Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide: Build dashboards and visualizations to make your data come to life

Turn Data into Decisions with Power BI 📊

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide is a hands-on route into Microsoft’s business intelligence platform. Written by Devin Knight, Brian Knight, Mitchell Pearson, and Manuel Quintana, it follows the natural arc of a Power BI project: connect to data, clean and shape it, build a model, add calculations, design visuals, and share the result. The book comes from Packt’s 2018 technical list and is aimed at readers who want a structured quick start rather than a thick reference.

What the Guide Covers

The chapters move through the features that new and intermediate users meet first:

• Importing data from Excel, SQL Server, and web sources, with guidance on DirectQuery and Live Connection
• Data transformation in Power Query Editor, including first-row headers, removing columns, changing types, conditional columns, fill down, unpivot, merging, appending, R scripts, and the M formula language
• Building the data model: relationships, editing relationships, and complex relationship scenarios
• DAX fundamentals and time intelligence for calculations and slicing
• Visualizations and report storytelling
• Cloud deployment and Power BI Report Server

Learn the Power BI Workflow ⚙️

What makes the book useful as a quick start is its sequence. Rather than presenting isolated features, it shows how each stage affects the next. Data import choices influence what you can transform; transformation shapes the model; the model supports DAX; and DAX feeds the visuals that communicate results. The foreword notes that the examples use common data structures and that the chapters are formatted so experienced users can jump to a specific topic when needed.

Visuals, Storytelling, and Deployment 💻

Later chapters turn to the part many readers are most eager to reach: charts and dashboards. The book discusses where different visualization types are most useful, then moves into storytelling so that a report does more than display numbers. Deployment coverage follows, including cloud scenarios and Power BI Report Server for local environments. That final stretch is especially relevant for managers and team leads who need to understand how reports reach users.

Who This eBook Is For

The authors write for multiple starting points. Beginners can read from the first chapter onward. Intermediate users can target the transformation, modeling, DAX, or visualization chapters that match a current project. Managers and decision-makers may find the deployment chapters useful for understanding how Power BI fits into an organization. If you work with data in Excel or SQL Server and want a practical bridge into Power BI, this guide is designed for that transition.

Why It Works as a Quick Start

Microsoft Power BI changes quickly, and the 2018 edition reflects the platform at that point. Its value lies in the fundamentals: how to bring data in, how to shape it, how to model it, and how to present it. The book is not just a feature tour; it is a path through the decisions that make a report reliable and readable. For readers who prefer examples and a clear order of operations, it offers a grounded introduction to the Power BI workflow.

Start Building with Confidence

Whether you are opening Power BI for the first time or filling gaps in an existing workflow, this guide provides a structured way to build dashboards and visualizations that make data easier to understand.