10 Best Microsoft Power BI Books to Read in [2024]

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We have compiled this list of 10 Best Microsoft Power BI Books. These resources will help you excel at Power BI, and they are suitable for beginners, intermediate learners as well as experts. Many professionals have already benefited from this compilation, hope you do too!

Power BI is a powerful self-service (and enterprise) Business Intelligence (BI) tool. Power BI is a complete BI package that covers the end to end BI process including data acquisition (get data), data modelling (prepare/model the data) and data visualisation (analyse the data).

Best Microsoft Power BI Books You Should Read

 

1. Beginning Power BI

This book is suitable for Business analysts, database administrators, developers, and other professionals looking to better understand and communicate with data.

Author Dan Clark takes you through each topic using step-by-step activities and plenty of screen shots to help familiarize you with the tools. This second edition includes new material on advanced uses of Power Query, along with the latest user guidance on the evolving Power BI platform. Beginning Power BI is your hands-on guide to quick, reliable, and valuable data insight.

After finishing this book you would be able to analyze your company’s data quickly and easily using Microsoft’s latest tools. You will learn to build scalable and robust data models to work from, clean and combine different data sources effectively, and create compelling visualizations and share them with your colleagues.

What You’ll Learn

  • Simplify data discovery, association, and cleansing
  • Create robust interactive data presentations
  • Combine analytical and geographic data in map-based visualizations
  • Build solid analytical data models
  • Publish and share dashboards and reports

 

2. Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide is ideal for aspiring business intelligence professionals who want to get up and running with Microsoft Power BI will find this book useful. If you have a basic understanding of BI concepts and want to learn how to apply them using Microsoft Power BI, this book is for you.

This book will help you get started with business intelligence using the Power BI toolset, covering essential concepts such as installation, designing effective data models, as well as building basic dashboards and visualizations to help you make better business decisions.

You’ll learn how to obtain data from a variety of sources and clean it using Power BI Query Editor. You’ll then understand how you can design your data model to navigate and explore relationships within it, and build DAX formulas to make your data easier to work with.

Visualizing your data is a key element in this book, and you’ll get to grips with data visualization styles and enhanced digital storytelling techniques. This guide will help you understand how to administer your organization’s Power BI environment so deployment can be made seamless, data refreshes can run properly, and security can be fully implemented.

By the end of this book, you’ll have a better understanding of how to get the most out of Power BI to perform effective business intelligence.

 

3. Supercharge Power BI

There are 3 learning areas required to master everything Power BI Desktop has to offer. (1) The M Language – used for data acquisition. (2) The DAX Language – used to prepare and model data. (3) Visualisation and analysis – used to present data in a compelling way. Power BI is probably the first commercial grade software product that brings all of these areas into a single software package that is completely accessible to a business user (you don’t need to be an IT pro).

This book focuses on number 2 above, the DAX language (Data Analysis Expressions). The book first presents the theory, then provides worked through sample exercises demonstrating each of the concepts, and finally it provides the reader with practice exercises and answers to maximize learning retention.

Super Charge Power BI is written in such a way to clearly explain the concepts of Power BI data modelling while at the same time giving hands-on practice to deeply engage the reader to help the new knowledge and concepts stick.

Also Check: Best Books to Learn Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)

 

4. Mastering Microsoft Power BI

best books to Mastering Microsoft Power BIMastering Microsoft Power BI is intended for business intelligence professionals responsible for the design and development of Power BI content as well as managers, architects and administrators who oversee Power BI projects and deployments.

The chapters flow from the planning of a Power BI project through the development and distribution of content to the administration of Power BI for an organization.

BI developers will learn how to create sustainable and impactful Power BI datasets, reports, and dashboards. This includes connecting to data sources, shaping and enhancing source data, and developing an analytical data model. Additionally, top report and dashboard design practices are described using features such as Bookmarks and the Power KPI visual.

BI managers will learn how Power BI’s tools work together such as with the On-premises data gateway and how content can be staged and securely distributed via Apps. Additionally, both the Power BI Report Server and Power BI Premium are reviewed.

By the end of this book, you will be confident in creating effective charts, tables, reports or dashboards for any kind of data using the tools and techniques in Microsoft PowerBI.

 

5. Microsoft Power BI Cookbook

This book will provide thorough, technical examples of using all primary Power BI tools and features as well as demonstrate high impact end-to-end solutions that leverage and integrate these technologies and services. Get familiar with Power BI development tools and services, go deep into the data connectivity and transformation, modeling, visualization and analytical capabilities of Power BI, and see Power BI’s functional programming languages of DAX and M come alive to deliver powerful solutions to address common, challenging scenarios in business intelligence.

This book will excite and empower you to get more out of Power BI via detailed recipes, advanced design and development tips, and guidance on enhancing existing Power BI projects.

