30.1 Fundamentals

Q1. What is Power BI?

A Microsoft business intelligence platform for connecting to data, transforming and modelling it, and creating interactive reports and dashboards that can be shared securely through the Power BI Service.

Q2. What are the main components of Power BI?

Power BI Desktop (authoring), Power BI Service (cloud sharing and collaboration), Power BI Mobile (viewing on phones/tablets), Power BI Report Server (on-premises portal), and the on-premises data gateway (bridge for on-premises data). Report Builder is used for paginated reports.

Q3. Describe the typical Power BI development workflow.

Connect to data → clean and transform in Power Query → build the data model (relationships, date table) → create DAX measures → design visuals → publish to the Service → share via apps/workspaces → schedule refresh and maintain.

Q4. What is the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service?

Desktop is the free Windows authoring tool for Power Query, modelling, DAX and report design. The Service is the cloud platform to publish, share, create dashboards and apps, schedule refresh, manage security and collaborate.

Q5. What is the difference between a report and a dashboard?

A report can have many pages, is built on one semantic model and is fully interactive. A dashboard is a single-page canvas in the Service with pinned tiles that can come from several reports; it supports data alerts but has no slicers.

Q6. What licence types exist?

Free, Pro, Premium Per User (PPU) and capacity-based licensing (Microsoft Fabric F SKUs; older Premium P SKUs). Pro/PPU are per user; capacity is bought for the organisation and, at F64 or larger, allows free users to view content.