Getting started with Power BI

Quickly find meaningful insights within your data that help make better business decisions or easily build rich, visual analytic reports.

Microsoft Power BI Skateboard Store

Get the most out of your data by trying Power BI for free. Here’s how:

Sign up for a free account

Start building reports to find meaningful data insights and intelligence using the web-based Power BI service.

Activate your free trial

Share, explore, and collaborate on reports with your team by activating your free 60-day trial.

Use Power BI on your desktop

Create reports faster with more data connections and efficient features—using the free Power BI Desktop app.

Sharpen your Power BI skills

Get step-by-step guidance on creating visuals and explore other key Power BI capabilities.

Choose what you’d like to do

Share, interact, and collaborate on reports based on your data to find the insights, trends, and critical business intelligence you need.

1. Discover relevant reports

Sign up for Power BI to find and access any relevant content—including reports you already built and pre-existing reports from either your organization or the Power BI community.

2. Uncover report insights

Explore your reports to find and generate the quick insights you need for better business decisions.

3. Share insights

Collaborate on reports with colleagues, then easily share the reports and insights when and how you want—in workspaces, on the web, in apps, or using Microsoft Teams.

With Power BI Desktop, you’ll easily connect to, model, and visualize your data to create reports that deliver insights for better decisions.

1. Connect to data

Easily import your data from wherever it is—Excel workbooks, local databases, or the cloud—and transform it so it’s ready to analyze.

2. Build a report

Now that you imported your data, create your data story. Use drag-and-drop functionality to create and format visuals that help present your data in compelling and insightful ways.

3. Publish your report

Get your reports—and the insights they highlight—to the people who need it most. Start using Power BI to save and publish reports.

Choose Power BI for self-service and enterprise BI

Power BI Desktop

Create rich, interactive reports with visual analytics at your fingertips—for free.

Connect and learn more

Documentation

Find guides and information on how to make the most of Power BI.

Explore topics

Guided learning

Take guided courses on how to accomplish common tasks within Power BI.

View courses

Online workshops

Learn how to use—and make the most of—Power BI through free virtual training.

Browse sessions

Community

Connect, learn, and discuss with Power BI experts and peers.

Join the community