features is visualization – that is, presenting data and insights using
appealing visuals. Among the visuals available in power BI are maps.
148.How to create and use Maps in Power BI?
There are 4 types of core or built-in map visuals:
Map (Basic)
Filled Map
Shape Map
ArcGIS Maps
149.Explain the filled map in Power BI?
Power BI utilizes two built-in map charts map and a filled map. A filled map shows data points with geospatial areas rather than points on a map. Areas can be continent, country, state, city. Working with a filled map, however, is not as easy and convenient as the map chart is
150.What data sources can you connect to Power BI?
he Power BI data sources are extensive, which are divided as follows:
Files: Data can be imported from Power BI Desktop files (.pbix), Excel (.xlsx, xlxm), and
Comma Separated Value (.csv).
Content Packs: It refers to the collection of related files or documents that are stored as a
group. There are two types of content packs in Power BI: those from service providers
including Google Analytics, Salesforce, or Marketo, and those created and shared by other
users in the organization.
Connectors: To connect databases and other datasets, including Database, Azure SQL, and
SQL Server Analysis Services tabular data, etc.
151.Explain about Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is a free desktop application that can be installed on your computer. It cohesively works with the Power BI service by providing advanced data modeling, shaping, exploration, and creating reports with highly interactive visualizations. It enables users to save the work to a file or publish their reports and data right to your Power BI site to share with others.
Below are the distinct Excel BI add-ons.
Power Query to find, edit and load external data
Power View for designing interactive and visual reports
PowerPivot to analyze data modeling
Power Map for displaying insights in 3D Map
152.Is Power BI free to use?
Power BI is available in two versions: Power BI Free and Power BI Pro.
Users can use Power BI for free. However, the Power BI Pro subscription avails more from
Microsoft Store. The subscription offers an enhanced version of various features available with the free Power BI account. Most business users use the subscribed account as it provides more data refreshers per day and other features than the free version.
153.How to perform query tasks in Power BI Desktop?
Power Query is available in Power BI Desktop through the power query editor. To open the
power query editor, select Edit Queries from the Power BI Desktop home tab.
The ribbon in Power Query Editor consists of five tabs – home, transform, add column, view, and help.
154.Can we store data in Power BI? If so, where does it get stored?
Power BI stores data in a few different locations. All the data stays secure through measures such as encryption and password protection. It mainly depends on the channel that you used to import the data. Data is stored in a few places, but it all boils down to one of the main two locations: the cloud and your desktop.
155.How do you create a group in Power BI?
To perform grouping in power bi, please select the fields you want to group, and right-click on it will open the context menu. Please select the Group option from the menu.
Once you click on the group option, Power BI will automatically group those items, as shown below. That’s it; we did the grouping. If you observe closely, the legend section is replaced by group, and colour is placed in the details section.
156.What is the current version of Power BI?
Power BI Desktop is supported on Windows 8 or newer versions of Windows. Download the
Power BI Desktop version that matches the architecture (x86 or x64) of your Windows OS.
157.Explain what M language is in Power BI?
M is a query formula language used in Power BI Query Editor to prepare data before loading in the Power BI model.
Power Query works with Excel, Analysis Services, and Power BI workbooks. Its core
functionality is to filter and combine, i.e., to mash up data from one or more rich collections
of supported data sources. Any such data mashup is expressed using Power Query M Formula Language.
158.Can you explain a few ways of how a Power Query can transform the
data?
Power Query is available through getting & Transform in Excel 2016 or Power Pivot.
159.Which data sets can be used to create dashboards with streaming data tiles?
Streaming datasets
Hybrid Datasets
160.What are the different views that Power BI Desktop contains?
Report View
Data View
Relationship View
161.What do you know about Row Level Security? And how do you implement it?
Row-level security restricts the data that users view and access based on filters. To configure rowlevel security, users can define rules and roles within Power BI Desktop and publish them to Power BI
Service. Also, the username() function can restrict data in the table to the current user.
However, to enable row-level security, a Power BI Pro subscription account is essential, and Excel sheets can be used when converted to the .pbix file format.
Following are the ways to implement Row Level Security in Power BI:
Define roles and rules in Power BI Desktop
Validate the roles within Power BI Desktop
Manage security on your model
Validating the role within the Power BI service
162.Explain about Bidirectional Cross-Filtering in Power BI?
One of the most important features of Power BI is Bidirectional cross-filtering. This feature
allows you to apply filters on both sides of a table relationship, using right-to-left and left-to
right options for their calculations. Through this, modelers can know how exactly particularrelationships can work in multiple contexts.
