How to Start Power BI

Updated on:

May 12, 2026

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Use this interactive demo to learn how to create and publish your first Power BI report from scratch.

Quick summary

Power BI Desktop lets you connect to a data source, build interactive visualizations, and publish reports to the Power BI Service for sharing. This step-by-step walkthrough covers everything from opening a blank report to clicking Publish for the first time.

Steps

Launch Power BI Desktop and click 'Blank report' to start a new project.
On the home screen, locate and click 'Get Data' to begin importing your data.
Choose a data source from the available options for your report.
Select the table you need and click 'Load' to import it.
Once Power BI loads the data into a data model, open the Visualizations pane and select a visualization type.
Drag fields onto the canvas to populate your chosen visualization.
Click the save icon to save your report locally.
When ready, click 'Publish' to send your report to the Power BI Service for sharing.

📌 Why this matters

Power BI is Microsoft's leading business intelligence platform, enabling users to transform raw data into interactive dashboards and shareable reports without advanced technical skills. Getting started correctly — from connecting a data source to publishing a finished report — is the critical first step that determines how quickly teams can derive actionable insights. This demo matters because it removes the guesswork from the initial setup, showing new users exactly how to load data, choose visualizations, and publish to the Power BI Service in one seamless workflow. Mastering these fundamentals accelerates data-driven decision-making across every department.

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