Power BI Interview Questions (Most Asked in Interviews 2024)

Power BI Interview Questions

Are you keen to learn business intelligence tools? Do you see yourself as a business analyst in your career? If you are or want to become a business analyst, today's tutorial is meant for you. Do you know that Microsoft Power BI is one of the top business intelligence platforms available today? As businesses highly depend on data-driven decision-making, the demand for proper data visualization and analytic tools emerges. In this scenario, Power BI has given fruitful results. Hence, it's in high demand.

This tutorial will discuss the highly relevant Power BI interview questions and answers. Our interview experts have collected these questions from various sources, so they'll at least help you get a direction for your interview preparation.

Power BI Interview Questions & Answers for Freshers

1. Describe Power BI's main components.

The following are some of the main components of Power BI:

1. Power Query:It's a data extraction, preparation, and transformation engine within Power BI.
2. Power Pivot: It is a data modeling and analysis tool within Power BI.
3. Power View: It is a data visualization component in Power BI.
4. Power Map: It is a 3D data visualization tool for visual analysis of patterns, trends, and correlations across locations.
5. Power BI Desktop:It lets you create interactive data visualizations and reports.
6. Power Q&A: This allows you to create visuals using Power BI’s natural language processing engine to interpret your question and get an answer from your data.
7. Power BI Website: It serves as the cloud-based hub for sharing, publishing, and collaborating on Power BI content.
8. Power BI Mobile Apps: All the reports and dashboards are available in the Power BI mobile apps, whether they're on-premises or in the cloud.
9. Power BI Service:It's a cloud-based platform for sharing and collaborating on reports and dashboards.
10. Power BI Gateway:It connects Power BI cloud-based data analysis technology and the data source on-premises.

2. What are the types of filters in Power BI?

Power BI has three types of filters:

1. Visual-level filters: Applied to only individual visualizations on a report page. Hence it affects only the data presented in that particular chart or graph.
2. Page-level filters: Applied to all visualizations on any particular report page. To add this filter, no visual must be selected on the canvas.
3. Report-level filters: Applied to all visualizations across all the pages in the report.

3. What connectivity modes can you access in Power BI?

There are three critical connectivity modes in Power BI. They are:

1. Direct Query: It fetches data directly from the source each time a user interacts with the report.It can be used only when you choose to connect to specific data sources and stores metadata exclusively
2. Live Connection: It is supported by specific data sources like SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Analysis Services, and Power BI Datasets. It will not store data in Power BI. It will query the data source every time.
3. SQL Server Import: Import mode retrieves the data from the SQL Server database and stores it in the Power BI model. Here you can query the data more quickly, but it also requires more disk space on your machine.

4. Which type of data sources can you connect to Power BI?

You can connect databases like Access, Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Teradata, and PostgreSQL to Power BI.

5. Compare Power BI with other BI tools like TABLEAU and QLIKVIEW.

6. Describe the common workflow in Power BI.

1. Import the data to the Power BI Desktop, clean and manipulate it, and create a report.
2. After that, you have to publish the report to the Power BI Service and build dashboards.
3. Share the dashboards with your peer groups like colleagues, managers, or shareholders.
4. Interact with final dashboards and reports in Power BI Mobile apps to extract business insights.

7. Differentiate between Power BI and Excel.

8. What are the types of relationships in Power BI?

There are three types of relationships in Power BI:

1. One-to-one:Here both columns have unique values. A record in one table corresponds to a single record in another table.
2. One-to-many:Here, only one column has unique values. A record in one table corresponds to multiple records in another table.
3. Many-to-many: No columns on either side have unique values.Multiple records in one table correspond to multiple records in another table.

9. What is GetData?

GetData is a feature of Power BI that enables the user to import data from its source.

10. What is a dashboard?

Dashboards are also known as canvas. It contains visualisations. You canmonitor or track your business through the most important metrics in a single watch. The visualizations on a dashboard can come from one underlying semantic model or many and from one underlying report or many. A dashboard combines on-premises and cloud data, providing a consolidated data view. The end users of Power BI dashboards can access them from various devices (including mobile phones), interact with them to extract valuable business insights and grasp the big picture of the business or project (and the relationships between different parts of the whole).

