Introduction to the Power BI Ecosystem (Without Report Builder)

Learn about the Power BI product ecosystem

In this video, Matt breaks down the Power BI product ecosystem, discussing Power BI Desktop (including Power Query Editor) and the Power BI service, as well as the differences between the Free, Pro, and Premium Power BI licenses.

Hi, this is Matt with Playfair+. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss the Power BI ecosystem and what it looks like when you connect with data for the first time. Let’s get started. 

Let’s talk about the Power BI product ecosystem. So, the three portions of this that really, it’s broken into three different sections are, there’s desktop, which is what you’re thinking of when you think of Power BI.

So this is the interface where you’re doing your work. It’s Power Query editor, and then the ability to connect to data. So that’s all housed in the, Power BI Desktop section. 

There is Power BI service, that’s where you would be publishing your reports if you’re sharing them to a wider audience, building out dashboards, which are, specifically, tiled portions of existing reports. You can do single or multiple report pieces and then tile them into a dashboard. 

I will probably call a report a dashboard at some point, simply because Tableau calls it a dashboard, and so, many of us when we see the screen on Power BI Desktop, we think this is a dashboard.

So, and then there’s the Power BI report builder. We won’t cover that today. It’s another advanced sharing option that we have in the Power BI ecosystem. So, and just, if you’re very new to this, we’re looking at the different options we have for the different Power BI licenses. So obviously Power BI Desktop is free.

So I hope if you are a new user, you’re taking advantage of that and you have Power BI Desktop on your machine. Pro is really the level you’re getting when you’re going to start sharing. That license is making it available for you to go ahead and publish. And then you could do Premium Per User (PPU) or per instance.

That is an enterprise-level license, where if you’re looking at a much wider audience or you’re doing public sharing, that’s what you would be looking at. 

This has been Matt with Playfair+. Thanks for watching.