Power BI Beginner
Power BI Beginner Course
Learn how to transform raw business data into clear, interactive reports and dashboards using Microsoft Power BI.
Course overview
The Power BI Beginner Course introduces participants to the essential processes involved in business intelligence and data visualization. Participants will learn how to connect to data, clean and transform it, create a basic data model, develop calculations and present the results through interactive reports.
The course uses a practical, step-by-step approach. By the end of the second day, each participant will have created a complete Power BI report from a sample business dataset.
Who should attend?
This course is suitable for:
- Business users who need to analyse operational data
- Executives and managers who use reports for decision-making
- Administrative and finance personnel
- Microsoft Excel users moving into data visualization
- Aspiring business intelligence and data analysts
- Anyone with little or no previous Power BI experience
Course prerequisites
Participants should have:
- Basic experience working with Microsoft Excel
- A general understanding of tables, rows and columns
- Basic knowledge of business reports
- A Windows computer with Power BI Desktop installed
No previous Power BI, database programming or DAX experience is required.
Learning outcomes
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Explain the purpose and major components of Power BI
- Navigate Power BI Desktop confidently
- Connect to Excel, CSV and other common data sources
- Clean and transform data using Power Query
- Combine related data from multiple tables
- Create basic table relationships and semantic models
- Develop basic DAX measures for business analysis
- Create charts, tables, cards, matrices and slicers
- Apply filters and interactive report controls
- Format and organize a professional report
- Publish a report to the Power BI service
Day 1: Getting started and preparing data
| Module | Topic | Course content |
|---|---|---|
| Module 1 | Introduction to Power BI | Business intelligence concepts, Power BI components, Power BI Desktop, Power BI service, reports, dashboards and semantic models. |
| Module 2 | Navigating Power BI Desktop | Report view, table view, model view, ribbon, data pane, visualization pane, filter pane and report canvas. |
| Module 3 | Connecting to data | Importing Excel workbooks and CSV files, selecting tables, previewing data and understanding connection options. |
| Module 4 | Cleaning data with Power Query | Removing unnecessary rows and columns, renaming fields, changing data types, replacing values and handling missing values. |
| Module 5 | Combining data | Appending similar tables, merging related tables and loading transformed data into Power BI. |
| Module 6 | Basic data modelling | Primary keys, foreign keys, table relationships, cardinality and simple one-to-many relationships. |
Day 1 practical exercise
Participants will import a raw sales dataset, correct data-quality problems, combine related tables and create a basic semantic model ready for reporting.
Day 2: Creating interactive reports
| Module | Topic | Course content |
|---|---|---|
| Module 7 | Creating visualizations | Bar charts, column charts, line charts, pie charts, tables, matrices, cards and KPI-style indicators. |
| Module 8 | Filters and report interaction | Visual, page and report filters, slicers, sorting, cross-filtering, cross-highlighting and drill-down. |
| Module 9 | Basic DAX calculations |
Measures and calculated columns, including
SUM, COUNT,
DISTINCTCOUNT, AVERAGE,
MIN, MAX and
DIVIDE.
|
| Module 10 | Formatting reports | Titles, data labels, colours, themes, page backgrounds, visual alignment and consistent report formatting. |
| Module 11 | Report-design principles | Choosing suitable visuals, arranging information logically, reducing clutter and improving report readability. |
| Module 12 | Publishing and sharing | Publishing to the Power BI service, understanding workspaces, viewing reports online, refresh concepts and sharing options. |
| Module 13 | Final project | Developing and presenting a complete interactive sales and business-performance report. |
Day 2 final project
Participants will transform business requirements into a complete Power BI report containing summary indicators, charts, tables, filters and interactive report pages.
Course assessment
Assessment methods
- Short knowledge checks
- Guided practical exercises
- Data-cleaning exercise
- Report-development project
- Final project presentation
Participant deliverable
- Cleaned source data
- Basic semantic model
- Business measures
- Interactive visualizations
- Filters and slicers
- Multi-page Power BI report
Software and equipment
- Microsoft Power BI Desktop
- Microsoft Excel or compatible spreadsheet software
- Windows laptop with internet connectivity
- Power BI account for publishing activities
- Course datasets and practical exercise files
Recommended next course
After completing this course, participants can continue with the Power BI Intermediate Course. The Intermediate course covers advanced Power Query transformations, star-schema modelling, DAX filter context, time intelligence, drill-through, dynamic reports and row-level security.