Use Wikipedia As A Data Source To Prepare Power BI Report

Overview

Power BI is a business intelligence tool that supports so many data sources to prepare a report. As we all know, Wikipedia is a very good resource of useful information, and we can consume Wikipedia data as a data source and prepare a Power BI report.

Example

In this example, we will prepare a report on the largest-selling pharma products. We will use the following URL as a Data Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_selling_pharmaceutical_products

If we open the above link, it will show the analytical data for selling a pharma product.

Note. Make sure of one thing - If we want to use Wikipedia as a data source, its information must be stored in a tabular manner. Only then can we consume its data in Power BI.

Now, let’s get started!

Step 1. Open Power BI Desktop

Open Power BI Desktop and click on Get Data.

Step 2. Select data source

Select Other Services > Web as a data source. Then, click "Connect".

Step 3. Enter URL

It will ask you to enter the URL. Post the URL as follows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_selling_pharmaceutical_products

Step 4. Select Tables

It will show all available tables from Wikipedia. We will select both tables. Now, click "Load".

Step 5.Loaded Tables

The below screen shows two tables loaded in Power BI.

Step 6. Rename Tables

Now, we will rename our tables. Double-click the name of an old table and rename it. We will rename our tables as “Top 10 Company” and “Pharma Company” respectively.

We will also rename one column as "Sales" by clicking on it.

Step 7. Data Verification

We can also check if our data is loaded properly or not using the Data tab on the left side.

The below screenshot shows the data from both tables.

Step 8. Add Visuals

Now, it’s time to add visuals. We will add one “Table" visual and one “Staked bar chart” visual.

Properties for both visuals are in the below screenshot.

1. Table Visual
   
   
   • This visual shows the following columns.
   • o Brand
   • o Company
   • o Rank
   • o Sales
2. Staked bar chart visual
   This visual shows the sales report data concerning the company name.
   

Step 9. Apply Formatting

Now, we will apply some formatting to our visuals to make them more attractive.

I have formatted the visuals. Below is a screenshot of both the visuals after formatting.

Step 10.Filter data

Now, let's filter our report based on the company name. From the bar chart, click on any company.

It will filter the data based on the company name in a table.

Conclusion

This is how we can prepare a Power BI Report consuming Wikipedia as a Data Source.

I hope you love this article.