Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

1. Introduction to Business Intelligence and Power BI

1.5 The Typical Power BI Workflow

Almost every Power BI project follows the same basic steps. Remember this flow – interviewers love to ask about it.

  1. Connect to data sources (Home › Get data).
  2. Transform and clean the data in Power Query (remove errors, fix data types, reshape).
  3. Model the data: create relationships, a date table, hide unwanted columns.
  4. Calculate using DAX measures and, where needed, calculated columns.
  5. Visualise: design report pages with charts, tables, slicers and filters.
  6. Publish the report to a workspace in the Power BI Service.
  7. Share and distribute: apps, sharing links, dashboards, Teams, subscriptions.
  8. Refresh and maintain: schedule refresh (with a gateway for on-premises data), monitor usage, improve the report.

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

The most common workflow mistake is jumping straight into visuals with raw, uncleaned data. Follow the order: get data → clean in Power Query → model → measures → visuals → publish. Fixing data problems after twenty visuals are built costs far more time. Never forget this.