Introduction
While working with Power BI, I thought building reports was mainly about creating attractive charts and dashboards. As I worked with datasets containing sales, customers, products, and dates, I discovered that the real foundation of every Power BI report is the data model. Without properly defined relationships, visuals cannot communicate with each other effectively, calculations become unreliable, and filtering data becomes frustrating.
This is where concepts such as fact tables, dimension tables, relationships, star schema, snowflake schema, cardinality, and cross-filter direction become essential. These are the building blocks that allow Power BI to transform raw data into meaningful insights.
I'll explore how these concepts work together in Power BI, why choosing the right schema matters, and how good data modeling can improve both report performance and the overall reporting experience.
Data Modeling in Power BI
