TOP POWER BI INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Top questions and answers:

1. What is Power BI? 

It stands for Power Business Intelligence. Power BI helps you create data-driven insights for your business. Its combination of various data visualization features enables businesses to create reports, integrate APIs, monitor progress, etc. In other words, it is a collection of software services and applications that are connected together for turning diverse sources of data into incoherent and visually immersive insights. It offers dynamic reporting and analyzing capabilities for different corporations.

2. What is the need for Power BI?

In a world like today, where everything is competitive, the simplified workaround of extracting data from various resources is possible through BI. It allows you for the following:

• Sharing presentations and queries with your colleagues

• Updating your excel file from on-site or on cloud data sources 

• Displaying the output on various devices like PCs, tablets etc.

• Processing of data with the help of natural language.

3. Why is Power BI considered an effective solution?

Since Power BI is a cloud-based business intelligence tool, it can analyze and visualize data in its raw form from a wide range of sources. Integrating data visualization and data analytics aids in decision-making for any organization. Here, the data is processed in a simplistic and easy manner to understand. It can also be accessed from different platforms and shared with all on cloud participants. This makes an effective solution for businesses.

4. What are the major components of Power BI?

There are many components in Power BI. Some are:

• Power BI applications for mobile: A component that is available for all the operating systems, including Windows, Android and iOS. This application comes with an interactive display of dashboards. It also allows the user to share it. 

• Power BI desktop: Power BI desktop is an integration tool for creating advanced queries, reports, data models, and dashboards. It also helps in the development of BI skills for data analysis.

• Power Query: One of the most important components of Power BI, Power Query helps transform data by extracting it from various sources. It also deletes the data.

• Power Pivot: This is used for data modelling with reference to DAX (Data Analysis Expression). It also helps in creating relationships between different tables. 

• Power View: It is used for providing an intuitive display of data. It also helps in retrieving data for analyzing it. Slicers and filters are used here.

• Power Map: It is a component that presents a geo-spatial visualization of data in 3D. The data can be highlighted on the basis of location etc.

• Power Q/A: It is helpful in answering the questions asked by users. 

To gain complete knowledge about Power BI Components & Features Power BI Training helps to a great extent .

5. What are the different modes of connectivity in Power BI?

• Import mode: It is the default mode in Power BI. It is the most frequently used and is capable of delivering fast performance. It works by integrating the data from a visible data source and then storing it in the disk. Even at the time of querying or refreshing, it is fully loaded. 

• Direct query mode: It is another method used to import data and retrieve it from a pre-existing source. It is helpful when the data is too large to handle. Users are suggested to avoid refreshing data as it might take a long time.

• Composite mode: A combination of both Import and Direct query mode is the composite mode. Calculated tables are supported in this mode. It puts the best foot forward of both the modes.

6. What are the different versions of Power BI?

• Microsoft Power BI free: It is a version that can be used by anyone who wants to see their business insights with the help of data visualization.

• Microsoft Power BI Pro: It is a version that is complete in itself. This enables the user for unlimited viewing, reporting and sharing of reports which Power BI Desktop does not support.

• Microsoft Power BI premium: It is a version that comes with a premium licence. It provides the users of an organization with a dedicated unit of capacity. 

7. What are content packs in Power BI?

Power BI services constitute content packs that are pre-built solutions for businesses. For example, whenever a subscriber wants to access it, they can connect to their Power BI account quickly and can see the data through live dashboards and interactive reports that have been especially pre-build for them. Organizational content packs come with tools to build their own customized packs and share purpose-built dashboards and reports for BI professionals within the organization.

8. What are the building blocks of Power BI?

• Dashboards: It is a single layer presentation. The users can integrate more than one visualization into a layer of one page.

• Datasets: It is a collection of data. Power BI uses it to create the visualization.

• Reports: It is a collection of visualizations. It appears together on more than one page.

• Tiles: It is a single visualization present in a report on a dashboard.

• Visualizations: A visual representation of data. 

9. What are the available views in Power BI?

Data View: Data View is a type of view that shows the transformed data. It is presented in a table format with columns and rows. This also allows the user to create new calculated columns for giving detailed insights.

Model View: Model View, also known as Relationship View, is a type of view that helps the user create relationships between different data models. All models that are created in the data can be seen in this view, and the user can also compare or create diagrams based on it.

Report View: It is a type of view that is in default by nature. It helps the user in visualizing data in reports. They can create multiple pages in the report here with the help of a wide variety and range of templates.

10. What are the types of visualizations available in Power BI?

• Area Charts (Basic and Stacked): It is based on the line chart or area under that line. It is used for depicting the magnitude of change over time.