What You’ll Learn

  • Cleanse, stage, and integrate your data sources with Power BI
  • Abstract data complexities and provide users with intuitive, self-service BI capabilities
  • Build business logic and analysis into your solutions via the DAX programming language and dynamic, dashboard-ready calculations
  • Take advantage of the analytics and predictive capabilities of Power BI
  • Integrate other Microsoft data tools such as Excel and SQL Server Reporting Services into your Power BI solution
  • Make your solutions more dynamic and user specific and/or defined including use cases of parameters, functions, and row level security
  • Understand the differences and implications of DirectQuery, Live Connections, and Import-Mode Power BI datasets and how to deploy content to the Power BI Service and schedule refreshes

 

6. Applied Microsoft Power BI

Written by a Microsoft MVP, this insightful guide introduces Microsoft Power BI – a cloud-hosted, business intelligence and analytics platform that democratizes and opens BI to everyone.

Ideal for both experienced BI practitioners or beginners, this book doesn’t assume any prior data analytics experience. It’s designed as an easy-to-follow guide that introduces new concepts with step-by-step instructions and hands-on demos.

Data analysts will discover how to integrate and transform data from virtually everywhere and then implement sophisticated self-service models. The book teaches BI and IT pros how to establish a trustworthy environment that promotes collaboration and how to implement Power BI-centric solutions for descriptive, real-time, and predictive analytics.

Developers will find how to integrate custom applications with Power BI, embed reports, and implement custom visuals to present effectively any data.

Information workers will learn how to connect to popular cloud services to derive instant insights, create interactive reports and dashboards, and view them in the browser and on the go.

 

7. Collect, Combine, and Transform Data Using Power Query in Excel and Power BI

Microsoft Power BI Best BooksUsing Power Query, you can import, reshape, and cleanse any data from a simple interface, so you can mine that data for all of its hidden insights. Power Query is embedded in Excel, Power BI, and other Microsoft products, and leading Power Query expert Gil Raviv will help you make the most of it.

You will discover how to eliminate time-consuming manual data preparation, solve common problems, avoid pitfalls, and more. Then, walk through several complete analytics challenges, and integrate all your skills in a realistic chapter-length final project. By the time you’re finished, you’ll be ready to wrangle any data–and transform it into actionable knowledge.

This textbook is for all information workers, analysts, and any Excel user who wants to solve their own business intelligence problems.

 

8. Pro Power BI Desktop

Deliver eye-catching Business Intelligence with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. This book cover all the latest features, including combo charts, Cartesian charts, trend lines, use of gauges, and more. Also covered are Top-N features, the ability to bin data into groupings and chart the groupings, and new techniques for detecting and handling outlier data points.

Pro Power BI Desktop shows you how to choose from a wide range of built-in and third-party visualization types so that your message is always enhanced. You’ll be able to deliver those results on the PC, tablets, and smartphones, as well as share results via the cloud. This book helps you save time by preparing the underlying data correctly without needing an IT department to prepare it for you.

What You’ll Learn

  • Deliver attention-grabbing information, turning data into insight
  • Create dashboards that help in monitoring key performance indicators of your business
  • Deliver visually stunning and interactive charts, maps, and tables
  • Find new insights as you chop and tweak your data as never before
  • Adapt delivery to mobile devices such as phones and tablets
  • Mash up data from multiple sources into a cleansed and coherent data model
  • Build interdependent charts, maps, and tables to deliver visually stunning information
  • Share business intelligence in the cloud without involving IT

 

9. Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel

Books to learn microsoft power BI and PivotThis book teach you how to design data models for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

How can you use Excel and Power BI to gain real insights into your information? As you examine your data, how do you write a formula that provides the numbers you need?

The answers to both of these questions lie with the data model. This book introduces the basic techniques for shaping data models in Excel and Power BI. It’s meant for readers who are new to data modeling as well as for experienced data modelers looking for tips from the experts. If you want to use Power BI or Excel to analyze data, the many real-world examples in this book will help you look at your reports in a different way—like experienced data modelers do.

What You’ll Learn

  • Gain an understanding of the basics of data modeling, including tables, relationships, and keys
  • Familiarize yourself with star schemas, snowflakes, and common modeling techniques
  • Learn the importance of granularity
  • Track historical attributes, like previous addresses of customers or manager assignments
  • Analyze events that have durations, including overlapping durations
  • Discover how to use multiple fact tables, like sales and purchases, in a complex data model
  • Manage calendar-related calculations by using date tables
  • Learn what data model you need to answer your specific business questions
  • Use snapshots to compute quantity on hand
  • Work with multiple currencies in the most efficient way

 

10. Power BI – Business Intelligence Clinic

best Power Business Intelligence books for beginnersIf you want to learn Business Intelligence software, if you are looking for specific BI tool, or if you are trying to decide on your next new BI solution, you will love Business Intelligence Clinic.

The BI Clinic series is suitable for everyone – managers, analysts, students… – It will help you compare different Business Intelligence tools, learn the basics, and select the best for your project, company, customers, or personal needs.

In Power BI – Business Intelligence Clinic you will you go through important topics of Microsoft Power BI Desktop – a Free BI tool from Microsoft. You will learn how to install Power BI Desktop, get data, model your data, work with visuals and reports, create a sales dashboard, and share your work with others.

Author will not go into deep theories as the purpose of this book and all Create and Learn material is to make the most of your time and to learn by doing. You will follow step-by-step instructions to create a professional sales dashboard, and eight warm-up dashboards to help you rapidly increase your Power BI knowledge.

I hope this book will help you to start your journey in the Business Intelligence world and give you the right tools to start building professional reports and dashboards using Microsoft Power BI.