how to app.powerbi.com

[rabers]

hi,

I'm new to Power BI.

I've realized there are two options: desktop and web (app.powerbi.com)

assuming I'm coming from the BI world (other tools) and i know a thing or two about BI,

i want to know if the web option can be used as stand alone?

i have a client who wishes to work only with the web option.

didn't find how to import more than one table to the cloud, manipulate them? link between them (either automatically or by the user\developer)? etc. can it be done?

let's say I have orders_header, order_details table and products tables - how can I import all of them to the cloud and build my ERD? in order to use ALL of their data in order to create a dashboard?

or should all the data preparations be done at the raw data part?

please assist,

Shay

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@rabers If the client wants to only use the Service, and you want full control over your model, you would want to use SSAS Tabular as the data source. This would allow you to do all your modeling/data manipulation on the backend, and the Service would be your front end.
If you don't have all the tools on the back end (SQL, SSIS< SSAS), and will be doing data mashup or need that layer, then Ankit's advice should be followed.

Also note. Currently there is no way to save reports to a file in the Service. According to some tweets I've seen recently, this functionality is possibly coming soon.

[rabers]

hi Eno,

my client has none of the above (mentiond by you)

he wishes to have a solid BI application and Power BI suites him due to its price.

for example, in Qlikview, tableu, BO, you can create an ERD inside your application and "play" with it, connect tables, etc.

is it possible with desktop?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@rabers Yes. You get all of that functionality, model building, transformations, data manipulation, measure building, etc, etc, in the Desktop. 

High level -

Desktop: (TL, Modeling, etc), Report Building

Service: Report Building, Dashboarding and Sharing

[ankitpatira · Accepted solution]

@rabers Basically power bi desktop is the designer tool and power bi service is web app to access reports and dashboards. You can also connect straight to some data sources from power bi service and build reports and dashboard there but you don't get advanced data manipulation capabilities that you get in desktop app. General process if you use power bi desktop to connect to data source -> perform your data manipulation there -> build report -> publish to power bi service -> build dashboard from published report in power bi service -> share that dashboard with others.

So to answer your question you can use power bi desktop to connec to all your tables and publish that to cloud or use power bi service to connect straight to tables in your data source provided power bi service allows support for that type of data source (example azure sql database).

[rabers]

hi Ankit,

ok. I got that I need to design first at the desktop app. but my further question is:

assuming I'm building a dashboard which requires orders, order details, product, product categories, sales persons, inventory, customers, etc. (classic old-school sales dashboard)

in order to do that in other BI tool, I'd build some kind of star scheme ERD and based on that- I'd create my dashboard.

is it possible with Power BI Desktop? according to your comment:

"connect to data source -> perform your data manipulation there -> build report -> publish to power bi service -> build dashboard from published report..."

(haven't tried yet) is seems not...

am I wrong?