Two-Day Expert Development Course

Power BI Advanced Course

Design scalable semantic models, develop advanced DAX solutions, optimize performance and manage secure enterprise Power BI deployments.

Level Advanced

Duration 2 Days

Delivery Expert Workshop

Prerequisite Strong Power BI Skills

Course overview

The Power BI Advanced Course is designed for experienced Power BI developers and data analysts who need to create scalable, secure and high-performance analytical solutions.

The course moves beyond standard report development. Participants will explore enterprise semantic-model design, advanced relationship patterns, complex DAX evaluation contexts, calculation reuse, performance optimization and security architecture.

Participants will also examine connectivity choices, refresh strategies, development lifecycle management, deployment pipelines and governance practices for organizational Power BI environments.

Advanced learning approach Participants will diagnose, redesign and optimize an existing Power BI solution before creating an enterprise deployment and governance plan.

Who should attend?

This course is suitable for:

Experienced Power BI report developers
Senior business intelligence and data analysts
Semantic-model developers and analytics engineers
Power BI solution architects and technical consultants
Power BI workspace and content owners
Professionals responsible for BI governance and deployment

Course prerequisites

Participants should already be able to:

Perform complex Power Query transformations
Design a star-schema semantic model
Configure table relationships and filter directions
Develop DAX measures using CALCULATE and FILTER
Implement standard time-intelligence calculations
Publish and manage content in the Power BI service

Completion of the Power BI Intermediate Course or equivalent professional experience is strongly recommended.

Learning outcomes

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

Design scalable and maintainable semantic models
Resolve complex and many-to-many modelling scenarios
Develop advanced context-sensitive DAX measures
Create cumulative, ranking and segmentation measures
Implement reusable calculation patterns
Diagnose inefficient DAX queries and report visuals
Optimize model size and report performance
Select appropriate connectivity and semantic-model modes
Design scalable refresh strategies
Implement dynamic row-level security
Plan controlled development and deployment processes
Apply governance and content-management practices

Core capability areas

Advanced modelling

Build scalable semantic models for complex organizational reporting requirements.

DAX engineering

Develop reusable, context-aware measures for sophisticated analytical scenarios.

Performance

Diagnose model, DAX and visual performance using systematic optimization techniques.

Architecture

Select appropriate connectivity, storage and refresh strategies.

Security

Protect data with dynamic security and controlled permissions.

Deployment

Manage development, testing, release and governance processes.

Day 1: Advanced modelling, DAX and performance

Module	Topic	Course content
Module 1	Enterprise semantic-model design	Model granularity, reusable semantic models, shared dimensions, conformed dimensions, role-playing dimensions and model maintainability.
Module 2	Complex modelling patterns	Many-to-many relationships, bridge tables, factless fact tables, multiple fact tables and disconnected tables.
Module 3	Advanced relationship techniques	Active and inactive relationships, role-playing dates, USERELATIONSHIP, virtual relationships and TREATAS.
Module 4	Advanced DAX evaluation	Evaluation context, row context, filter context, context transition, expanded tables, iterators and nested calculations.
Module 5	Advanced DAX patterns	Rankings, cumulative totals, rolling averages, dynamic segmentation, Pareto analysis, virtual tables and context-sensitive measures.
Module 6	Calculation reuse	Calculation groups, reusable time-intelligence patterns, dynamic measure selection and dynamic format-string concepts.
Module 7	Semantic-model optimization	VertiPaq concepts, column cardinality, data types, unnecessary columns, calculated columns, model size and compression.
Module 8	Performance diagnostics	Performance Analyzer, visual query analysis, DAX query inspection, identifying bottlenecks and improving slow reports.

Day 1 optimization challenge

Participants will evaluate an inefficient Power BI solution, identify modelling and DAX problems, reduce model complexity, rewrite selected measures and compare report performance before and after optimization.

Day 2: Architecture, security and deployment

Module	Topic	Course content
Module 9	Connectivity architecture	Import mode, DirectQuery, live connection, composite models, Direct Lake concepts and selecting an appropriate model for business requirements.
Module 10	Query folding and source optimization	Query folding concepts, transformation placement, reducing source queries, filtering early and designing efficient Power Query processes.
Module 11	Refresh architecture	Refresh strategies, parameters, incremental refresh concepts, gateways, credentials, refresh monitoring and failure diagnosis.
Module 12	Advanced security	Dynamic row-level security, user identity functions, organizational hierarchies, security tables and object-level security concepts.
Module 13	Workspace and app security	Workspace roles, app audiences, build permissions, semantic-model permissions and least-privilege access.
Module 14	Content lifecycle management	Development, testing and production stages; change control; release management; version planning and rollback considerations.
Module 15	Deployment and collaboration	Deployment pipelines, Power BI Project files, report and semantic-model separation, source-control concepts and team development practices.
Module 16	Governance and administration	Content ownership, naming standards, endorsements, certification, sensitivity labels, lineage and governed self-service analytics.
Module 17	Enterprise capstone	Designing and presenting a scalable, secure and governed Power BI solution for an enterprise business scenario.

Day 2 enterprise capstone

Participants will design an end-to-end Power BI architecture covering data sources, semantic modelling, connectivity, refresh, security, workspace structure and deployment from development to production.

Advanced DAX functions and patterns

Context and virtual tables

CALCULATETABLE
SUMMARIZE
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS
ADDCOLUMNS
TREATAS
USERELATIONSHIP

Iterators and advanced analysis

SUMX
AVERAGEX
RANKX
TOPN
ISINSCOPE
SELECTEDVALUE

Course assessment

Assessment methods

Advanced modelling challenge
DAX problem-solving exercises
Performance-diagnostics activity
Dynamic-security design scenario
Enterprise architecture capstone

Participant deliverable

Optimized semantic model
Advanced reusable DAX measures
Performance-analysis results
Dynamic row-level security design
Refresh and connectivity strategy
Development-to-production deployment plan

Software and equipment

Current version of Microsoft Power BI Desktop
Windows laptop with internet connectivity
Power BI account with access to the required service features
Course semantic models and performance exercise files
Optional approved modelling and diagnostic tools specified by the instructor

Completion pathway

This course completes the three-level Power BI learning pathway: Power BI Beginner, Power BI Intermediate and Power BI Advanced.

After completing the Advanced course, participants can continue developing specialized expertise in Power BI administration, Microsoft Fabric, enterprise data engineering, analytics architecture or preparation for Microsoft Power BI certification.