Power BI Platforms

For a small business, I would recommend using Power BI Service. Power BI Service is a cloud-based platform that offers several advantages for small businesses:

1. Accessibility: Power BI Service can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, allowing small business owners and employees to view reports and dashboards on their preferred devices.

2. Collaboration: Power BI Service enables users to share reports and collaborate on data analysis. This is particularly useful for small businesses that have multiple team members working on data-related tasks.

3. Cost-effectiveness: Power BI Service offers flexible pricing options, including a free version with limited features. This makes it a cost-effective choice for small businesses that have budget constraints.

Overall, Power BI Service provides small businesses with the necessary tools to analyze and visualize their data, collaborate with team members, and make data-driven decisions.

Power BI Mobile and Power BI Desktop are two different platforms with distinct purposes:

• Power BI Mobile: Power BI Mobile is a mobile app that allows users to access and view reports and dashboards on their smartphones and tablets. It provides a mobile-friendly interface for exploring data on the go. Power BI Mobile is primarily used for consuming and interacting with reports, rather than creating or editing them.

• Power BI Desktop: Power BI Desktop is a Windows application that allows users to create and publish interactive reports and dashboards. It provides advanced data modeling capabilities and supports complex data transformations. Power BI Desktop is designed for data analysts and power users who need to create and customize reports.

In summary, Power BI Mobile is used for accessing and viewing reports on mobile devices, while Power BI Desktop is used for creating and editing reports on Windows computers.

Power BI Service is typically used when you need to share reports with a large number of users or collaborate on data analysis. Here's an example scenario:

Let's say you work in a marketing department and you need to create a monthly marketing performance report. You use Power BI Desktop to connect to various data sources, transform and clean the data, and create visualizations. Once the report is ready, you publish it to Power BI Service.

In Power BI Service, you can set up a scheduled refresh to automatically update the report with the latest data. You can also create a dashboard to display key metrics and share the report with your team members or stakeholders.

Your team members can access the report through Power BI Service, view the visualizations, apply filters, and explore the data. They can also leave comments, ask questions, and collaborate on data analysis.

In this example, Power BI Service is used to share the report, enable collaboration, and provide a web-based interface for accessing and interacting with the data.

Each platform of Power BI has its own limitations:

• Power BI Desktop: Some limitations of Power BI Desktop include:

  • It is only available for Windows operating system.
  • It requires installation and updates on individual computers.
  • It may have performance limitations when working with large datasets.

• Power BI Service: Some limitations of Power BI Service include:

  • It requires an internet connection to access reports and dashboards.
  • It has certain restrictions on data refresh frequency and data storage capacity.
  • It may have limitations on data connectivity options and data transformation capabilities.

• Power BI Mobile: Some limitations of Power BI Mobile include:

  • It has a simplified interface compared to Power BI Desktop and may not support all the features available in Power BI Desktop.
  • It may have limitations on data exploration and interactivity.

It's important to consider these limitations when choosing the appropriate platform for your specific needs.

Before publishing a report from Power BI Desktop to Power BI Service, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

1. A Power BI account: You need to have a Power BI account to publish a report.
2. Internet connection: You need to be connected to the internet to publish a report.
3. Access to a workspace: You need to have access to a workspace in Power BI Service where you want to publish the report.
4. Power BI Desktop: You need to have Power BI Desktop installed on your computer to create and publish reports.

If there is a data connection issue while publishing a report from Power BI Desktop to Power BI Service, the report may not be published successfully. Power BI Desktop will display an error message indicating the issue with the data connection. In such cases, you need to resolve the data connection issue before attempting to publish the report again.

Yes, you can schedule automatic updates for a published report in Power BI Service. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the report in Power BI Service.
2. Click on the 'Schedule Refresh' button in the 'Home' tab.
3. Configure the refresh settings, such as the frequency and time of refresh.
4. Click on the 'Apply' button to save the refresh settings.

Once the refresh settings are applied, the report will be automatically updated based on the configured schedule.

Power BI Mobile follows strict security measures to ensure the safety of data. Some of the key security features include:

• Secure sign-in: Users are required to sign in with their credentials to access their Power BI content on mobile devices.