163.Name some top features of Power BI
Quick Insights
Acquiring data
Real-time information
Natural language questions
Content the way you want
Quick decisions
View reports on the Go
Freedom for Integration
Sharing
164.Explain Power BI Query Editor
Power BI Query Editor is used to transform or edit data files before they are loaded. The Query Editor plays the role of an intermediate data container where you can transform data by selecting rows and columns, splitting rows and columns, pivoting and unpivoting columns, etc.
The modifications done by the Query Editor are not reflected in the actual datasheet.
165.Describe Power BI Designer
Power BI is a stand-alone application to make Power BI reports and upload them to
Powerbi.com; it does not require excel. It is the combination of Power Pivot, Power View, and Power Query.
166.What are the different types of gateways available in Power BI? Why would
you use them?
The Gateway acts as an extension between azure cloud administration and on-premise data
sources. There are three major types of Gateways listed as follows:
On-premises data gateway Allows multiple users to connect to various on-premises data sources. You can use an on-premises data gateway with all supported services with a single gateway installation. For complex scenarios,
this gateway is best suited.
On-premises data gateway (personal mode)
This data gateway allows one user to connect to sources that can’t be shared with others. This gateway is best suited to scenarios in which you only create reports and don’t need to share any data sources with others.
The virtual network data gateway
This data gateway allows multiple users to connect various data sources that are secured by virtual networks. For complex scenarios in which multiple people access multiple data sources, this data gateway is highly preferred.
167.Can we create geographic maps using Power BI?
Yes, Power BI can display geographical visualizations. That’s why some kind of location data is needed.
For example, state, country, or latitude and longitude.
168.Explain z-order in Power BI?
Z-order is a design strategy used to arrange visuals over shapes. It can also be defined as a method applied to implement when reports consist of multiple elements. Moreover, this can also be used to refresh the display when items in a report are changed.
169.What is the primary requirement for a table to be used in
Power BI?
In Power BI, the primary requirement for the table is that it contains unique rows. It must
also contain location data, which can be in a Latitude/Longitude pair.
You can use address fields instead, such as street, city, etc., which Bing can geolocate.
170.Name some important tools of Power BI
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Service
Power BI Data Gateway
Power BI Report Server
Power BI Mobile Apps
171.Is there any process for refreshing Power BI reports uploaded to the
cloud?
Of course, Power Bi reports can be refreshed with Data Management Gateway and Power BI
Personal Gateway.
172.What are content packs in Power BI? And why would you use one?
In Power BI, content packs are used to share objects, such as reports, dashboards, or
datasets with individuals within your organization. The sharing takes place over the Power BI website and can be shared with multiple users. No one can change the original content in the content pack. Also, users have “read-only” access to the Power BI content shared with them.
173.How is data security implemented in Power BI?
Power BI applies models with Row Level Security.
Dynamix security involves using USERNAME functions in definitions.
A DAX expression can be applied to tables filtering their rows at query time.
A table is typically created in the model that relates to specific dimensions and roles.
174.What do you know about many-to-many relationships in Power BI?
Many-to-many relationships involve a bridge or junction table that reflects the combinations of two dimensions. Either all possible combinations or those combinations that have occurred.
A relationship with many-to-many cardinality in Power BI is composed of three features:
Composite models: Allows a report to have two or more data connections, including DirectQuery connections or Import. With composite models, you can establish relationships with a many-many cardinality between tables.
Relationships with a many-many cardinality: This approach removes unique values in tables. Storage mode: You can specify which visuals require a query to back-end data sources. This feature improves performance and reduces back-end load.
175.List some Edit interactions options in Power BI.
Filter: It thoroughly filters the visual/tile based on the filter selection of another variable.
Highlight: Highlights only the related elements on the visual
None: Ignores the filter selection from another tile/visual.
176.How can you convert SSRS to Power BI?
Following are the ways to integrate SSRS with Power BI:
SSRS report items such as charts can be pinned to Power BI dashboards.
By clicking the tile option in Power BI dashboards will bring users to SSRS reports
To keep the dashboard tile refreshed, a subscription is created.
Power BI reports will be published to the SSRS portal.
177.What is the Time Intelligence function?
It is a function that allows manipulating data using periods.
178.How do I prepare for Power BI certification?
Mindmajix instructor-led training completely prepares you for the certification. We
provide two industry-specific projects in the course, which helps you have hands-on
experience on all possible scenarios that are part of certification.
179.Is Power BI a good career?
Five major reasons why Power BI will create a good career path for you:
Gartner’s framework for the Analytics and BI Magic Quadrant 2021.
There is a big market for Microsoft Power BI Consultants in almost every industry.
In perspective, Qlik and Tableau (both high in Gartner ranking) have a market cap close to 1% of Microsoft.
Top companies offering lucrative Power BI career opportunities.
