What is Data Analytics?

Businesses are accumulating data at an increasingly fast rate. This data is valuable if management can use it to support and drive more effective decision making. Data analytics involves analysing data to produce meaningful insights, identify patterns and present findings in visualisations. It is the art of finding meaning in data.

What is R?

R is an open source and free programming language that was developed for statistical analysis and production of high-quality graphics. Commonly used by statisticians and academics who make up part of the large active user community behind R. This community has contributed over 15,000 packages that extend the base functionality of R, making it easy to implement a vast range of techniques for data manipulation, analysis and visualisation.

How can I run R scripts in Power BI?

R scripts in Power BI: If you are interested in learning about R or how to tap into its capability within Power BI then this 80min webinar is a must-watch.

How should I prepare for my online course?

R Programming Basics

Install R - https://cran.csiro.au/ - select base

Install RStudio - https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/ - RStudio Desktop (open source ed.)

Install Hmisc and psych packages. Open up RStudio and go to Tools > Install Packages. Under Packages, type in 'Hmisc'.  Repeat this process for 'psych'.

If you have difficulty installing the packages, go to Tools > Global Options > Packages and untick 'Use secure download method for HTTP'.

R Programming Beginner

Install R - https://cran.csiro.au/ - select base

Install RStudio - https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/ - RStudio Desktop (open source ed.)

Install the tidyverse Open up RStudio and go to Tools > Install Packages. Under Packages type 'tidyverse'. 

R Programming Intermediate

Install R - https://cran.csiro.au/ - select base

Install RStudio - https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/ - RStudio Desktop (open source ed.)

Install the Hmisc and tidyverse packages (see instructions above)

Machine Learning in R

Install R - https://cran.csiro.au/ - select base

Install RStudio - https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/ - RStudio Desktop (open source ed.)

Install Power BI Desktop.

Download the dataset from https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/bike+sharing+dataset

Go to Data Folder and download the zip file. We will be working with the hour file.

Run the following in RStudio (or install each of these packages):

install.packages("DescTools")

install.packages("factoextra")

install.packages("tidyverse")

install.packages("rfm")

install.packages("cluster")

install.packages("rpart")

install.packages("rpart.plot")

install.packages("caret")

install.packages("ranger")

install.packages("Metrics")

install.packages("randomForest")

Please run the following test to ensure that Power BI is detecting your installation of R and installed contributed packages.

You must have installed the tidyverse package to your machine prior to running this script. If you have not done this already, please install it from RStudio and then do the following.

Open the Power BI file named Test.

Click on Transform Data.

With the query, Test selected:

Click on Run R Script

This will open a window. Under the existing text, copy in the following:

library(tidyverse)

y <- dataset %>% sqrt

If you are asked about privacy levels, grant access or ignore.

If this is successful, you should see a table containing the square roots of the numbers 1-10.

If it fails and returns an error, please email [email protected]