{"id":13130,"date":"2016-05-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/post\/cincinnati-power-power-bi\/"},"modified":"2022-04-13T11:23:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:23:16","slug":"cincinnati-power-power-bi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/cincinnati-power-power-bi\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Power BI"},"content":{"rendered":"

How powerful is Power BI? Let’s build a fantasy baseball team and find out!<\/h2>\n

When I want to learn a new software tool, I will often use the tool to develop an application. Sometimes the application is for work, and sometimes it is for personal use. <\/span><\/h4>\n

This process is a good way to learn the tool while working on something I am familiar with and have a personal interest in. After all is said and done, the goals are to learn a new tool and to have an application that I can actually use.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, I embarked on such a learning experience while trying to learn Microsoft\u2019s Power BI<\/a>. I am an avid baseball fan and participate annually in a fantasy baseball league. One of my first thoughts was to use the tool to analyze baseball data. I conducted a similar exercise several years back when I was learning Tableau. Not only did my personal interest help me learn Tableau and eventually get certified, it helped me better compete in my fantasy baseball league. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Drafting My Fantasy Baseball Team with\u00a0Power BI Quick Insights<\/h3>\n

This time, I wanted to develop a tool that would<\/span> improve my fantasy baseball draft picks. Rather than using my gut instinct to make picks, I wanted to make my picks based on what my team needed, such as runs, home runs, and stolen bases, at any given point in the draft. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First, I exported projected stats for hitters and pitchers from <\/span>www.fangraphs.com<\/span><\/a> to an Excel spreadsheet and then imported this data into Power BI. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After Power BI \u00a0connected the new data set to the dashboard<\/span>,<\/span> it automatically generated several visualizations (e.g. graphs, charts or images) showing insights found in the data. \u00a0I simply needed to click on the \u201c<\/span>Get Quick Insights\u201d<\/span> link provided in the pop-up window to see them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Power<\/a>

Power BI Quick Insights are available via a pop-up window link as soon as data is connected.<\/p><\/div>\n

Being a baseball fan, many of the insights were things I would expect. The graph below shows the correlation between at bats (AB) and hits (H). No real surprise there but still good to confirm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Power<\/a>

Power BI “Quick Insights” graph showing a correlation between at-bats and hits.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Quick Insights feature is a nice element of Power BI that allowed me to immediately discover more about my data, sparking questions I could explore further.<\/p>\n