Variety of job roles available:
Power BI Analyst/Developer
Data Analyst
Business Analyst
Business Intelligence Analyst
Business Intelligence Developer
Business Intelligence Manager
180.What are the Parts of Microsoft’s Self-Service Business Intelligence
Solutions?
Microsoft Self-Service BI has two parts:
Excel BI Toolkit: Allows users to create reports interactively through data importing from
distinct data sources as well as model data according to the requirement.
Power BI: It is an online solution that empowers users for sharing interactive reports and
queries that you have created with Excel BI Toolkit.
181.What is the Differentiate between Power BI and Power BI Pro?
Power BI offers distinct kinds of features to help you get started in searching for data in a
completely new way. Power BI Pro, on the other hand, caters to some additional features like scheduling data, live data sources, storage capacity, complete interactivity, and much more.
182.Define Excel BI Toolkit?
Excel BI Toolkit allows users for creating an interactive report by importing data from a
distinct range of sources and model data according to requirements.
183.What is the Cost of Power BI?
Both Power BI Desktop and Power BI are free of cost. For Power BI Pro, users have to pay
$9.99 per month after a 60-day free trial.
184.What are the basics needed for using Power BI?
To use Power BI, you need to have a web browser and a work email address.
work email addresses finishing in .mil and .gov are not supported currently.
185.What is the need for signing up with a work email?
Power BI does not have email addresses provided by telecommunications providers and
consumer email services, thus there is a need of signing up with work email.
186.Name the work email addresses that are currently supported?
Work email addresses that are finishing with .org and .edu are currently supported.
187.Is there any support by Power BI available for mobile devices?
Yes, Power BI supports mobile devices. It consists of apps for iOS devices, Windows 10
devices, and Android smartphones. You can install Power BI apps from the below app stores:
Google Play
Apple Store
Windows Store
188.What is Visualization?
Visualization is a process to represent data in pictorial form like tables, graphs, or charts
based on the specific requirement.
189.What is a Report?
The report is a Power BI feature that is a result of visualized data from a single data set. A
report can have multiple pages of visualization.
190.What is Power Pivot and what is the filter written in Power BI?
Power Pivot is an in-memory component that enables storing compressed data. It is used to build data models, relationships, create formulas, calculate columns from different resources.
Filters are applicable in:
Visualization level
Report Level
Page-Level
191.What data sources can Power BI connect to?
The following data sources that support DirectQuery in Power BI are as follows:
Amazon Redshift
Azure Data Explorer
AtScale (Beta)
Azure SQL Database
Azure HDInsight Spark
Google BigQuery
Azure SQL Data Warehouse
HDInsight Interactive Query
192.Why do we need BI?
You can take data and create reports at the click of a button. You can take data and
create reports with a button click. It helps in attracting new customers to service and
monitor existing customers. You can keep track of information and set your goals
accordingly. In general, building an ETL solution (Extraction, Transformation, and
Loading) ultimately helps to make better decisions. The ROI is very high Helps to make
unwanted data into progressive information.
193.Does Power BI store data?
Datasets are the data sources that are uploaded or connected to databases. These sources
include Excel workbooks and Power BI Desktop files. The following are also included in your
data capacity. Reporting Services on-premises visualizations are pinned to a Power BI
dashboard.
194.What must be installed to use Power BI?
To use the Power BI service for free, you need a work email and a web browser. With this,
you can explore data as well as create reports in Power BI Desktop. The mobile app can be
downloaded from the following stores:
Google Play, App Store, and Windows Store.
195.How one can get started with Power BI?
There are some resources to get assistance and get started with Power BI. They are as follows:
Webinars
Power BI Blog
You can get started with an article on Power BI
You can get started with a video on YouTube
Last but not least, joining a related community and getting answered
196.What is SSBI?
SSBI stands for Self-Service Business Intelligence. It can also be termed as accessing data
analytics to empower business users to divide, clean, and interpret data. SSBI has made
it easy for end-users to access their data and create various kinds of visuals to acquire
useful business insights. Anyone who has basic data knowledge can build reports for
creating spontaneous and shareable dashboards.
197.What is a Dashboard?
The dashboard is used to visualize the strategic data of one or multiple reports at a glance.
198.What is the CORR function and when is it used?
CORR is a correlation function that provides a correlation between two distinct variables ranging
from -1 to 1.
199.What are the advantages of Power BI?
Here are the main advantages of Power BI
Power BI integrates well with the existing application
It contains rich and personalized Dashboards.
publishing reports in a secure way
Quick accessibility to data means there is no speed and memory issue
200.What are the data destinations for Power Queries?
There are two destinations for output we get from power query:
Load to a table in a worksheet
Load to the Excel Data Model
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