Introduction

If you're getting into data science, data analytics or business intelligence, you've probably heard of Power BI . Power BI is a powerful data visualization tool developed by Microsoft that allows you to turn raw data into interactive dashboards and reports.

But you only make Power BI powerful by feeding data into it. One cannot work perfectly without the other and that`s where SQL databases come in handy.

Businesses connect Power BI directly to their databases to analyze live or updated data.

In this article, we will go through:

Connecting Power BI to a local PostgreSQL database

Connecting Power BI to an Aiven PostgreSQL database

Loading and modeling data

And lastly why SQL is essential when visualizing with Power BI

Connecting Power BI to a Local PostgreSQL Database

Let’s assume you already have your PostgreSQL database set up with tables like:

customers

products

sales

inventory

Step 1: Open Power BI Desktop

Launch Power BI Desktop.

Step 2: Click “Get Data”

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