• Data encryption: Power BI Mobile encrypts data both in transit and at rest, ensuring that it is protected from unauthorized access.

• Device-level security: Power BI Mobile leverages the security features of the underlying mobile operating system, such as device encryption and biometric authentication, to provide an additional layer of security.

• Remote wipe: In case a mobile device is lost or stolen, Power BI Mobile allows users to remotely wipe the Power BI data from the device to prevent unauthorized access.

No, Power BI Mobile does not provide the capability to create reports directly. It is primarily designed for viewing and interacting with existing dashboards and reports. To create reports, users need to use Power BI Desktop or the Power BI service on the web.

Power BI Mobile has some limitations compared to the Desktop version. Some of the key limitations include:

• Limited report editing capabilities: Power BI Mobile does not provide advanced report editing capabilities like Power BI Desktop. Users can only perform basic interactions such as filtering and sorting.

• Limited data connectivity options: Power BI Mobile supports a limited set of data connectivity options compared to Power BI Desktop. Some data sources may not be available for direct connection in Power BI Mobile.

• Limited data modeling capabilities: Power BI Mobile does not provide the ability to create or modify data models. Users need to use Power BI Desktop for advanced data modeling tasks.

• Limited data transformation capabilities: Power BI Mobile does not offer advanced data transformation capabilities like Power Query in Power BI Desktop.

• Limited customization options: Power BI Mobile has limited customization options compared to Power BI Desktop. Users cannot create custom visuals or modify the layout of dashboards and reports in Power BI Mobile.

There are multiple ways to share a report in Power BI Service:

1. Share with individuals: You can share a report with specific individuals by entering their email addresses. They will receive an email invitation to access the report.

2. Share with a security group: You can share a report with a security group in your organization. All members of the group will have access to the report.

3. Publish to web: You can publish a report to the web, making it accessible to anyone with the link. This option should be used with caution as it makes the report publicly available.

4. Embed in a website or application: You can embed a report in a website or application using Power BI Embedded. This allows users to view the report within the context of another application.

Power BI Service allows you to manage user permissions for a shared report in the following ways:

1. Assigning roles: You can assign different roles to users, such as Viewer, Contributor, or Admin. Each role has different permissions and access levels.

2. Sharing with individuals or groups: You can share a report with specific individuals or groups and control their access to the report.

3. Row-level security: You can implement row-level security to restrict data access at a row level based on user roles or attributes. This allows you to control which data each user can see in the report.

Yes, you can restrict data access at a row level in a shared report using row-level security. Row-level security allows you to define filters on tables or views in the data model, which determine which rows of data are visible to different users or groups. By applying row-level security, you can control which data each user can see in the report, ensuring that sensitive or confidential information is only accessible to authorized individuals.

The purpose of a data gateway in Power BI is to enable secure and efficient data transfer between Power BI Service and on-premises data sources. It allows you to connect to data sources that are not directly accessible from the cloud, such as databases, files, and web services hosted on your organization's network. The data gateway acts as a bridge between Power BI Service and your on-premises data sources, ensuring that data is refreshed and up-to-date in your Power BI reports and dashboards.

There are two types of data gateways in Power BI:

1. On-premises data gateway: This type of gateway is used to connect to on-premises data sources, such as databases and files, that are not directly accessible from the cloud. It requires installation and configuration on a machine within your organization's network.
2. Personal data gateway: This type of gateway is used for individual users to connect to their own on-premises data sources. It is installed and managed by the user on their own machine, and it only provides data connectivity for that specific user.

To manage and monitor a data gateway in Power BI, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Power BI Service.
2. Go to the settings menu by clicking on the gear icon in the top-right corner.
3. Select 'Manage gateways' from the settings menu.
4. On the 'Manage gateways' page, you can view a list of all the gateways in your organization.
5. Click on a gateway to view its details, such as the connected data sources and the last refresh time.
6. You can also edit the gateway settings, such as the gateway name and the credentials used to connect to data sources.
7. To monitor the gateway's performance and status, you can check the 'Gateway status' page, which provides information on the gateway's health, data source connections, and refresh history.