The model is a critical component in the data lifecycle.

Without a model, the end

user cannot produce reports or conduct analyses for an organization. A properly
designed model is the key to delivering accurate and trusted results, especially as
more organizations begin to work with large datasets.

Anytime you experience performance issues using Power BI, start by evaluating
your model. Examples that may show performance as an issue include report
refresh rates taking a bit longer than they should, data loading and preparation
lagging, or data rendering from an often-accessed dataset that’s taking a tad too
long to query.

Visualize
Visualizing data helps organizations better understand business problems in ways
that plain text can’t convey. Picture the thickness of this book as a single set of
data for a report. Do you think it’s easy for a person to summarize the contents of
this book after reading it for two minutes? How much effort would it take to dis-
cretely come up with five or six key data points? (My sense is that it would take a
superhuman effort.) The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” surely
applies here. That’s why visualization can make data come alive. Visualizations
tell compelling stories, enabling business decision-makers to gain needed insights
reasonably quickly.

A good BI solution such as Power BI incorporates many visualization options that

make report outputs easier for decision-makers to understand. The visualizations
generally aggregate the data to guide the professional through the dataset quickly.
Reports built on these visualizations can be crucial aids when it comes to driving
decision-making actions and behaviors in an organization. Given that many orga-
nizations don’t even look at the structured dataset, never mind the raw data that
the business or data analyst spends so much time evaluating as part of the prep-
aration and data modeling stage, you need to make sure that your visualizations
supply accurate messaging.

Not all visualizations are proper for a dataset. For example, a treemap requires at
least three variables to be a workable visual output. On the other hand, pie charts
and bar charts are quite content to settle for just two variables. Given that fact, it
pays to take the time to fully understand the business problem you’re trying to
solve, to see whether all data points are necessary. Too much data may make it
more difficult to detect key patterns.

Power BI has built-in AI capabilities that guide the best-fit visualization for
reporting without requiring code. Consider using the Questions and Answers fea-
ture, trying out the various visualization options, or using Quick Insights to map
your data model with the best-fit solution in Power BI.

CHAPTER 2 The Who, How, and What of Power BI 29