11. List some data category types used in Power BI.

• Text referred to as a data string
• Boolean or logical, also called a true or false type.
• Number, with which users can carry out several functions, such as finding the average or a fraction of the data
• Date and time, used to extract data such as time, year, and month

12. What are the versions of Power BI? What are they?

Power BI has three main versions:

1. Power BI Desktop:It is a free application for individual data analysis and report creation.
2. Power BI Service: The cloud-based platform for sharing reports, collaborating with others, and managing access.
3. Power BI Mobile: Mobile apps for viewing reports and dashboards on the go.

There are also Pro and Premium versions within the Power BI Service.

13. What is DAX?

DAX is Data Analysis Expressions. It's a collection of functions, operators, and constants used in formulas to calculate and return values. In other words, it helps you create new info from data you already have. DAX supports various data types: whole and decimal numbers, Boolean, text, date, currency, and N/A.

14. What is the Power Pivot Data Model?

This model contains data writes, tables, sections, and table relations. These data tables help you to develop for holding data for a business substance.

15. What are the different types of visuals in Power BI?

Bar charts, line charts, pie charts, tables, maps, cards, etc.

16. What is an on-premise gateway?

The on-premise gateway acts as a bridge that helps you transfer the data, which is on-premise (not on the cloud) safely and securely.

17. What are content packs?

These are pre-built solutions built for popular services as a major part of the Power BI experience. They are a package of Power BI interrelated documents like dashboards, reports, and datasets stored as a group. In Power BI, there are two types of such packages:

1. service content packs from service providers like Google Analytics, Marketo, MailChimp, or Twilio that we can access by typing our account data.
2. organizational content packs created by the users of our company and shared with the entire organization or a selected group.

18. What is row security?

In Power BI, you can restrict the access to data of certain users. This is achieved through the row security option, which works specifically at the row level.

19. Is it possible to create multiple active relationships in Power BI?

No, we can’t set multiple active relationships in Power BI.

20. What is a measure table in Power BI?

A measure table is a table that contains calculated measures. It’s often used to organize and manage measures efficiently.

Power BI Interview Questions & Answers for Intermediate

21. List out the steps to create a simple report in Power BI Desktop.

• Connect to a data source
• Load the data into Power BI
• Shape and transform the data as needed.
• Create relationships between tables.
• Design the report layout - add titles, tables, charts, and filters.
• Develop any required DAX calculations.
• Add formatting, colors, and images as needed.
• Publish the report to the Power BI service to share.

22. Where is the data stored in Power BI?

The data in Power BI is stored in the form of either fact tables (quantitative, usually non-normalized data) or dimension tables (the attributes and dimensions related to the data in a fact table) in one of the two cloud repositories:

1. Microsoft Azure Blob Storage: contains the data uploaded by the users
2. Microsoft Azure SQL Database: contains all the metadata and the artifacts of the system

23. Explain the DAX functions.

Given below are some common DAX functions:

• SUM: It calculates the total of a numeric column.
• AVERAGE: It calculates the average of a numeric column.
• COUNT: It counts the number of rows in a table or the number of non-blank values in a column.
• MIN and MAX: They return the minimum and maximum values in a column.
• CALCULATE and CALCULATETABLE: They modify existing calculations or create new filtered tables.
• DATE and TIME: Work with dates and times for various manipulations.
• Logical functions: They perform logical operations like AND, OR, and IF.

24. What are the building blocks of Power BI?

• Visualization: It is a visual representation of the underlying data designed to provide business context and insights that would be difficult to discern from a raw table or text data. Power BI has bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, gradient-colored maps, bubble maps, etc.
• Datasets: A dataset is a collection of data fetched from different data sources, used to create visualizations and reports. Datasets can be Excel sheets, CSV files, Oracle or SQL server tables, etc.
• Reports: A report is a set of interrelated visualizations arranged together on one or more pages to showcase various business insights extracted from the same dataset. Some examples are product sales reports, marketing campaign reports, and sales by company branch reports.
• Dashboards: A dashboard is a combination of the most compelling visuals from the report on one page.
• Tiles: A tile is an individual visual in a rectangular block surrounded by other tiles in a report or a dashboard.

