Audience
This course is for students that are looking to learn how to use the range of Microsoft Power BI tools to refine and model their data into a visual and interactive format. Students considering adopting this course are not required to have any prerequisite knowledge of Power BI or experience working on data modeling related tasks.
No previous experience of Power BI is required
In-Person
Online
Module 1: An Introduction to Power BI
In this module we will give a brief overview of what Business Intelligence is and what Power BI is. Power BI consists of multiple tools, which we will explore the purpose of and their core features. We will also make you aware of some essential resources for user learning about Power BI.
Lessons
What is business intelligence?
Introducing Power BI
Power BI tools and services
Power BI Report Server
Power BI (Online)
Power BI Desktop
Case studies
Support and information
Data stories
Lab 1: Getting Ready
Sign in to Office 365
Download course files
Place data sources into OneDrive
Create further user accounts
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Understand the concepts of business intelligence.
Have an overview of Power BI.
Be aware of the selection of tools available in the Power BI suite.
Know where to go to for support on updates, where to ask questions and which communities to join.
Module 2: Requirements Gathering
Typically, a business intelligence project focuses on a variety of themes and understanding them will help you take your first steps towards successfully completing a BI project. To start a project, this module will help you understand grain statements, a way of understanding what objectives your project is expected to achieve. This will evolve to understanding the full path of a project including discovering, refining and modeling your data to producing reports and dashboards. This may require you to use just the Power BI web service or the Power BI desktop application based on the needs of your project. You will also learn about workspaces and see how to use your personal workspace to take your first steps using the Power BI web service to create a report. Throughout this course, we will be basing our discussions around a fictitious company called House Rules Board Games to bring the training to life.
Lessons
Welcome to House Rules Board Games
Beginning a BI project
Grain statements
Data discovery
Refining information
Modeling data
Building reports
Roles
Publishing
Creating dashboards
Choosing workspaces
Create and share a report in Power BI
Lab 1: Build a report in Power BI web
Connect to an Excel spreadsheet
Build visualisations
Create a dashboard for desktop and mobile users
Share your report and dashboard
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Understand the requirements for a business intelligence project.
Be aware of the stages of a project and which tools to use.
Know how to create a basic report and dashboard in Power BI web.
Module 3: Extract, transform and load data
The Power BI web service is a quick took for creating reports, but it lacks the depth to truly configure your data. In this module we will introduce Power BI desktop, an application that data analysts can use to work on Power BI projects. We will use the application to perform more enhanced data discovery and with that we can refine and format the data. As you will learn in this module, it is not always likely that our data will be a palatable format, therefore learning how to extract, transform and load data as part of a query is essential.
Lessons
Creating a project with Power BI desktop
Pinning an active project
What is in a PBIX file?
Connecting to data sources
Managing data connections
Refine data with Power Query
Applied steps
M code language
Designing your query
Choose columns
Rename columns
Moving columns
Formatting columns
Replacing values
Expanding related columns
Star schemas
Merge columns
Split columns
Custom and conditional columns
Lab 1: Starting a project in Power BI desktop
Creating a new PBIX project file
Connecting to data sources
Use the query editor to refine data
Review the table relationships
Optional – Connect to an Azure SQL database
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Start a new Power BI project using Power BI desktop.
Connect to a range of data sources.
Maintain data connections.
Design a query to refine their data.
Module 4: Creating a data model
A data model is the data found in one or more tables, from one or more sources. These tables can be, and often are, related. Understanding and maintaining these relationships between the tables is essential for optimising your data model so that if performs well for your report views. In addition, it is often the case that although you have connected to all the relevant data sources, it may not provide you will all of the information you require for your report. In this module we will show how to generate more data using Data Analysis eXpression language which is like formulas in Microsoft Excel. You can use this language to create new columns and measures which can provide you with even more data to report on. We will also look at how to structure related data into hierarchies, work with geographical data and introduce row level security which can later be combined with roles.
Lessons
Understanding relationships
Cardinality
Cross filter direction
Hiding tables and columns
Formatting columns
Introducing DAX
Designing calculated columns
Creating measures
Adding lookup tables
Structuring data with dimensional hierarchies
Roles and row level security
Lab 1: Designing a data model
Hide and format table columns
Create calculated columns
Create measures
Using geographical data and lookup tables
Create a dimensional hierarchy
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Format columns.
Review and manage table relationships.
Use DAX to create columns and measures.
Design data hierarchies.
Work with geographical data.
Implement row level security.
Module 5: Designing Reports
Often the part of the project that is seen by most is the report. The report uses information refined and calculated in your data model to create a visual experience that is interactive and tells a clear narrative. To do this, the report utilises a wide selection of visuals which we will focus on in this module. Visuals range from bar charts to maps. This extensive range can be enhanced by accessing the store, which is rich with custom visuals. You can use slicers and filters to help users drill down through your data and navigational buttons to help users move between your report pages.
Lessons
Adding pages and navigation buttons
Using shapes, text and images
Creating a theme
Adding visualisations
Using filters and slicers
Controlling filters
Adding drill throughs
Adding custom visualisations
Configure phone layouts
Report tips
Lab 1: Creating a report
Creating new pages and adding basic content
Adding and configuring visualisations
Design slicers
Create bookmarks and navigational buttons
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Create pages in a report and design navigational buttons.
Add visualisations to a report.
Configure visualisations.
Implement filters and slicers.
Download new custom visualisations.
Module 6: Using workspaces and dashboards
Once you have finalised your report, it is ready to be published. In this module we will cover the last stages of producing a report which covers publishing and configuring a published project. Your ability to publish a project, and to what type of workspace depends on your license, so this module will outline the types of license and workspaces you may encounter. We will also cover dashboards, which are ways that you can share your content and as well as ways you can restrict your content.
Lessons
Power BI licensing
My workspaces
App workspaces
Premium capacity workspaces
Creating a new workspace
Publishing a project
Parallels with Microsoft Excel
Publishers and viewers
Reconnecting with data sources
Introducing the on-premises data gateway
Scheduling the data refresh frequency
Assigning security roles
Creating and populating dashboards
Customising dashboard tiles
Creating tiles using Q&A and quick insights
Creating a mobile dashboard
Sharing reports and dashboards
Publishing apps in a workspace
Publishing content to websites
Lab 1: Publish and share reports and dashboards
Publish your project to Power BI
Create a dashboard
Use quick insights and pin visuals
Use Q&A to query your data source
Share your dashboard with marketing
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Publish your project and understand what licenses are required.
Configure a published data model to refresh periodically.
Understand what features Power BI shares with Microsoft Excel.
Use the on-premises data gateway.
Designate roles for row level security.
Create desktop and mobile dashboards.
Share reports and dashboards.
Publish apps and feature your reports on websites.
