Topics Covered
- How to load selected files in a folder.
- How to create your own data in power bi desktop.
- How to import data from ODBC sources.
How to Load Selected Files in a Folder
Here’s, are the steps for loading selected files below:
- Open a new power bi desktop file.
- Click the “Get Data” button on the home ribbon.
- Click on “File” and select “Folder” among the options generated and click connect.
- Locate the folder you want to connect in the dialog box generated and click “OK”.
- The time around, instead of clicking combine among the options generated, click “Load”. The path to the files in the folder will be listed in the fields column of the new power bi desktop file.
How to Create Your Own Data in Power BI Desktop
- Sometimes the data you need may not be available on a file. Power bi developers added a feature in one of its updates that catered for this need. This feature allows you to create your own data directly on power bi.
- Imagine you already loaded some datasets into power bi and you are about to start creating a report, in the process of creating your first visual, you realized that a necessary dataset is missing from the files loaded and the file containing the data is not on your system.
Creating Your Data on Power BI Desktop
Here’s, are the steps for creating data in power bi below:
- On the ribbon at the top of the screen, Click “Enter Data”. It is two buttons away from “Get Data”
- A dialog box called “Create Table” will be generated. In the dialog box, In the name of your dataset in the box below and fill in the details of your data in the rows and columns provided. If you need more rows, click on the asterisk “*” symbol at the end of the column and if you need more columns. Click on the asterisk “*” at the right side of the column provided.
- When you are done filling in the data, click “Load” at the bottom of the dialog box to import the dataset into the power bi desktop memory.
How to Import Data from SQL Server
- Start a fresh, create a new power bi file on your desktop application.
- Navigate your cursor to the home ribbon at the top of the window. On the ribbon, click the small triangle below the “Get Data” button.
- On the menu generated from the small triangle, click “SQL” server immediately, a dialog box for it will pop up.
- In the dialog box, there are two text boxes for the server and database. Type the address or name of your SQL server in the first box, the SQL server does not necessarily have to be personal, it may also belong to your company either of them is acceptable.
- In the second box, you may enter the name of the database you want to import. This is optional, but to make the process faster, ensure you have the knowledge of the name of the database.
- After filling the two boxes, click the “Import” below the boxes.
- Click “Connect” to start loading the data file. This will generate a load dialog box, which will show the progress of the file being imported.
- When the file is finished loading, the load dialog box will close and give way for the navigator dialog box. On the navigator dialog box, click the boxes of the tables you want to import from the database.
- Finally click “Load” at the bottom of the dialog box to import it directly to power bi or click “Edit” to send it to the query editor first. You know the drill.
- Now you have imported successfully data file from the SQL server database into your power bi desktop.
How to Load Data From ODBC Sources
- The reason why this particular relational database requires, its own separate instructions is that it requires you to install a special software before you can begin importing. The major difference is that in the “Get Data” dialog box instead of clicking SQL server, click oracle or whatever relational database you want to import from.
How to Load Data from ODBC Sources
- The reason why this relational database requires its own separate instruction is that it requires you to install a special software before you can begin importing. The software is called open database connectivity, the full meaning of the acronym ODBC.
- There are different ODBC drivers for different data sources. An ODBC driver written for particular data source is going to be slightly different from other sources and cannot be used for any other data source.
- If you have the data source that requires ODBC, Its best to download the driver to be able to carry out tutorial instructions. You can still follow along if you don’t wish to install any, but the best understanding comes from practice.
- Install the ODBC driver of your data source. If your data source requires ODBC drivers, it will have a download link on the website. Download the software based on the processor of your desktop, If your desktop runs on a 32-bit processor, make sure that is what you download and if it runs on a 64-bit processor, make sure you don’t download the version for 32-bit.
- After the installation, launch the ODBC Adminstrator app. Make sure you install this software too, if you don’t have it already.
- On the tab generated for the ODBC Administrator App you, Click on the system DSN button at the top.
- Click the Add button, Its located on the left side of the screen. This will generate a list of all the drivers installed on your system. The driver you installed in the first step appear on this list, and any other driver you have installed on your desktop.
- Select the driver for the data source you want on the list.
- After selecting the driver, click the finish button. The dialog box for the driver you picked will be generated. Generally, all ODBC drivers have the same interface with little minor changes to distinguish it from others, but the major features of the drivers are usually the same.
Here’s, are the steps for applying ODBC drivers below:
- On the ODBC drivers dialog box, generated, Click “Next”. The button will take you to the tab where you will configure your data source.
- On the next tab, fill in the name and description of your data source in the boxes provided. When you are done filling the boxes, Click “Next”.
- On the new page generated, type the IP address of the database you want to connect to. Click “Next” when you are done.
- On the next page, select the database you want to connect. From this point the pages that will be generated will be significantly different. Just follow the trend of the previous instructions and input the required information and click “Finish”, “Next”, Done or whatever final button your driver uses.
- When you are “Done” the driver for your data source will be installed in the ODBC adminstrator app. Click “OK” to exit the software.
- You are back to the power bi desktop. Open a new file in the application, you will need a fresh start.
- By now, you should know the drill, click the “Get Data” button, select other’s, choose ODBC in the list generated, and finally click connect to get started.
- In ODBC dialog box generated, there will be a menu box for the data source names, select the name that matches the driver you installed above.
- Click “OK” at the bottom of the box to select that data source.
- In the credentials dialog box generated, click the database option. Enter your username and password details in the appropriate box. The requirement of the third box is optional, ignore it if you don’t have the details.
- Click “Connect” to get to the next stage.
- In the navigator dialog box, generated, select the data files you want to import, then click “load” or “edit” to import the files to power bi desktop and query editor respectively.
Conclusion:
When we as a team running any sort of business in current challenging market so as a better business person we need to choose a best business intelligence tool that help us to shape out our business constraints and also figure out the problems that comes up after the intervention of humans so Power BI comes up with a different stance and through power bi we play with our raw data and explore it from every corner.
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