Business Intelligence with Power BI

L01 · From Data to Decision

Practice — Medium · Solution

Step-by-step

  1. Load as in Mild.
  2. Distinct-order card. Card visual with OrderID; in the field well, open the field's dropdown and choose Count (Distinct). Verified answer: 26,227 orders in 2025. (Plain Count gives 50,539 — the number of order lines, because one order holds one row per product.)
  3. Orders by region. Bar chart, OrderID (Count Distinct) by Region, sorted descending. Verified figures:
    RegionDistinct orders
    Online11,729
    Midwest3,520
    Northeast3,044
    West2,992
    Southeast2,679
    Southwest2,263
    Online takes the most; Southwest the fewest — the same ranking revenue gave, which is worth noticing but was not guaranteed.
  4. The trough. Line chart of Revenue by OrderDate expanded to months: the quietest month is February, at $1,142,332.44 — about 55% of May's peak. Post-holiday, pre-outdoor-season: the catalog's dead zone.
  5. Sanity check. $20,663,252.72 ÷ 26,227 orders ≈ $788 per order. For a retailer whose catalog runs from $15 candles to $1,000+ furniture, that is believable — high enough to reflect the furniture, low enough to reflect the candles. If the division had produced $78 or $7,800, one of the two cards would deserve a hard look.

Reflection answers

  • Order count drives: warehouse staffing and pick-line scheduling; shipping carrier negotiations (carriers price per package, not per dollar). Revenue drives: category investment and merchandising; sales targets and forecasting. Different levers, different numbers.
  • Not a safe bet — cheap-item months can hold order count up while revenue sags. The under-a-minute check: put OrderID (Count Distinct) on the line chart's value well in place of Revenue and look at February again.