As technology progresses and becomes more interwoven with our businesses and lives, more data is collected about business and personal activities. This era of "big data" is a direct result of the popularity and growth of cloud computing, which provides an abundance of computational power and storage, allowing organizations of all sorts to capture and store data. Leveraging that data effectively can provide timely insights and competitive advantages.

Creating data-backed visualizations is key for data scientists, or any professional, to explore, analyze, and report insights and trends from data. Microsoft Power BI software is designed for this purpose. Power BI was built to connect to a wide range of data sources, and it enables users to quickly create visualizations of connected data to gain insights, show trends, and create reports. Power BI's data connection capabilities and visualization features go far beyond those that can be found in spreadsheets, enabling users to create compelling and interactive worksheets, dashboards, and stories that bring data to life and turn data into thoughtful action.