If you're starting your data analytics journey, Power BI Desktop is one of the first tools you'll learn. It is Microsoft's free business intelligence application that allows you to connect to data, transform it, build semantic models, create interactive reports, and publish them to the Power BI Service for sharing and collaboration.
Whether you're a data analyst, business user, or student, Power BI Desktop provides everything you need to transform raw data into meaningful insights—all from a single application.
In this lesson, you'll learn what Power BI Desktop is, explore its main features, understand its different views, connect to various data sources, prepare and model data, create interactive reports, and publish them to the Power BI Service.
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What is Power BI Desktop?
Power BI Desktop is a free Windows application developed by Microsoft for creating business intelligence reports and dashboards.
With Power BI Desktop, you can:
- Connect to hundreds of data sources
- Clean and transform data using Power Query
- Create relationships between multiple tables
- Build semantic models
- Write DAX calculations and measures
- Design interactive reports
- Publish reports to Power BI Service
- Collaborate securely with your team
Think of it as your complete report development environment before sharing reports with others.
Why Use Power BI Desktop?
Organizations generate data from many different systems, including:
- Excel spreadsheets
- SQL Server
- Oracle
- MySQL
- SharePoint
- Azure SQL Database
- Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse
- OneLake
- Dataverse
- Salesforce
- SAP
- Google Analytics
- Snowflake
- Amazon Redshift
- CSV and Text files
- REST APIs
- Hundreds of other connectors
Instead of manually combining this information, Power BI Desktop allows you to bring everything together in one place and analyze it visually.
Downloading Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is available only for Windows.
There are two installation options:
Microsoft Store (Recommended)
- Automatically receives monthly updates
- Best option for most users
Microsoft Download Center
- Manual installation
- Useful for organizations that manage software updates centrally
Microsoft releases a new version almost every month, introducing:
- New visuals
- Performance improvements
- AI enhancements
- Fabric integration
- Bug fixes
- New connectors
Keeping Power BI Desktop updated ensures you have access to the latest features.
System Requirements
Power BI Desktop supports modern Windows operating systems.
Minimum recommendations:
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit)
- At least 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
- Multi-core processor
- Stable internet connection for publishing and cloud services
Power BI Desktop is not available natively for macOS.
Mac users can run it through:
- Windows Virtual Machine
- Parallels Desktop
- Windows installed via Boot Camp (Intel Macs only)
- Azure Virtual Desktop or other cloud virtual machines
Quick overview of the Power BI Desktop Tool
Power BI Desktop – Views
Power BI Desktop supports five different views, each designed to help you perform a specific task during report development.
- Report – The default view used to create and design interactive reports by adding visuals, slicers, maps, tables, and other report elements.
- Data – Displays the imported tables, rows, and columns, allowing you to inspect, validate, and understand your data before creating reports.
- Model – Enables you to create, view, and manage relationships between tables, configure model properties, and organize your semantic model for efficient reporting.
- DAX Query – Allows you to write, test, and analyze DAX queries to validate calculations, explore model data, and troubleshoot DAX expressions.
- TMDL (Tabular Model Definition Language) – Allows you to view and edit your semantic model using the Tabular Model Definition Language. This view is primarily intended for advanced users and developers who manage semantic models using a text-based format and source control.
Connect to different data sources
Power BI Desktop enables you to connect to a wide variety of data sources, whether they are stored on premises, in the cloud, SaaS applications, databases, files, or Microsoft Fabric. It supports hundreds of built-in connectors, allowing you to combine data from multiple sources into a single report.
The screenshot below shows the Get Data experience in Power BI Desktop, where data sources are organized into categories such as All, File, Database, Power Platform, Azure, Online Services, Fabric, and Other. We will explore how to connect to these data sources in detail in the upcoming lessons.
To connect to a data source in Power BI Desktop, click Home > Get Data, or select Get Data > More... to browse all available connectors.
Cleanse and Transform data
Data is rarely perfect in real-world scenarios and often requires cleaning and transformation before it can be analyzed. Power BI Desktop includes the built-in Power Query Editor, which enables you to prepare and shape your data without writing complex code.
Using Power Query Editor, you can perform a wide range of data preparation tasks, including changing data types, filtering rows, removing or renaming columns, replacing values, splitting or merging columns, merging or appending queries, combining files, handling missing values, and performing many other data transformation operations.
To open Power Query Editor in Power BI Desktop, click Home > Transform data.
Power Query Editor provides “Applied Steps” feature that allows to see the history of all transformations made to the dataset.
Create Data Model
Power BI Desktop enables users to combine data from multiple sources and build a semantic model, which serves as the foundation for reporting and analytics. A well-designed semantic model improves report performance, simplifies data analysis, and enables accurate calculations.
Using the Model view, you can create, view, and manage relationships between tables, configure model properties, and organize your data model. If relationships are not already defined in the underlying data sources, Power BI allows you to create them manually.
Create Reports
Once your data has been prepared and your semantic model is ready, you can create interactive reports using Power BI Desktop. A Power BI report consists of one or more pages containing a collection of visuals that help you analyze and present your data effectively.
Power BI provides a wide variety of built-in visuals, including bar charts, line charts, pie charts, tables, matrices, maps, KPI cards, gauges, slicers, and many more. You can also enhance your reports using custom visuals available from Microsoft AppSource.
Reports can include multiple pages, interactive filters, drill-through functionality, bookmarks, buttons, tooltips, and other features that enable users to explore data and gain meaningful insights.
Share Reports
Reports created using Power BI Desktop can be shared with other users after they are published to the Power BI Service. Once published, authorized users can securely access and interact with the reports using a web browser or the Power BI Mobile app on their Android or iOS devices.
Depending on their permissions and licensing, users can also collaborate on reports, share dashboards, subscribe to reports, and access them from anywhere using the Power BI Service.
Conclusion
Power BI Desktop is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for creating interactive reports and dashboards. It helps you connect to different data sources, prepare your data, build semantic models, and create meaningful visualizations—all in one place.
In the next lesson, we'll explore the Power BI Service and learn how to publish, share, and collaborate on reports.
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