How to Use Power BI Web Version

You can create powerful, interactive reports and dashboards directly in your web browser using Microsoft's Power BI service. There's no need to install bulky desktop software to get started with data analysis. This tutorial will walk you through everything from connecting your data to building and sharing your first report using the Power BI web version.

Power BI Desktop vs. Power BI Web: What's the Difference?

Before jumping in, it's helpful to understand the two main parts of the Power BI ecosystem. This common point of confusion can trip up newcomers.

Power BI Desktop: This is a free, downloadable Windows application. It's the primary tool for heavy-duty data analysis - connecting to a wide range of data sources, cleaning and transforming data (in the Power Query Editor), and building complex data models. Think of it as the workshop where all the heavy lifting happens.
Power BI Service (Web Version): This is the cloud-based, online platform (app.powerbi.com) you access through your browser. While you can do some data connection and report building here, its main strengths are collaboration, sharing, and dashboard creation. It's the gallery where you display, share, and monitor the insights you've built.

While data analysts often start in Power BI Desktop and publish their work to the service, you can absolutely create valuable reports from start to finish entirely within the Power BI web version. It's the fastest way to get started, especially when working with simpler datasets like Excel files or existing datasets published by your team.

Getting Started with the Power BI Service

Jumping into the Power BI web version is surprisingly straightforward. You just need a web browser and a work or school email address.

Signing Up for an Account

First, head over to the Power BI service website. If you don't have an account, you can sign up for free. Microsoft requires a work or school email for this, personal email addresses (like Gmail or Outlook.com) won't work for signing up directly unless you're signing up for a trial through a personal tenant setup.

Once you sign up and log in, you'll be greeted by the Power BI home screen. This screen provides quick access to your recent reports, dashboards, and workspaces.

Navigating the Main Interface

The interface can feel a bit busy at first, but you'll primarily be using the navigation pane on the left side of the screen. Here are the most important sections to know:

Home: Your landing page with recommended and recent content.
Create: A hub for all the ways you can create new content, like reports and datasets.
Browse: See all the reports, dashboards, and apps that have been shared with you.
Workspaces: These are collaborative folders where you and your team can work on collections of dashboards and reports together. When you first start, you'll have a "My workspace" which is your personal sandbox.

Take a few minutes to click around and get a feel for the layout. Most of your work will start under the "Create" or "My workspace" sections.

Getting Your Data into the Power BI Web Version

You can't build a report without data. The Power BI service offers a few ways to get your data ready for analysis without needing the Desktop app.

How to Upload An Excel Workbook

One of the easiest ways for beginners to get started is by uploading an Excel or CSV file. Power BI can connect to this data and turn it into a dataset that you can use to build reports.

Let's walk through an example. Imagine you have a simple Excel file named Monthly Sales.xlsx with columns for Date, Product, Category, Revenue, and Units Sold.

Step-by-Step Guide to Uploading a File:

In the left navigation pane, click on Create.
You'll see a tile that says "Paste or manually enter data." Below that, you can choose a source. Find and click on the Excel or CSV tile.
An uploader dialog will appear. Click "Upload" if you want to pull a file from your computer. Select your Monthly Sales.xlsx file.
For the best experience, choose "Upload your Excel file to OneDrive and connect to it." This allows for scheduled refreshes. But for a quick start, simply click "Upload" and choose the "Import data from the Excel file to Power BI" option.
Power BI will process the file, and once it's done, you'll get a notification. It has now created a new dataset in your workspace with the same name as your file. This is your foundation for building reports.

You can find this new dataset by navigating to "My workspace" and clicking the "Datasets + dataflows" tab.

How to Build Your First Report in the Browser

With your data now loaded, you're ready to create visuals. This is where your data starts telling a story. Power BI’s web editor is surprisingly capable and feels very similar to the Desktop version.

Understanding the Report Editor

To begin, find your newly created dataset in your workspace and click the three dots (...) next to it. Select Create report. This will take you to a blank report canvas and open the report editor interface. It's composed of three key panes:

Data pane (right): This lists all the tables and fields (columns) from your dataset. This is where you'll drag and drop data from. In our example, you'd see Monthly Sales with fields like Date, Product, Category, and Revenue.
Visualizations pane (right): This is where you choose the type of visual you want (bar chart, pie chart, map, etc.) and configure its fields, such as the axis and values.
Report Canvas (center): The main empty area where your visuals will live.

