Connecting to Data Sources in Power BI

Key Concepts

Data Connectivity: The process of establishing a connection between Power BI and various data sources.
Data Sources: The various types of databases, files, and services from which data can be imported.
Power Query Editor: A tool within Power BI used to transform and shape data after it has been imported.

Data Connectivity

Data Connectivity in Power BI involves establishing a connection between the Power BI environment and external data sources. This connection allows users to import data into Power BI for analysis and visualization. Power BI supports a wide range of data sources, including databases, cloud services, and flat files.

Example: Imagine you are a business analyst who needs to analyze sales data from a SQL Server database. You would use Power BI to connect to this database, import the sales data, and then create visualizations to analyze the data.

Data Sources

Data Sources refer to the various types of databases, files, and services from which data can be imported into Power BI. Common data sources include:

Relational Databases: SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc.
Cloud Services: Azure SQL Database, Google Analytics, Salesforce, etc.
Flat Files: Excel, CSV, JSON, etc.
Online Services: Web APIs, SharePoint lists, etc.

Example: If you need to analyze customer feedback data stored in an Excel file, you would import this Excel file into Power BI as a data source. Similarly, if you need to analyze social media metrics from a web API, you would connect to this API as a data source.

Power Query Editor

Power Query Editor is a powerful tool within Power BI used to transform and shape data after it has been imported. It allows users to clean, merge, and reshape data to prepare it for analysis. Common tasks in Power Query Editor include filtering rows, grouping data, and merging tables.

Example: After importing sales data from a SQL Server database, you might use Power Query Editor to filter out irrelevant rows, group sales data by region, and merge this data with customer data from an Excel file.

        let
            Source = Sql.Database("ServerName", "DatabaseName"),
            SalesTable = Source{[Schema="dbo",Item="Sales"]}[Data],
            FilteredSales = Table.SelectRows(SalesTable, each [Region] = "North")
        in
            FilteredSales

This code snippet demonstrates how to connect to a SQL Server database, select a specific table, and filter the data based on a condition using Power Query Editor.