25. What is the M language in Power BI?

The M language, or M-Code, is a functional, case-sensitive programming language used in the Power Query Editor of Power BI to filter and combine the data through queries.

26. What are the most common techniques for data shaping?

• Adding indexes
• Applying a sort order
• Removing columns and rows

27. How will you embed Power BI reports into an application?

You can do this in the following ways:

• Use Power BI Embedded to integrate reports into your app using JavaScript or .NET SDK.
• Utilize Power BI Embedded Azure capacity for dedicated resource allocation.
• Call Power BI REST APIs from your app to retrieve data and definitions.
• Use Embed tokens to embed reports, changing tokens periodically securely.
• Implement Row Level Security to restrict data access.
• Handle licensing appropriately, either pay-per-user or Power BI Premium.

28. Explain the different stages in the working of Power BI.

There are three stages in Power BI working:

• Data Integration: Here, we establish a successful connection with the data source and integrate it to extract data for processing. After integration, the data is converted into a standard format and stored in a common area called the staging area.
• Data Processing: Here, the BI tool interprets the missing values and inaccurate data for processing in the data processing stage. After the data is transformed, it is stored in data warehouses.
• Data Presentation: This is the final stage where the BI tool analyzes the source data. It then presents the insights in the form of graphs and interactive dashboards.

29. What is z-order in Power BI?

Z-order is a design strategy used for arranging visuals over shapes. It can be defined as an implementation method that can be applied whenever reports have multiple elements.

30. Who uses Power BI?

• Project managers
• Business analysts
• Data analysts
• Data scientists
• IT specialists
• Data administrators
• Developers
• Report consumers

31. How will you create a map in Power Map?

1. Open an Excel workbook with relevant data.
2. Click Insert > Map.
3. Choose New Tour in Power Map.
4. Create a New Custom Map by adding a background picture (in .jpg, .bmp, or .png format).
5. Adjust X and Y coordinates.
6. Explore and visualize data on the 3D globe.

32. What is Bookmark?

Bookmarking in Power BI lets you capture the configured view of a report page at a specific time. This includes filtering and the state of the visual, which can use a shortcut to come back to the report that you can add as a bookmark.

33. What do you understand by self-service business intelligence (SSBI)?

SSBI is a set of approaches and tools that enable end users including those without any background in BI (e.g., sales or marketing teams, product developers, etc.) to access, manipulate, analyze, and visualize the data to make strategic, data-driven business decisions.

34. How to secure data in Power BI?

• Row Level Security can restrict data access at the row level based on filters.
• Object-level security can be defined via roles to limit access to reports.
• Enable Data Encryption at rest and in transit.
• Mask or anonymize sensitive data before sharing datasets.
• Incremental refresh can limit the exposure of full data to the service.
• Enable SSAS and Import mode to retain data on-premises.
• Restrict Power BI access to permitted users only.
• Utilize read-only sharing whenever possible.

35. What are the functions of the Power BI Query editor?

• Data imports to a new group
• An option for managing parameters
• The option to handle columns, rows, and groups
• Column renaming and value replacement options
• The option to execute R Queries
• The option to use DAX formulas to add custom columns

Advanced Power BI Interview Questions & Answers for Experienced

36. How do calculated columns differ from calculated tables in Power BI?

37. What is a slicer in Power BI?

A slicer is a visual that allows users to filter and slice data by selecting specific values.

Uses of slicers:

• Display commonly used or important filters on the report canvas for easier access.
• Make it easier to see the current filtered state without having to open a drop-down list.
• Filter by columns that are unneeded and hidden in the data tables.
• Create more focused reports by putting slicers next to important visuals.

