You’ve seen how Q&A can help you gain insights from your data using natural queries.
Wouldn’t be nice to bring this experience directly to your Windows laptop without having to even open Power BI? If you use Windows 10, you’re in luck because Cortana can use the same Q&A capabilities to provide data-driven answers to your questions.
Configuring Cortana for Power BI Q&A
Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant that Microsoft included in Windows phones, Xbox One, and Windows 10. Cortana can help you update your schedule and answer questions using information from Bing, such as current weather and traffic conditions, sports scores, and biographies. For more information about Cortana’s features, read “What is Cortana?” at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/getstarted-what-is-
cortana. Follow these steps to integrate Cortana with Power BI:
1.Ensure that you have Windows 10 with Windows 10 November Update (version 1511) or higher. To check, in Windows press the hotkey Win+R to open the Run dialog, type
winver, and then press Enter.
2.To find if Cortana is activated, type Cortana in the Windows search box (located in the taskbar on the left).
3.In the Search results window, click “Cortana & Search settings”. In the Settings window, make sure that the first setting “Cortana can give you suggestions…” is on. If you want Cortana to respond to your voice when you say “Hey Cortana”, turn on the “Hey
Cortana” setting as well.
4.So that Cortana can reach out to Power BI and access your datasets, you must first add your work or school account to Windows. Click the Windows button to the left of the search box in the Windows taskbar, and then click Settings. In the Settings page, click Accounts. Scroll to the button of the page.
5.In the “Accounts used by other apps”, check if the account that use to sign in to Power BI is listed (see Figure 3.37). If the account is not listed, click the “Add a Microsoft account” link, and then add the account.
Figure 3.37 Add your work or school account so that Cortana can integrate with Power BI.
6.By default, Power BI datasets are not enabled for Cortana. You must turn on the Cortana integration for each dataset that you want Cortana to access. Open your Web browser and log in to the Power BI portal. In the Application Toolbar at the top-right corner, expand the Settings menu, and then click Settings.
7.In the Settings page, click the Datasets tab (Figure 3.38).
Figure 3.38 Use the Settings page to enable Cortana to access datasets.
8.To enable Cortana for the “Retail Analysis Sample” dataset, click that dataset, and then check the “Enable Cortana to access this dataset” checkbox. Click Apply.
Now Cortana can access this dataset but give it some time to discover it and learn about its data.
Getting data insights with Cortana
Once you’ve integrated Cortana with Power BI, getting insights is easy. As you’ve seen, by utilizing Power BI’s Q&A data visualization capabilities, answers can range from simple numerical values (“sales for the last quarter”), charts (“gross margin by store”), maps (“this year sales by state”), and even entire reports that are specifically optimized for Cortana! Potential answers are either determined by Cortana on the fly directly from the data, or by using reports that are already created in Power BI that help answer a question.
1.In the Windows search box, enter “gross margin by store”. Cortana should show some matches under the Power BI category. Alternatively, you can say “Hey Cortana” to activate Cortana and dictate your question.
Figure 3.39 Cortana finds Power BI matches to your questions and visualizes your data.
2.Click the “gross margin by store – in Retail Analysis Sample” match. Cortana shows a Power BI visualization with the results (see Figure 3.38). Note that you can hover on a data value and get a tooltip
3.(Optional) To further explore an answer, click the “Show more details in Power BI” link under the visualization. This opens your Web browser and navigates you to the Power BI Q&A page that is prepopulated with the same question.
TIP Data analysts creating self-service models in Power BI Desktop can customize the Cortana answers by adding pages to a report that are optimized for Cortana. For more information about this feature, read the “Use Power BI Desktop to create a custom Answer Page for Cortana” topic at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-
us/documentation/powerbi-service-cortana-desktop-entity-cards.
As you can see, Cortana opens new opportunities to enable your business, and your customers’ businesses, to get things done in more helpful, proactive, and natural ways.