How To Scrape Data From A Website Into Power BI (AbokiFX as an example)

Power BI is an amazing tool. I have used it to create amazing auto-updating dashboards for different reporting needs. You can view a couple that I made publicly available: https://www.nigerianelite.com/Shares/Analysis, https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Sales-Dashboard-for-a-Pizza-Restaurant/m-p/509025#M2208 and https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Nigerian-Stocks-Market-Analysis-Live-Report/m-p/175769#M850

Today, however, I will be showing you how to use Power BI to scrape data from a website and create a report/dashboard from the scrapped data. I will illustrate with AbokiFX.com data on parallel market FX rates for Nigeria. Effectively, you will be creating a report like the one below:

You can view the interactive version at https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Nigeria-Parallel-black-Market-FX-Rates-from-Abokifx-com/m-p/568355#M2372 and you can download the editable source file at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1emrcWqpSnBaiYntrvV9ecnUYEcVJ9I3i/view?usp=sharing 

STEP 1

From an empty Power BI desktop file, do Get Data and pick from Web (under Other).

Follow through with providing the URL of the website to pick data from and selecting the table of data to pull into Power BI.

STEP 2

Do a couple of transformation on the data (except you are very lucky that the pulled data is already in a form that suits your report).

STEP 3

Create the report you want and publish.

You may also want to configure a scheduled refresh to make Power BI keep pulling new data from the website everyday.

October 2016 Webinar: Dashboards And Dynamic Charts In Excel

This October's monthly webinar will be for Wednesday, 26 October 2016. I will be walking us through the concepts of Dashboard and building dynamic charts in Excel.

Dashboards are clear visuals of the insights in your reports in a consolidated and easy to understand way. Just think about your car's dashboard. In one glance you get to see the state of your car. And that is the way your visuals should be like if you are making reports on a system as complex as a car, having many intricate moving parts and lots of KPIs to track.

Maybe you are a sales analyst and you track over a dozen brands/products across dozens of regions/areas. Your final report is a labyrinth, even you sometimes get lost in it.

Maybe you make a fairly simple report but the lines of records are many and regular charts look so crowded/clumsy that you have given up including charts in the report.

Or maybe you want to make more engaging visuals, put in some element of interactivity. Make the data come alive. 

Then you shouldn't miss this webinar.
Date: Wednesday 26 October 2016
Time: 4:00pm UTC+1 
Venue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfnSWzwU5JY (YouTube live)

We run webinars monthly on how to improve your business data analysis skills. To be among the first informed monthly about the webinars and get timely reminders, please sign up here: Webinar Directory.

Staying On Top Of Your Business Numbers With Power BI Automatic Reports

With Power BI, I easily monitor my website performance and see the important figures from any device I am on. Also, I am able to monitor my business finance -- track sales, invoices, expenses and instantly generate financial reports. And same for my email marketing campaigns. All in one central place. And you know the best part? The reports are automatically generated for me and updated daily. No need to have a staff make me reports or depend on my now less reliable memory to remind me to generate the report.

And what if I tell you that all these are free and can be easily set-up by you. All you have to do is sign up for Power BI.

Sign up is very easy. Then log in afterwards. You will be directed to a page similar to the one below.

And immediately redirected to the Power BI dashboard. In your case, you will see Microsoft sample reports. I have connected mine to my Google Analytics to monitor my website performance, Mailchimp to check the performance of my email marketing and QuickBooks to see my business performance.

Google Analytics Automated Report

Mailchimp Automated Report

QuickBooks Automated Report

So how did I initiate the report generation? Very easy. I simply connect Power BI to my Google Analytics account, Mailchimp account and QuickBooks account. And that's all. Power BI will generate a comprehensive report that shows you the important numbers all by itself. And if you want, you can customize the reports or add more analysis.

Just click on "Get Data" at the lower left corner to get started.

Choose "Services".

A list of all the services you can connect to will come up. Click "Get" on the ones you want the automatic report generated for.

Notice the detailed report of my business finances from QuickBooks

And that is all.

And if you are a smartphone person, like most of us, you should install the Power BI app from your phone app store (available for Windows Phone, Android and iPhone). So you can always view your reports on your phone. And it automatically updates everyday. No need for you to recreate the report or refresh or update. It does that daily for you without your intervention. That way you always see the most recent report.

Monitoring Your Social Media Marketing Impact and ROI

Social media is increasingly becoming a platform of choice in building a reputable brand and a strong influence. It is a family of websites and applications that enable users to create and share content they find interesting and build an online community. It started as a way of helping individuals build a social network but businesses now use it to connect with their customers and reach new markets.

The major social media sites are:

1. Blogs
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. LinkedIn
6. Google+
7. Instagram
8. Pinterest
9. Tumblr
10. Vine

Of the ten major social media sites the first five – Blogs, Facebook, Twitter , YouTube and LinkedIn – are most popular with businesses and professionals seeking to build their brand and grow their influence in their targeted market.

Active users on the major social media sites (March 2015)

According to Social Media Examiner’s 2014 Social Media Marketing report that surveyed over 2800 marketers worldwide on how they use social media to grow and promote their businesses:

1. 92% indicated that social media plays a vital role in their business growth and promotion strategy,
2. 68% use blogging to create an active community around their brand and build customer loyalty
3. 28% are planning on using more of podcasting to reach new markets
4. Facebook and LinkedIn were voted the two most important social networks for growing businesses,
5. Original and value-packed content are the most important piece of growing a business’ online reputation

The report also revealed that having an active social media presence leads to increased exposure for the business and help build a loyal fan base.

Benefits of social media marketing (>2800 respondents)


Our Solution

We provide big brands a human made comprehensive report of their social media strategy and influence. It is different from software generated mass-produced reports that most other providers provide. Our solution is by a leading expert with the industry knowledge and Nigerian social media trend knowledge that he brings to bear in giving your company a very in-depth personalized report that shows how well your social media strategy is doing compared to industry average, the detailed analytics of your social media activities and relevant recommendations.

Currently, we only provide this service for companies with an already active and well managed social media marketing. If you meet this requirement, you can email dashboard@urbizedge.com