Professional Power BI Question & Answer format of an interview.

Interviewer: Can you introduce yourself and share your experience

with Power BI?
Candidate: Thank you for having me. My name is [Name]. I have
around 3 years of experience working with Power BI. Over the years,
I have worked across multiple domains such as HR, Insurance,
Banking, Sales, and Healthcare.
I started my career in 2022 as a Research Analyst and gradually moved
into Power BI specialization. Currently, I am working on a project in the
medical domain, where I handle end-to-end Power BI development as the
only Power BI expert in my team.
My responsibilities include:
• Gathering requirements from clients.
• Collecting data from multiple sources.
• Cleaning and transforming data using SQL and Power Query.
• Building efficient data models.
• Developing reports and interactive dashboards.
• Analyzing and visualizing KPIs to deliver actionable insights.

Interviewer: Are you working as an individual contributor or leading a

team?
Candidate: Currently, I am an individual contributor, handling the
entire Power BI project lifecycle myself. In my previous organization, I
worked within a team, but now I own the full responsibility.

Interviewer: What stages of the project lifecycle have you been

involved in?
Candidate: I have been involved in all stages of the BI project
lifecycle, including:
 1. Gathering client requirements.
2. Understanding KPIs and defining metrics.
3. Data extraction from multiple sources.
4. Data cleaning, transformation, and modeling.
5. Report design and visualization.
6. Publishing and sharing reports via Power BI Service.
7. Providing ongoing enhancements based on client feedback.

Interviewer: Can you give an example of a project you handled end-

to-end?
Candidate: In one project related to HR Attrition, I created
dashboards to analyze:
• Attrition rate by department.
• Male-to-female ratio.
• Designation-wise attrition.
• Training effectiveness and its impact on retention.
The main challenge was data inconsistency. I received different
attrition numbers from HR and Operations teams. I had to clarify the
discrepancies with stakeholders and ensure accurate, validated data
before building the final report.

Interviewer: Did you perform the analysis yourself or just build

dashboards based on others’ requirements?
Candidate: I performed both. I carried out data validation, analysis,
and visualization design. For example, I ensured totals matched
across reports and that attrition numbers were consistent before
building dashboards.
Interviewer: Suppose you need to calculate the number of years an
employee has spent in a company. What DAX would you use?
Candidate: I would use time intelligence functions in DAX to
calculate the difference between the employee’s start date and
either the end date or today’s date. This would return the number
of years (e.g., 5 years, 7 years).

Interviewer: Let us say you have two fact tables (Fact A and Fact B),
both connected to three-dimension tables (Dim A, Dim B, Dim C).
Can you create a relationship between Fact A and Fact B in Power BI?
Candidate: Yes, it is feasible. We can create a relationship between
two fact tables through a common key or dimension that exists in
both. This allows us to analyze data across both fact tables.

Interviewer: How many active relationships can exist between two

tables?
Candidate: Only one active relationship can exist between two
tables at a time.

Interviewer: What if we need to use another relationship apart from

the active one?
Candidate: We can use the USERELATIONSHIP () DAX function. This
allows us to activate an alternate relationship for calculations
without making it the default active one.

Interviewer: What was a major challenge you faced in your recent

project?
Candidate: The biggest challenge was lack of documentation. When
I joined, there was no proper handover, and I had to spend time
understanding the reports, KPIs, and data sources directly from
clients. Over time, I documented the processes myself, clarified data
sources, and managed the project independently.

Interviewer: Have you worked with Power BI Service?

Candidate: Yes. I have used Power BI Service mainly for:
• Publishing reports.
• Managing scheduled refresh.
• Sharing dashboards with stakeholders.
However, I have not managed separate environments extensively.

Interviewer: Have you used Dataflows in Power BI Service?

Candidate: No, I have not used Dataflows yet, since I usually manage
all data preparation within Power BI Desktop myself.

Interviewer: How would you rate yourself in SQL?

Candidate: I would rate myself 3 out of 5. I primarily use SQL for DDL
and DML commands, data validation, and writing moderate-level
queries, though I do not often write very complex queries.

Interviewer: Here is a SQL scenario: You have two tables.

• Table 1: Employee details (EmployeeID, Name, Contact,
Address).
• Table 2: Department details (DeptID, EmployeeID, Salary).
Write a query to fetch the top 5 employees by salary in each
department.
Candidate: I would use a query with ROW_NUMBER () or RANK ()
partitioned by department, then select the top 5 employees for each
department.
Interviewer: What KPIs are important in the insurance domain?
Candidate: Some key KPIs I worked on include:
• Number of active policyholders.
• Policyholder growth rate.
• Claim settlement ratio.
• Customer satisfaction score.
• Underwriting profit ratio.
• Customer churn rate.
• Risk assessment indicators.

Interviewer: Have you worked with Power BI Service datasets, where

customers build their own reports on top of your datasets?
Candidate: No, I usually create and deliver the full report myself.
Stakeholders typically request changes or new versions, and I handle
the updates.

Interviewer: What kinds of transformations have you applied in

Power BI?
Candidate: Since most of my projects used Direct Query, I handled
most logic using DAX measures rather than Power Query
transformations. My focus has been on data modeling and writing
optimized DAX measures.

