Power BI Essentials (2-3 days)

Introduction to the Power BI Environment

• Key components and how each works
• Report functionality and how to use this to get the data you want
• Build your first report in just a few minutes

Preparing Dashboard Data

Most of the work in a Power BI project is in preparing and structuring your datasets so that they are ready for use in Power BI visuals.

• How to import data into Power BI Desktop from a wide variety of data sources
• How to join different data sets together, even if they come from different files, databases or other sources
• How to clean and transform your data so it’s ready for use with Power BI
• Delving into “Get Data” and an introduction to understanding “M” code (Power Query language)
• How to turn short, wide data tables into long, tall tables and why this is so useful for Power BI
• Joining multiple data tables together and understanding relationships
• How to create efficient data models: merging, appending and structuring your datasets to create the optimal structure
• Learn how to apply your Power Query skills to Excel and when to choose one over the other
• Different techniques for creating and utilising a Calendar table that you can use to slice and summarise your reports
• Create queries that automatically report errors and missing codes
• Learn how to automatically combine all the Excel, CSV or Text files in a folder into one table and see how you could apply this
• Learn the principles of filter context, how critical this is for DAX formulas, and how to modify this in calculations to produce the results you need
• Learn how DAX formulas work and how they’re different from Excel (even though they look similar!)
• When to use a calculated column in a table and when to write a measure
• Key DAX concepts and formulas include grouping and naming measures, aggregation functions, counts, time-related calculations, conditional tests, preventing errors, dealing with multiple date fields in one table and building measures that are based on other measures.

Creating Interactive Visualizations

• Creating interactive visualisations
• Adding/changing information presented in a visualisation
• Incorporating custom visuals
• Adding custom colour schemes to a dashboard
• Create pre-filtered reports and charts that allow your users to drill down to see more detail
• Learn how to create chart tooltips that automatically pop-up when a user hovers over the charts
• See how to setup your reports and dashboards for use on mobile phones and other devices

Using POWERBI.com to add value to your Reports

• How to create and share dashboards
• Learn a variety of different ways to share your Power BI reports, and when to apply each one
• How to create new visualisations just by typing a sentence
• How to create an Excel pivot table from a report that’s been published to PowerBI.com
• Scheduling data refreshes so that your reports are always up-to-date
• Setting up security so that different users automatically see different views of the same report when they login

Apply your Skills with Practice Examples

During day 2 we have extended exercises where you apply the skills you’ve learned to practice data sets. In this exercise, you’ll create a data model, build your calculated fields and measures, then produce reports and visuals … all without any step-by-step instructions.  It’s designed to be as close to real-life as possible and provides a great test for your new skills.

Comprehensive course notes, exercises and completed solutions are included.

You’ll not only get to practice applying what you’ve just learned, but you’ll also walk away with something practical that you can start using in your office tomorrow.

Working on your own data makes the course far more relevant and meaningful for you, it allows us to help you structure your data models, queries and DAX formulas correctly, and it allows us to help you solve any additional problems that may arise but which were not covered as part of the standard course.

Many previous participants have remarked that they obtained the most value from the course during the third day because otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to do what they need to do.

In addition, you can always come back at any time in future and attend more of these workshop days if you’d like to.