1. What is Power BI and what are its main components?
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Power BI is a Microsoft business intelligence platform that allows organizations to combine data from multiple sources and present it through interactive visualizations. The platform includes Power BI Desktop for creating reports, Power BI Service for cloud-based sharing and collaboration, and Power BI Mobile for accessing dashboards on smartphones or tablets. Together, these tools provide a unified ecosystem for analyzing, visualizing, and sharing insights.
2. How does Power Query help in preparing and transforming data in Power BI?
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Power Query acts as the data transformation and preparation engine in Power BI. It enables users to connect to various sources and clean or shape data before loading it into the model. Tasks such as removing duplicates, splitting columns, merging tables, and converting data types can be done visually. This ensures that datasets are accurate, consistent, and ready for reporting.
3. What is DAX in Power BI, and how do SUM and SUMX differ?
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DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a formula language in Power BI used to create measures, calculated columns, and custom tables. The SUM function directly totals the values in a column, whereas SUMX evaluates a formula row by row before summing the results. SUMX is helpful for calculations that need row-level logic before aggregation.
4. What does a data model mean in Power BI and why is it useful?
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A data model defines how tables, relationships, and calculations interact in a Power BI report. It structures data from multiple sources in an organized way to improve performance and accuracy. A strong data model ensures consistent metrics, reliable calculations, and efficient visualizations across all dashboards.
5. How are relationships between tables set up in Power BI?
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Relationships connect key columns or identifiers between different tables to enable meaningful data analysis. Power BI can automatically detect relationships or allow users to define them manually. One-to-many relationships are common, linking a single record in a dimension table to multiple records in a fact table, ensuring data consistency across reports.
6. What are calculated columns and how are they different from measures in Power BI?
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Calculated columns are DAX-based fields that store values for each row permanently in the dataset. Measures, on the other hand, calculate results dynamically during report interaction and do not consume storage. This difference impacts memory usage, report responsiveness, and the ability of calculations to adapt to filters or slicers.
7. How do Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service differ?
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Power BI Desktop is a local application used to connect to data sources, transform data, and build detailed reports. Power BI Service is a cloud platform designed for publishing reports, scheduling automatic refreshes, managing user access, and collaborating with teams. Desktop focuses on report creation, while Service emphasizes sharing, monitoring, and collaboration.
8. How does Power BI maintain secure access to sensitive data?
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Power BI uses Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access to data based on user roles. Filters can limit visibility by criteria like department, region, or business unit. When reports are published to Power BI Service, RLS ensures that users only see the data they are authorized to access, protecting confidential information.
9. What is the difference between Import mode and DirectQuery mode in Power BI, and when should each be used?
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Import mode loads data into Power BI, allowing fast performance and offline access, but requires scheduled refreshes. DirectQuery mode keeps the data at the source and retrieves it in real time, suitable for large or frequently updated datasets, though performance may be slower. The choice depends on data size, update frequency, and reporting needs.
10. How can the performance of a complex Power BI dashboard be optimized?
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Dashboard performance improves by simplifying DAX calculations, removing unused columns, and reducing the number of visuals per page. Using aggregation tables, optimizing queries, and enabling query folding also helps. These strategies make dashboards faster, more responsive, and maintain accurate insights for users.