Power BI is a renowned Business Intelligence tool that has millions of users. It is well known for its easy-to-use nature along with the functionality it offers to create detailed and interactive reports and dashboards based on enterprise data. It also provides features like Power BI Workspaces which is a collaborative place where multiple users can work on the data.
In this article, we will look in detail at the aspects of the Power BI workspace and how to set one up.
What is Power BI?
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Power BI is one of the top players in Business Intelligence tools. It is SaaS ( software as a service) platform that is backed by Microsoft Corporation. It is a BI tool with lots of functionality. It is used to create detailed reports, and interactive dashboards and perform in-depth analyses on real-time enterprise data. Power BI is available in various formats such as desktop applications, mobile applications, and even on the web. This allows it to be highly collaborative as the tool can be accessed from anywhere around the world.
Power BI can be collaboratively used by all the departments of an organization be it sales, marketing, and many more. Power BI provides tools like Workspace which is a single place where all the users can work together.
Learn more about Power BI.
Key Features of Power BI
Power BI is a leading BI tool that is used to generate reports and dashboards. Power BI is a tool that is feature-rich. Some of the key features are mentioned below.
Informative reports and interactive dashboards
Power BI is used to generate reports with multiple designs and can be changed based on requirements. Some options for visualizations are:
- Bar Charts
- Column Charts
- Line Plots
- Area Plots
- Pie Charts
- Scatter Plots
- Treemaps
- Funnel Analysis Charts, etc
Detailed Navigation panel
The navigation panel of Power BI helps in connecting with colleagues. It is dynamic and allows for easy navigation between different dashboards be it for personal use(My workspace) or collaboration. This also allows saving all the reports and dashboards related to a particular department of organization in the workspace column. Navigating through related apps, pipelines deployed, recent works, reports, and dashboards are made simple using the navigation pane.
Multiple Functions for analysis
Power BI provides inbuilt functions known as DAX to analyze the enterprise data in real-time by applying operations on it. These functions are present in the function library of Power BI and are pre-defined. These functions are updated on a regular basis as it is backed by Microsoft’s large support system.
Multiple Dataset Vizualization
Power BI allows the data from various sources and also can take data from both single or multiple sources. It accepts data that is on-premise or present in cloud storage. It also accepts both structured and unstructured data. This makes it highly scalable and flexible. A few major data sources that are supported by Power BI are python, oracle, excel, and many more.
Customizable dashboards
There are many pre-built templates available that can be used to create dashboards based on the data. These dashboards can be shared with others.
What is Power BI Workspace?
Power BI workspace is the work area where all the collection of the organization’s Dashboards, Reports, Datasets, and other valuables are present. Power BI workspace is used to share the Workspace content with others inside or outside the organization. Sharing helps in getting input from others making it a proper development environment by providing edit access to everyone. It is also combined with Office 365 groups to increase its reach and manage its users.
Power BI is a shared workspace. It allows having multiple contents of Power BI at a single location i.e hundreds of dashboards, reports, and datasets can be stored in a single Power BI workspace. Also, the admin can add any number of users to a Power BI workspace and change their privileges.
Advantages of Power BI Workspaces
Sharing multiple Contents with Team
Power BI workspace allows you to share content with users of a group i.e there is no requirement to share the dashboard individually, it can be shared with everyone in the group at once.
Multiple Work Spaces
Power BI Workspace creates individual environments for members of the groups. Also switching between Power BI workspaces is an easy affair.
Isolated User/Group Administration
Power BI workspaces are synchronized with Office 365. This means that all the members of the group can easily be controlled by the administrator.
Best Developer Environment
Power BI Workspace acts as a perfect solution for a development environment. The environment can be shared with other members of the developer team along with edit access. This allows for uniform content spread within the organization.
Steps to Create a New Power BI Workspace
Creating a Power BI workspace is a fairly simple process involving 6 easy steps.
- Step 1: Click on the Power BI tool.
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- Step 2: Click on the workspaces button on the left side navigation panel
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- Step 3: A window will open, enter the name of the workspace
- Step 4: Selection option if you want the workspace to be public or private.
- Public – Anyone can see what’s inside: Anyone in this organization can see this.
- Private – Only approved members can see what’s inside: People added to this can view.
- Step 5: Add workspace members.
- Member can edit content: Allow people to edit the content.
- Members can only view the content: Restrict them from editing workspace content.
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- Step 6: Click on the save button and a new Workspace is created.
Limitations of Power BI Workspace
Power BI Workspaces have their own set of constraints. These limitations are as follows:
- A maximum of 1,000 datasets are allowed.
- There is a limit of 1,000 reports per dataset.
- Users with Power BI Pro can join up to 1,000 workspaces.
- Excel Power BI Publisher isn’t supported.
- Certain special characters aren’t supported in workspace names when using an XMLA endpoint. As a workaround, use URL encoding of special characters, for example, for a forward slash /, use %2F.
Conclusion
Power BI is a leading and popular BI tool from the house of Microsoft and is used by millions. It provides many features and the Power BI workspace is one such feature that allows all the members of the organization to collaborate under a single point. It also helps in maintaining and sharing the content faster within the organization. In this article, we talked about the Power BI workspace and the steps to set one up.
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Share your experience of learning about the Power BI Workspace in the comments section below.
Arsalan is a research analyst at Hevo and a data science enthusiast with over two years of experience in the field. He completed his B.tech in computer science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence and finds joy in sharing the knowledge acquired with data practitioners. His interest in data analysis and architecture drives him to write nearly a hundred articles on various topics related to the data industry.