• Bar and column charts: A standard visualization used for looking at a specific value across different categories.

• Card: It shows the aggregate values of a particular data point.

• Doughnut or Pie charts: They are used to show any information in parts or whole. The difference between both of them is that doughnut charts have a hollow in the centre, but pie charts do not.

• Matrix: A type of table with a relatively easier display used to show aggregated data.

• Maps: It is used for showing quantitative data in spatial locations across different categories.

• Slicers: It is used for filtering visuals on a page.

There are many more visuals like Funnel charts, Ribbon charts, Gauge charts, KPIs, Decomposition Trees etc.

11. What are the differences between Power BI and Tableau?

Power BI and Tableau are both business intelligence tools. They are used for generating reports and visualizing data. However, there are some factors that differentiate both of them.

• Data source: Power BI doesn't come with as much as data sources as Tableau.

• Data capacity: Users can fetch billions of rows and columns in Tableau because of being based on a column-based structure that stores unique values. Both of them can handle 10 GB of data, but Power BI stores it in the cloud.

• Performance: Since Tableau is capable of handling big data, it doesn't take time out in the middle of processing it while Power BI does.

• Pricing: Tableau asks for more fees, while Power BI is a cheaper solution when connecting with third-party applications.

12. What are the advantages of Power BI?

Following are some benefits of using Power BI:

• Users can access cutting-edge intelligence technology and use powerful trend algorithms to make their business growth secure and easy.

• Users also get access to personalized and customized dashboards that are easy to comprehend and use.

• Users can also perform queries on reports using DAX.

• Power BI helps in the input of a large quantity of data and information.

• The information can be visualized with the help of visualizing and using dynamic templates.

13. What are the limitations of Power BI?

There are also some drawbacks that come with Power BI:

• Limited data source: Users can only connect to live or real-time data sets with the help of Power BI. But there are only a few data sources that allow a real-time connection.

• Limited data sharing: The Power BI reports can be shared with only those users who have the same domain or have their accounts in the Office 365

• Big amounts of data: Power BI sometimes becomes incapable of handling a large supply of data. It also might time out while processing a lot of data. It comes with the restriction of not processing more than 1 GB of data on the cloud.

• Complex in nature: Working with Power BI can get complex at times. In order to use it properly, one needs complete knowledge of it.

14. Who can use Power BI?

• Report Consumers: People who consume reports for getting specific information.

• Report Analyst: People who analyze data present in the reports.

• Basic Data Analyst: People who can build their own data sets and are pretty experienced in Power BI.

• Advanced-Data Analyst: People who know how to write Queries on SQL and are a pro when it comes to using Power BI. They are also well-versed with DAX training and data modelling.

• Self Service Data Analyst: People who have an in-depth understanding of what data to work with using Power BI and how.

15. Can Power BI be used on-premises?

Power BI is not available for usage on-premises, i.e., it cannot be accessed as a private or internal cloud service. However, with the help of Power BI and Power BI Desktop, one can connect to your own premises' sources of data securely. This is possible with the help of Data Getaway. A live connection can be established to your on-premises SQL Server Analysis Services. You can also refresh data sources using Power BI Gateway- Personal.

16. Name different BI add-ins in Excel:

• Power View: It helps the user in designing reports that are visually interactive

• Power Query: It helps the user in finding, editing and loading external data.

• Power Pivot: It helps the user in data modelling and data analysis

• Power Map: It helps the user in displaying insights on a 3-dimensional Map.

17. How can Power BI leverage the Excel experience?

Following are some ways:

• The Power BI publisher can be used for pinning excel items like charts, ranges etc. to the Power BI Service

• It can also be used to connect reports that are stored in Power BI Service.

• Excel workbooks can also be uploaded to Power BI

• Excel workbooks can be viewed in the browser

• Excel reports can be shared via content packs just like any other report.

• Excel workbooks can be exported as a service for Power BI report creation.

Check out for advanced Power BI Interview Questions to crack the interview easily.

Conclusion:

With the rapid technological advancement in today's digital age, everything is dependent on data. Storing, securing, managing and summing up the data is an extremely tedious task. People who are equipped with advanced tools and tricks in helping organizations in this are required. Learning Power BI can be great for your career with immense scope in the industry and handsome packages. Prepare well before the interview, and you are all set to go.

Author Bio

Sai Priya Ravuri is a Digital Marketer, and a passionate writer, who is working with MindMajix, a top global online training provider. She also holds in-depth knowledge of IT and demanding technologies such as Business Intelligence, Machine Learning, Salesforce, Cybersecurity, Software Testing, QA, Data analytics, Project Management and ERP tools, etc.