38. How can you perform Dynamic filtering in Power BI?

The following is the step-by-step procedure to perform Dynamic Filtering in Power BI:

• Once all the data are set up, publish a detailed report to Power BI
• Publish it to the group workspace.
• Create a filter link
• Create a DAX-calculated column.
• Public overview report

39. Differentiate between slicers and filters in Power BI.

40. List the various refresh options and their functions.

Power BI offers different refresh options to update data in your reports:

• Scheduled refresh: Automatically refreshes data at specified intervals.
• Manual refresh: Allows users to trigger a data refresh manually.
• Incremental refresh: Updates only the portion of data that has changed since the last refresh, improving performance for large datasets.
• Push refresh: Enables external applications to trigger data refresh in Power BI Service.

41. Why use the selection pane in Power BI?

The Selection Pane in Power BI is a tool that helps users manage the visibility and layering of report elements on a page. It allows you to show or hide visuals and control their order on the canvas.

42. What is the embed code?

The embed code is used and produced when you want to provide a link and share it with other users. These links are available for publishing data on the Web and are provided by Power BI. They correspond to the Power BI report.

43. Explain the gateway execution flow in Power BI.

The flow of execution for the Power BI gateway is as follows:

• Gateway installed on a machine in the on-premises domain. During this installation, credentials are stored in local and Power BI services.
• Credentials entered for the data source in Power BI are encrypted and then stored in the cloud. Only the gateway can decrypt the credentials.
• Power BI service kicks off a dataset refresh; this happens through a Scheduler service in Power BI.
• Data Movement Service analyses the query and pushes it to the appropriate service bus instance.
• There is a queue of requests on the service bus. Gateway pulls the bus for pending requests.
• Gateway gets the query and executes it on the data source.
• After getting the result, the gateway pushes that back to Power BI.

44. What is grouping in Power BI?

Grouping in Power BI is a feature that allows you to combine data into groups or categories, making it easier to analyze and visualize data in your reports. Grouping in Power BI offers numerous benefits like:

• Enhanced organization: Grouping allows for better organization and categorization of data elements based on shared characteristics or attributes.
• Simplified analysis: With grouping, data can be aggregated and summarized within specific categories, making it easier to identify trends and patterns.
• Improved visualizations: By grouping related data, visualizations can provide a more comprehensive and coherent representation of the data.
• Streamlined reporting: Grouping enables the creation of summary reports that offer a high-level overview of the data, saving time and effort in generating detailed reports.

45. What is the only prerequisite for connecting to a database in Azure SQL Database?

The only prerequisite before connecting to a database is that the user needs to configure a firewall setting to allow remote connections.

46. What are paginated reports in Power BI?

Paginated reports are designed to be printed or shared. They're called paginated because they're formatted to fit well on a page. They display all the data in a table, even if the table spans multiple pages. You can control their report page layout exactly. Power BI Report Builder is the standalone tool for authoring paginated reports for the Power BI service.

You can view your paginated report in the Power BI service in a browser and in the Power BI mobile apps. From the Power BI service, you can export the report to several formats, such as HTML, MHTML, PDF, XML, CSV, TIFF, Word, and Excel.

47. What are the main criteria for a table to be utilized in Power Map?

• Geographic Properties: Tables must contain geographic properties (e.g., city names, zip codes, longitudes, latitudes).
• X and Y Coordinates: Data should have X and Y coordinates for mapping.
• Custom Maps: You can create custom maps by importing images (e.g., floor plans, transit route maps) and associating them with data.

48. What is query folding in Power BI?

Query folding is the ability of a Power Query query to generate a single query statement that retrieves and transforms source data.

49. Can a gateway contain both import and direct query connections?

Yes. However, it is good practice to use separate gateways for import and direct query connections. Direct query connections can place a lot of strain on the gateway-installed machine. Using separate gateways can also avoid delays or potential issues as you scale the number of reports and the number of users for those reports.

50. How can we define the relationships between two tables in a data model on the Power BI Desktop?

There are two approaches:

1. Manual: by using primary and foreign keys
2. Automatic: the relationships are identified automatically if the autodetect feature is switched on

Summary

The world today runs on data. Therefore, it becomes necessary to properly process unprocessed or raw data and extract useful information from it. Power BI is a cloud-based business intelligence and data visualization software with numerous advantages. If you desire to remain up-to-date with the latest trends, learn trending skills and technology.

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