Topic 5 of 6
Power BI: tools and workflow
Data modeling and visualization are at the heart of business intelligence. Power BI is Microsoft's platform for it, and today it's part of Microsoft Fabric. The exam asks what each Power BI tool does and what the typical flow is from data to a shared report.
Contents
Visualization and business intelligence
There are many tools to explore and summarize data visually: Excel charts or visualization widgets in Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks notebooks. But enterprise-scale business analytics usually needs an integrated solution that supports complex data modeling, interactive reporting, and secure sharing.
What is Power BI?
A suite of tools and services that forms a core workload of Microsoft Fabric, which data analysts use to build interactive visualizations for business users to consume.
Analysts use it to connect to data sources, build interactive reports and dashboards, and share insights across the organization. It's available as a standalone service and also built into Fabric.
The Power BI workflow
Import: In Power BI Desktop you import data from a wide range of sources.
Model: You combine and organize it in an analytical data model.
Build reports: You design reports with interactive visualizations.
Publish: Models and reports are published to the Power BI service, in the cloud.
Share and refresh: In the service you schedule data source refreshes and share with other users, including through dashboards and apps.
Consume: Users view reports, dashboards, and apps in a browser or the mobile app.
Desktop, service, and mobile app
| Tool | What it is | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Power BI Desktop | A Microsoft Windows application | Import, model, and build fully featured reports |
| Power BI service | A cloud service | Publish, share, schedule refreshes, build dashboards and apps; basic modeling and editing in the browser |
| Power BI mobile app | A phone app | Consume reports, dashboards, and apps |
Desktop vs. the service
You can do some modeling and report editing in the service from a browser, but with limited functionality compared to Power BI Desktop. In Fabric, web report editing has expanded so you can create and update reports without installing Desktop.
Reports, dashboards, and apps
Reports
Interactive visualizations of a model's data, built mainly in Desktop.
Dashboards
Defined in the service to combine related content in a single place.
Apps
Bundle related reports so users can consume them easily.
Power BI in Microsoft Fabric
Power BI is a core workload of Microsoft Fabric. Its content lives in shared workspaces alongside other engineering and analytics items, all backed by OneLake. No migration is needed: Power BI content and workspaces stay the same.
Workspaces
Shared environments where teams collaborate on reports and semantic models in a browser.
Semantic models
Define the measures, relationships, and hierarchies that reports are built on, and can be shared across multiple reports.
Direct Lake mode
Loads data from OneLake Delta tables directly into memory, without copying it into the model. A lightweight refresh, called framing, points the model at the latest data.
Web-based report editing
Create and update reports entirely in the browser, without installing Power BI Desktop.
Copilot and other AI features
Copilot in Power BI requires a workspace on a paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher), Power BI Premium (P1 or higher), or a Fabric Copilot capacity. It's available in Power BI Desktop and the service:
Summarize a report
A plain-language summary of what it shows
Create pages
Picks chart types based on the data and the prompt
Write DAX
Queries and measures from a description
Without a Copilot license
The custom smart narrative (the Narrative visual) automatically generates text describing what the data shows and updates as it changes. Its Copilot mode does require a Copilot license.
Exam scenarios
| Situation | Answer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Import data from several sources, model it, and build fully featured reports | Power BI Desktop | A Windows application for authoring. |
| Publish reports, schedule refreshes, and share them with the organization | Power BI service | A cloud service for publishing and collaboration. |
| View reports from a phone | Power BI mobile app | Consumption on mobile devices. |
| Bring several related reports together in one easy-to-consume place | Power BI dashboard or app | They group content for users. |
| Load OneLake Delta tables into memory without copying them into the model | Direct Lake mode | In-memory performance with lake scale. |
| Generate a natural language summary of what a report shows | Copilot in Power BI | Requires a suitable paid capacity. |
| Text that automatically describes the data without a Copilot license | Custom smart narrative | Available without Copilot. |
Common exam traps
❓ Is Power BI Desktop a cloud service?
No. It's a Windows application; the Power BI service is the one in the cloud.
❓ Where do you schedule data refreshes for a published report?
In the Power BI service.
❓ Does the Power BI service have the same modeling features as Desktop?
No. In the browser, modeling and editing are more limited than in Desktop.
❓ Does Direct Lake copy OneLake data into the semantic model?
No. It loads the Delta tables directly into memory without creating a copy in the model.
❓ Does Copilot in Power BI work in any workspace?
No. It requires a Fabric capacity of F2 or higher, Power BI Premium P1 or higher, or a Fabric Copilot capacity.
❓ Do you need to migrate Power BI content to use it in Fabric?
No. Content and workspaces stay the same.
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