Microsoft Power BI Cookbook: Convert raw data into business insights with updated techniques, use cases, and best practices Paperback – 31 July 2024

This book is not just about creating reports—it challenges Power BI professionals to refine their development approaches. The There’s More… section is particularly insightful, covering sorting attributes in visuals, optimizing relational fact tables, diagnosing queries, extending the M library, and enhancing reports with DAX and hierarchies. The discussion on hybrid tables is another highlight, demonstrating how Power BI efficiently manages real-time and historical data.Some key takeaways:✅ Optimizing Data Models – Covers best practices like star schemas and DirectQuery for improved performance.✅ Dynamic User-Based Visibility – A must-read for those working with Row-Level Security (RLS).✅ Advanced Analytics & Custom Visuals – Includes AI-driven insights, storytelling, and statistical analyses.✅ Power BI + Microsoft Fabric – Explores Fabric’s data engineering capabilities and SQL endpoints.✅ Deploying & Distributing Power BI Content – Covers Teams integration, governance, and content distribution.The book also introduces DENEB (which is gaining traction in the Power BI community) and explores integrations with Excel, PowerPoint, Dataverse, Dynamics 365, PowerApps, and Power Automate.While it doesn’t cover some Preview features like TMDL format and PBIP project files, the depth of content makes it an invaluable resource for both beginners and experienced Power BI professionals. If you’re looking to master Power BI beyond dashboards and reporting, this book is a great investment!

As a person who has been using #PowerBI for a while now, I had the privilege to read this book which is a powerhouse of advanced techniques, optimisation strategies, and enterprise-level best practices.I read the digital copy previously, but this time I wanted to focus on key chapters for advanced features:🔹 📊 Chapter 3 – Building a Power BI Semantic ModelEssential for scalability and performance tuning.Covers star schema design, aggregations, and metadata configuration.🔹 📅 Chapter 6 – Mastering Time IntelligenceAdvanced DAX formulas for time-based calculations.Calculation groups for simplified logic.🔹 🔐 Chapter 8 – Dynamic User-Based SecurityImplementing Row-Level Security (RLS) for data governance.Dynamic filtering for personalised user access.🔹 📈 Chapter 9 – Advanced Analytics & AI VisualsUtilising AI-powered insights, clustering, and anomaly detection.Embedding R/Python visuals for predictive analytics.🔹 🚀 Chapter 11 – Optimising Power BI SolutionsPerformance tuning with efficient DAX, incremental refresh, and query folding.Strategies for handling large datasets.🔹 📤 Chapter 12 – Deployment & GovernanceManaging workspaces, automation, and data gateways.Seamless collaboration & distribution strategies.🔹 🔗 Chapter 13 – Power BI IntegrationEmbedding reports in PowerPoint, Teams, and Power Apps.Automating workflows with Power Automate.💡 In my opinion, A must-have for Power BI experts who want to enhance performance, implement security, and integrate BI solutions at scale. This book is not just about dashboards—it’s about building powerful, efficient, and enterprise-ready solutions. 🚀Would I recommend it? Absolutely! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Many thanks, Shruthi Shetty Vignesh Raju 💯🚀🎯📈 Packt

This book is an excellent guide for enhancing your Power BI skills, offering a comprehensive collection of practical recipes to tackle real-world business intelligence challenges.The content is well-organized, taking you from the basics to advanced topics such as data modeling and DAX for complex data analysis. Each chapter focuses on specific functionalities or tasks, making it easy for readers to find relevant information and apply best practices.The cookbook-style instructions are straightforward and easy to follow, allowing users to apply the steps directly to their projects. The real-life examples provided illustrate how to effectively utilize Power BI features to simplify and improve your work.With the latest edition incorporating all new features and enhancements, this book provides valuable tips on how to excel at analysing any type of data using Power BI visuals and functions. Highly recommended for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Power BI.And guess what? It’s in colour! So you won’t just learn a lot—you’ll have a colourful time doing it. 🌈

I'm largely self-taught on Power BI but this is a great book to really kick off right the way - all the way through from installing the software and other supporting tools like Report Builder, building a model and report and then improving and documenting it.Each chapter is very well laid out in a clear format - I like the structure with "Getting ready", "How it works" and "There's more" in nice bitesize chunks with each chapter closing out with a good Summary.There are links to GitHub so you can do the doing which works really well.There are some great modelling techniques in this book for both the beginner and more advanced user.Definitely another great addition to the bookshelf with nice colour screenshots, well laid out as with other Packt books I've read and does a great job of getting the technical aspects articulated clearly.

I paid £45~ for this book. Not happy with the quality of the print paper. Its made from cheap paper material and will not stand upright if it needs to. Im going to get a refund on it.. its put me off buying any paperback books from amazon.