Interviewer: What are the differences between a Calculated Column

and a Measure in Power BI?
Candidate:
• Calculated Column: Stored in the data model, created row by
row. It consumes memory and increases model size.
• Measure: Calculated on the fly during query execution. It does
not store data but gives results dynamically, making it more
efficient.
Power BI Interview (Enriched Q&A) Powered by ChatGPT:
Interviewer: Can you introduce yourself and share your experience
with Power BI?
Candidate: Thank you for having me. My name is [Name]. I have
around 3 years of experience working with Power BI and SQL across
multiple domains: HR, Banking, Insurance, Sales, and Healthcare.
I began my career in 2022 as a Research Analyst and transitioned
into BI development. Currently, I am working on a medical domain
project as the sole Power BI resource in my team, handling end-to-
end BI responsibilities.
My work involves:
• Gathering client requirements and identifying KPIs.
• Extracting and cleaning data from multiple sources (SQL Server,
flat files, Excel).
• Designing efficient data models in Power BI.
• Writing complex DAX measures for advanced analytics.
• Building interactive dashboards and reports.
• Publishing and managing them in Power BI Service.

Interviewer: What stages of the project lifecycle have you been

involved in?
Candidate: I have been involved in the full BI project lifecycle,
including:
1. Requirement gathering (meeting with clients to define goals,
KPIs, and target users).
2. Data extraction (connecting SQL, Excel, and other sources).
3. Data cleaning and transformation (Power Query, SQL, and
sometimes Excel).
4. Data modeling (star schema, relationships, fact-dimension
separation).
 5. Report design and visualization (user-friendly dashboards with
KPIs, drill-through, bookmarks, tooltips).
6. Deployment (publishing to Power BI Service, managing refresh
schedules).
7. Support & enhancements (making iterative changes based on
feedback).

Interviewer: Tell me about a challenging project.

Candidate: In an HR Attrition project, I had to build dashboards
showing attrition by department, gender, designation, and training
effectiveness.
• The challenge: Data inconsistencies between HR and
Operations. For example, HR data showed one attrition rate,
while Operations showed another.
• My approach: Engaged stakeholders, validated numbers, and
created a single source of truth by aligning definitions across
departments.
• The outcome: A reliable, interactive report that gave HR leaders
clear visibility into retention issues.

Interviewer: Suppose you need to calculate how many years an

employee has spent in the company. How would you do this in DAX?
Candidate: I would use DATEDIFF () to calculate the difference
between StartDate and either EndDate or TODAY ().
Example:
YearsWorked = DATEDIFF (Employee [StartDate], TODAY (), YEAR)
This gives the number of completed years an employee has worked.
If an end date exists (for ex-employees), I would use:
YearsWorked = DATEDIFF (Employee [StartDate], Employee
[EndDate], YEAR)
Interviewer: Can two fact tables be related in Power BI?
Candidate: Yes, but not directly. Best practice is to connect them
through shared dimension tables (star schema).
• If Fact A (Sales) and Fact B (Targets) both connect to Date,
Product, and Region dimensions, we can analyze them together.
• Direct relationships between fact tables may create complexity
or circular relationships, so using a conformed dimension is
recommended.

Interviewer: How many active relationships can exist between two

tables in Power BI?
Candidate: Only one active relationship at a time.
If multiple relationships exist, the others must remain inactive. In
such cases, we can use:
CALCULATE([Measure], USERELATIONSHIP(Table1[ColumnA],
Table2[ColumnB]))
to temporarily activate an alternate relationship.

Interviewer: What is the difference between a Calculated Column

and a Measure?
Candidate:
• Calculated Column: Evaluated row by row and stored in the
model. Increases model size. Useful for filtering/slicing.
• Measure: Evaluated on the fly, more memory-efficient, best for
aggregations (SUM, AVERAGE, RANK, etc.).
Best practice: Prefer measures over calculated columns for
performance unless a column is needed for filtering or relationships.
Interviewer: What was a major challenge in your recent project?
Candidate: The main challenge was lack of documentation. No one
in the team had clarity about data sources or report logic.
I solved it by:
• Interviewing stakeholders.
• Reverse-engineering reports.
• Creating my own documentation for future reference.
This helped me understand KPIs, data sources, and client
requirements while avoiding future confusion.

Interviewer: How would you rate yourself in SQL?

Candidate: I would rate myself 3/5. I mainly use SQL for:
• DDL/DML operations.
• Data extraction and validation.
• Writing joins and window functions.
For example, to fetch Top 5 employees per department by salary, I
would use:
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT e. EmployeeID, e. FirstName, e. LastName, d. DeptID, d.
Salary,
ROW_NUMBER () OVER (PARTITION BY d. DeptID ORDER BY d.
Salary DESC) AS rn
FROM Employee e
JOIN Department d ON e. EmployeeID = d. EmployeeID
)t
WHERE rn <= 5;
Interviewer: What are important KPIs in the insurance domain?
Candidate:
• Number of active policyholders.
• Policy growth rate.
• Claim settlement ratio.
• Premium vs claims ratio (Loss ratio).
• Customer retention (churn rate).
• Underwriting profit margin.
• Customer satisfaction index.
These KPIs help measure both operational efficiency and financial
health of the business.

Interviewer: Have you worked with Power BI Service features like

Dataflows and Workspaces?
Candidate: I have mainly used Power BI Service for:
• Publishing reports.
• Managing scheduled refresh.
• Sharing dashboards.
I have not worked extensively with Dataflows, but I am familiar with
their purpose: centralizing data prep so multiple reports share the
same curated dataset.

Interviewer: What are common challenges in Power BI projects?

Candidate:
1. Data quality issues (inconsistent or missing values).
2. Performance optimization when working with large datasets.
3. Managing relationships to avoid circular dependencies.
4. Security requirements (row-level security for different roles).
5. Change management (handling report updates across versions).

Thank You