Walkthrough: Building a Simple Sales Report

Let's create three common visuals to track sales performance.

1. Create a "Total Revenue" Card Visual

Cards are perfect for displaying a single, important number.

In the Visualizations pane, click the Card icon (it looks like a rectangle with "123" on it). A blank card visual will appear on your canvas.
From the Data pane, find the Revenue field. Click and drag it into the "Fields" box in the Visualizations pane.
Voilà! The card will instantly update to show the sum of all revenue from your data. You can drag the corners to resize it and move it to a corner of your report.

2. Build a "Revenue by Category" Bar Chart

Bar charts are excellent for comparing values across different categories.

Click on an empty space on your report canvas to deselect the card visual.
In the Visualizations pane, click the Stacked bar chart icon. A blank bar chart will appear.
In the Data pane, drag the Category field to the "Y-axis" box in the Visualizations pane.
Next, drag the Revenue field to the "X-axis" box.
Power BI automatically generates a horizontal bar chart showing your top-performing product categories.

3. Add a "Sales Over Time" Line Chart

Line charts are ideal for visualizing trends over a period.

Click on an empty space on the canvas again.
In the Visualizations pane, select the Line chart icon.
From the Data pane, drag your Date field to the "X-axis" box. Power BI automatically creates a date hierarchy (Year, Quarter, Month, Day) for you.
Drag the Revenue field to the "Y-axis" box.
You now have a line chart showing how your total revenue changes over time. You can use the drill-down icons on the top of the chart to view data by month, quarter, or back up to the year.

Once you are happy with your report, don't forget to click the Save button at the top of the screen and give it a name like "Monthly Sales Performance Report."

Creating and Using Dashboards

While reports are for detailed, multi-page analyses, dashboards provide a high-level, at-a-glance view of your most important metrics. Dashboards are composed of "tiles," which are essentially shortcuts to visuals living in your reports.

Pinning Visuals to a Dashboard

Creating a dashboard is as simple as "pinning" visuals from your reports.

Go to the sales report you just created.
Hover your mouse over the "Revenue by Category" bar chart. You'll see several icons appear in the top right corner of the visual.
Click the Pin visual icon (it looks like a thumbtack).
A dialog box will pop up. Since you don't have a dashboard yet, select "New dashboard" and give it a name like "Sales Overview." Click Pin.
Now do the same for your "Total Revenue" card and the "Sales Over Time" line chart. Pin them to the existing "Sales Overview" dashboard.

To view your dashboard, use the left navigation pane to find your workspace and click on the "Dashboards" tab. You'll see your "Sales Overview" dashboard with the three visuals you pinned. You can resize and rearrange these tiles however you like.

Sharing and Collaborating with Your Team

Insights have the most impact when they're shared. A huge benefit of the Power BI service is how easy it is to share your work.

Using Workspaces for Collaboration

While "My workspace" is great for personal projects, for team projects you should create a new workspace. You can invite colleagues to the workspace and assign them roles (Viewer, Contributor, Member, Admin) that determine what they can do with the content inside. This keeps all related reports, dashboards, and datasets for a specific project or department organized in one place.

Sharing Individual Reports and Dashboards

If you just want to share a single report or dashboard without creating a full workspace, you can use the Share button located at the top of the screen. This allows you to send a direct link to specific users in your organization. You have control over whether they can re-share the report or build new content using the underlying dataset. Sharing is a core feature of paid Power BI Pro or Premium licenses.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, the Power BI web version is a powerful and accessible tool for bringing your data to life. It allows you to move directly from a simple Excel file to a shareable, interactive report and a high-level monitoring dashboard, all within your browser - a perfect place to begin your data visualization journey.

If you found the process of clicking, dragging, and dropping fields a bit tedious, you might be interested in a newer approach. At Graphed, we've made analysis even simpler by allowing you to create dashboards and get answers just by asking questions in plain English. Instead of manually building each chart, you can just ask something like, "Show me my total revenue by product category" and we instantly build the interactive report for you, connecting directly to your live data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds.