Power BI Essentials

All the key aspects you need to know to begin developing Power BI reports for your business.

Create stunning interactive reports and share amazing insights! 

The Power BI Essentials course gives Excel users the ability to extract data from multiple sources, model and link data, perform calculations, and create impactful interactive visualisations with confidence.

What is Power BI – Take a look here?

Power BI is a cloud-based business analytics platform from Microsoft that enables users to transform raw data into rich, interactive reports and dashboards. In our Power BI Essentials training, you’ll learn how to deliver a complete 360-degree view of your business, enabling better insights and more informed decision-making.

Key Advantages of Power BI

  • Easily connect to multiple data sources, including Excel files, SQL Databases, Google Analytics, SharePoint, CSVs, ODBC and many more
  • Quickly prepare raw data for analysis by recording data transformations
  • Simply drag and drop to easily create relationships between different data sources. NO VLOOKUP REQUIRED!
  • Create custom report calculations for measuring profitability, margins, KPIs and any other desired areas using the powerful DAX formula language
  • Easily prepare interactive data visualisations colour-coordinated with corporate colours using built-in or custom templates
  • Quickly publish reports to Power BI.com for users to interact with using any browser, mobile phone or tablet
  • Customize reports and dashboards

More About Power BI

Power BI Desktop is a development platform from Microsoft that allows users to connect to a wide range of data sources, clean and transform data, create relationships between datasets, perform calculations, and build stunning interactive reports. These core capabilities are covered in our Power BI course, designed to help users move from raw data to actionable insights.

Power BI.com allows users to publish their interactive reports and share certain features of those reports with others. Reports published to PowerBI.com can be set to refresh automatically and can be interacted with online using any browser or mobile device.

Before you proceed, just to let you know, we sometimes find that people would be better learning the Power BI features that are already built into Excel. Power Query and Power Pivot are awesome and may be more relevant to your daily work right now than Power BI.

Take a look at our Power Query and Power Pivot (with a bit of Power BI) course here.

Power BI is awesome too though so if you’re not sure which course is right for you, drop us an email to discuss.

Access Analytic Training

Pre-requisites

This is an introductory course and no prior knowledge of Power BI is required. Participants who have taught themselves Power BI will also benefit from attending as the course will fill-in a number of gaps in their knowledge and will also extend what they know.

A general understanding of databases, Excel formulas, and Excel Pivot Tables is useful though not essential.

Delivery Options

Power BI In-house Training

All courses are available for in-house training, providing flexible options to meet your needs wherever you are – Perth, interstate, or internationally. Our in-house courses are designed to maximise value with flexibility, tailored content, and cost savings for your team.

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Power BI Online Training

Built on a decade of experience, this practical, hands-on Power BI online course is ideal for beginners and self-taught users looking to start their Power BI journey with expert guidance and real-world examples.

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Power BI Essentials Course Outline

This course provides 7.5 contact hours per day towards continuing education requirements.

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 in Power BI Essentials 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.

Your Power BI Project

This is the most valuable day of the course, where you apply what you’ve learned through Power BI training to your own data and real-world scenarios, making the training more relevant, practical, and impactful.

This hands-on experience boosts your confidence and skills, increasing the likelihood of effectively using Power BI in your work.

Bring your own project and receive expert coaching to overcome reporting challenges. You’ll not only reinforce your learning but also leave with a practical solution you can use immediately.

Working with your own data makes the course more meaningful, helping us guide you in structuring data models, queries, and DAX formulas while addressing any unforeseen issues.

Many past participants found this day the most valuable, as it ensured they could apply their skills effectively.

Who Should Attend the Power BI Essentials Course

  • Excel users & analysts that focus on extracting, re-organizing and analyzing data
  • Anyone involved in creating visualizations & data modelling
  • Anyone interested in saving huge amounts of time in automating the work involved in creating recurring reports and dashboards
  • No prior knowledge is required

Why Choose Access Analytic?

At Access Analytic, we don’t just provide Power BI training and consulting – we lead the industry. With a 25-year track record of excellence, we are the trusted choice of top global companies for training and consulting in Power BI, advanced financial modelling, data analytics, and AI-driven business solutions.

Industry-Leading Expertise

Our Course Facilitators are internationally recognised thought leaders, speaking at major conferences around the world. One of our directors has been a Microsoft MVP for over seven years—and is the only combined Excel and Data Platform MVP in Australia—highlighting our elite-level expertise.

Global Reach, Local Presence

We deliver world-class training across Australia, Oceania, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, helping professionals and organisations harness the power of Power BI, Excel, and AI. Our expertise extends beyond consultancy—we train and educate thousands of professionals worldwide.

Top-Ranked YouTube Channel

We run one of the world’s top YouTube channels for Power BI and Excel, where thousands of professionals look to us for cutting-edge insights and practical expertise.

Trusted by the Biggest Names

Many of the world’s most trusted and respected companies rely on Access Analytic for innovative, data-driven solutions. Our vast experience across industries means we bring the best global ideas and strategies directly to your business.

Elite Team,
No Juniors

We only give you highly experienced facilitators. Every Facilitator assigned to your training course will have the right mix of expertise in areas such as Power BI, finance, AI, best-practice financial modelling, and data analytics. Our team’s depth of real-world knowledge ensures your business benefits from proven insights that streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and deliver measurable results.

Perth-Based, but Borderless Support

Our team is locally based in Perth, but we run courses all around the world.

Setting the
Standard

At Access Analytic, we don’t just keep up with the industry—we set the standard. Partner with us for world-class expertise, cutting-edge solutions, and long-term success.

Events

Meet Our Speakers

Jeff Robson

Founder & CEO | Data and Financial Modelling Specialist

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Wyn Hopkins

Director | Microsoft MVP | Reporting and Automation Expert

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Yury Tokarev

Director | Financial Modelling and Analytics Expert

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Where We Have Delivered Training

Our Clients

Client testimonials

We are thrilled to have helped hundreds of businesses in Perth and worldwide over the years.

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Trusted by the Biggest Names

Many of the world’s most trusted and respected companies rely on Access Analytic for innovative, data-driven solutions. Our vast experience across industries means we bring the best global ideas and strategies directly to your business. At Access Analytic, we don’t just keep up with the industry—we set the standard. Partner with us for world-class expertise, cutting-edge solutions, and long-term success.

Contact us today to learn more about our Power BI training options