Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide: The ultimate beginner's guide to data modeling, visualization, digital storytelling, and more, 3rd Edition 3rd ed. Edition

Not a simplified version for none technical people. Not an over complicated master class in Power BI. It's Useful for beginners and intermediate. Pretty straightforward.

As a mid level Power BI professional I would wholeheartedly recommend this book for someone starting out. It covers the basics of how to connect to various types of data sources, how to write DAX (Time Intelligence was a plus), how to use Power Query to transform data, and creating a report/dashboard. Shortcuts on using the "Ask a question about your data" is nice, PBI will create a viz for you. Adding Row Level Security is a desired skill. Having the ability to download files and follow along with the book is wonderful. You can get actual experience, not just read something.There are also advanced transformations discussed, using R and M language. This would be great for someone who wants to venture into Data Science analytics.I plan on using this book as a trusted resource if I need to research anything related to Power BI."

I wish I had this book when I first started.Tech books generally fall into 2 category types (broadly): reference books and training books. This one falls in the latter category and is great for a person that is new to Power BI and has the time to learn things properly step-by-step. True to its name: Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide: The ultimate beginner's guide to data modeling, visualization, digital storytelling, and more - this book is very much for the beginner. You won't get deep knowledge or troubleshooting techniques (there are other great books for that), but it covers enough advance topics lightly that the reader will know where to go next depending on their situation. Even lightly touches on R and AI to give the reader a taste of capabilities, which is impressive.What you will not get (nor does it promise) deep dives into topics or a lot of information on the admin side (though there is some!) But what you will get, is a pretty good foundation from beginning to end for aspiring PBI developers or self-service users. I would recommend using this book as a step by step guide to introduce you into all the different components. This book is great for beginners that may be a little unsure where to start, by both explaining different areas and giving step by step examples. One of my favorite aspects are the great screenshots that give a numbered breakdown in the text of each section. This is invaluable (though new users should be aware that sometimes things change with updates).My only pause, was the data sources chapter. I felt like the Import data source options were a little confusing the way it is laid out. At first it seems that only a couple of data sources are mentioned, but then you realize other ones are folded up under different headings such as SSAS under live connections. This might be fine for readers using the book from beginning to end (recommended), but many things may get lost for beginners jumping around looking for a specific scenario (which is what I was doing initially).I recommend this book If you are brand new to PBI and need to get up and running quickly - it will definitely help you get on your journey without overwhelming you too much.

As a MicroStrategy Business Intelligence professional, I was quite excited to get my hands on this book. With the words "Quick Start" in the title, it sounded exactly like what I needed.So, did this book live up to its promise to be my “Quick Start” introduction to the world of Microsoft PowerBI? 100% Yes!! I highly recommend it for anyone new to PowerBI, and people transitioning over from other BI tools.For those of you interested in a few more details, here are a few quick thoughts on the main topics in this book.- The range of topics is perfect for a Beginners Quick Start title like this.- The book covers the basics on how to Connect to the most popular data sources.- Once connected, it walks you through how some very nice, and powerful Data Transformations capabilities using the Power Query editor. This step allows you to get your data "cleaned up" prior to moving to the next steps.- Next up, it walks you through the process of modeling your data with several fitting examples on best practices etc. I even learned a few new things in this chapter.- The fun part is next when the book walks you through the main PowerBI visualization interface. The authors do a wonderful job explaining everything important that you will see on the UI.- Once comfortable with the UI layout, building your Data Visualizations is next. Again, the authors take you through the most important visualizations that you need to know about and explain how to use each in detail. There is even a little section on Data Storytelling with PowerBI that I found quite interesting.- The final few chapters are for Enterprise Users where the book goes into a nice amount of detail on how all the server side of PowerBI works. If you're planning to use PowerBI at work, then these Enterprise chapters will be a great introduction for you. While the book doesn't go into deep technical detail, I found that the authors provided just enough to "give you a taste" of the whole other PowerBI world in a large enterprise.