Power BI Interview Questions and Answers – Power BI Guide

Table of Contents

1. What is Power BI?
2. Main Components of Power BI
3. Versions of Power BI
4. Data Sources Supported
5. Types of Visuals
6. Power BI Desktop vs. Power BI Service
7. Power BI Report Server
8. Power Query
9. Power Pivot
10. Power BI Gateway
11. Power View
12. Power Map
13. Power BI Mobile
14. Power BI Dataset
15. Advantages of Power BI
16. SQL Server Connection
17. DirectQuery vs Import Mode
18. Excel Connection
19. Cloud-based Data Source Connection
20. Data Refresh Methods
21. Personal vs Enterprise Gateway
22. Handling Large Datasets
23. Live Streaming Data
24. File Format Support
25. Common Data Service (CDS)
26. Data Cleaning
27. M vs DAX
28. Removing Duplicates
29. Merge Queries
30. Splitting Columns
31. Relationships in Power BI
32. Types of Relationships
33. Star Schema
34. Snowflake Schema
35. Calculated Columns
36. Measures
37. Calculated Columns vs Measures
38. Conditional Columns
39. Handling Missing Values
40. Slicers and Filters
41. DAX Overview
42. Common DAX Functions
43. SUM() vs SUMX()
44. CALCULATE() vs FILTER()
45. ALL() vs ALLEXCEPT()
46. Running Totals
47. Column Differences
48. EARLIER() vs EARLIEST()
49. Time Intelligence Functions
50. RELATED() Function
51. Calculated Tables
52. DISTINCT() vs VALUES()
53. Dynamic Ranking
54. VAR in DAX
55. SWITCH() in DAX
56. Types of Charts
57. Table vs Matrix
58. Custom Visuals
59. KPI Visuals
60. Drill-Through Reports
61. Hierarchies
62. Tooltips
63. Waterfall Chart
64. Decomposition Tree
65. Forecasting
66. Sync Slicer
67. Scatter Plot
68. Conditional Formatting
69. ArcGIS Maps
70. Ribbon Charts
71. Publish to Power BI Service
72. Power BI Workspaces
73. Power BI Apps
74. Sharing Reports
75. Row-Level Security
76. Creating Dashboards
77. Dataflows
78. Scheduled Data Refresh
79. Power Automate Integration
80. Paginated Reports
81. Embedding in Websites
82. Enabling Q&A
83. Bookmarks
84. Deployment Pipelines
85. Collaboration Features
86. Report Performance
87. Optimizing DAX
88. Lazy Loading
89. File Size Reduction
90. Aggregations
91. Visual Load Performance
92. Composite Models
93. Query Folding
94. Import vs DirectQuery Performance
95. Handling Large Datasets
96. SQL Server Integration
97. Python Integration
98. AI Insights
99. R Integration
100. Power BI vs Tableau

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Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

What is Power BI?

 

Power BI is a powerful business analytics tool developed by Microsoft. It enables organizations to visualize their data and share insights across the organization or embed them in an app or website. Power BI provides cloud-based services for interactive visualizations with a simple interface for end users to create their own reports and dashboards.

Power BI helps users turn unrelated data sources into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. It connects to a broad range of data sources and brings data to life through dynamic dashboards and insightful reports.

Key Features of Power BI

Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

Power BI provides a variety of features that make it one of the most widely used business intelligence tools:

• Interactive Visualizations: Includes charts, graphs, KPIs, maps, and custom visuals.
• Real-Time Dashboards: Monitor data live from streaming sources.
• Data Modeling: Establish relationships and create calculations using DAX.
• Data Transformation: Use Power Query to clean, transform, and load data.
• Collaboration: Share reports via the Power BI Service and collaborate using workspaces.
• Mobile Support: View and interact with dashboards on iOS, Android, and Windows devices.

Components of Power BI

Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

1. Power BI Desktop: Desktop application for data transformation, modeling, and report creation.
2. Power BI Service (PowerBI.com): Cloud platform for sharing and publishing reports.
3. Power BI Mobile: App for consuming reports on mobile devices.
4. Power BI Gateway: Bridges on-premises data with the cloud for scheduled refreshes.
5. Power BI Report Server: On-premises solution for hosting reports within corporate firewalls.
6. Power BI Embedded: Used to embed Power BI reports into web applications for external users.

Common Use Cases

• Sales Dashboards: Analyze revenue trends, product performance, and regional sales.
• Financial Reporting: Build income statements, balance sheets, and budget tracking dashboards.
• Marketing Analytics: Track campaign performance, web traffic, and customer engagement.
• Operations Monitoring: Monitor production metrics, supply chain data, and KPIs.

Supported Data Sources

Power BI supports a vast array of data sources, such as:

• Files: Excel, CSV, XML, JSON, PDF
• Databases: SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Snowflake
• Cloud Services: Azure SQL, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift
• Online Services: SharePoint, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Dynamics 365
• Others: Web pages, APIs, OData feeds, and streaming datasets

What Makes Power BI Interview-Relevant?

Interviewers often expect familiarity with:

Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

• Power Query and M language
• DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)
• Data modeling concepts like Star and Snowflake schemas
• Difference between DirectQuery and Import modes
• Publishing, sharing, and securing reports
• Performance optimization techniques

Understanding these concepts not only helps in interviews but also in real-world Power BI project execution. Interviewers may also test knowledge of Power BI Gateway configurations, row-level security (RLS), and usage of Power BI Service features such as dashboards, apps, and deployment pipelines.

Advantages of Using Power BI

• Cost-effective: Power BI has a free tier and competitively priced Pro and Premium versions.
• Scalability: Suitable for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises.
• Microsoft Ecosystem: Integrates seamlessly with Excel, Azure, SQL Server, and Teams.
• Strong Community Support: Huge ecosystem of users, forums, and learning resources.
• AI Capabilities: Features like Quick Insights, natural language Q&A, and integration with Azure Machine Learning.

Real-World Application Example

Imagine a retail business with stores in multiple cities. Using Power BI, they can:

• Consolidate daily sales data from all stores
• Analyze which stores and products are performing best
• Set up alerts when sales drop below a certain threshold
• Predict future trends using forecasting tools
• Share interactive dashboards with store managers via the Power BI app

Preparing for Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

To ace interviews, be prepared to:

• Demonstrate how to clean and model data using Power Query and DAX.
• Explain visual choices and how they support business decision-making.
• Compare Import vs. DirectQuery modes and discuss performance trade-offs.
• Solve basic DAX problems and write calculated measures.
• Discuss experience with scheduling refreshes, using gateways, and deploying reports.

If you’re applying for a developer or analyst role, you may also need to discuss embedding reports in web applications, using REST APIs, or integrating with Power Automate for workflows.

Final Thoughts

Power BI is more than just a visualization tool—it’s a full-stack business intelligence platform. Whether you’re building dashboards, automating data workflows, or creating predictive analytics models, Power BI provides all the tools you need.

This guide provides a strong foundation to prepare for any Power BI interview or to start building impactful dashboards in your organization.

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I hope this guide helps you crack your Power BI interviews and accelerate your data analytics journey.
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Power BI Interview Questions and Answers

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