R in Power BI
- 1. R in Power BI
- 2. Eric Bragas, Jr. DesignMind BI Consultant Trainer for Power BI, Master Data Management, other BI topics ◦ SQL Saturday ◦ Power BI Dashboard In A Day ◦ In-depth MDM Passionate about learning, design, and data
- 3. Agenda What is R in Power BI? When to use R in Power BI? How to use R in Power BI? ◦ Setup ◦ Data Source ◦ Script Visual ◦ Transformation R-powered Custom Visuals Other ◦ External IDEs ◦ Supported Packages in PBI Service
- 4. What is R? “R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics” Capabilities include ◦ Statistical Analysis ◦ Modeling and ◦ Data Visualization Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)
- 5. What is Power BI? Microsoft’s Self-Service BI application Capabilities include ◦ Connecting to a variety of data sources ◦ Data transformation through PowerQuery ◦ Data modeling ◦ Data Analysis via DAX Power BI: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/
- 6. What is R in Power BI An intersection of two tools Power BI provides multiple touch points for R ◦ Allows R scripts as data sources ◦ Data transformations as part of Power Query steps ◦ R visualizations ◦ R-powered custom visualizations Unlimited R script options when working locally Limited support for reports published to Power BI Service Does not include/require Microsoft R Server
- 7. When to use R in Power BI No dedicated modeling capability (read: small R implementations) Robust visualizations; beyond what Power BI can provide ◦ Augment Power BI, don’t try to replace it Data manipulation beyond DAX capabilities Integrating R modeling capabilities into PowerQuery
- 8. How to Use R in PBI
- 9. Setup Install R - https://cran.r-project.org/ (optional) Install R IDE ◦ R Studio ◦ R Tools for Visual Studio (RTVS) Install R Packages Power BI settings ◦ Options > R Scripting
- 10. R Script Data Source Reference all dependent packages Only data frames are imported (not vectors) ◦ All data frames available in navigator NA is translated to NULL 30 minute time out What other use cases do you have?
- 11. DEMO
- 12. R Script Visualization Augment Power BI visualizations using R ◦ base ◦ ggplot2 ◦ ggmap ◦ etc. Rendered to default R device ◦ Interactive and animated visuals not supported
- 13. DEMO
- 14. R Script Transformation Allow you to manipulate data via Query Editor steps Can be used to ◦ clean data ◦ generate additional values ie. model results ◦ run any R script ie. write.csv() Executes as part of the query, so only when the data set is refreshed
- 15. DEMO
- 16. Other Resources External IDEs ◦ R Studio ◦ R Tools for Visual Studio Supported Packages in the Power BI Service ◦ List of supported packages ◦ Request additional packages Additional Resources ◦ Download R from CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) or MRAN (Microsoft R Application Network) ◦ Power BI visuals in R ◦ Additional visualizations