Session 1

The workshop begins at 9.30am and starts with an introduction to self-service business intelligence and the Power BI suite of tools:

• Brief overview of the tools
  • Power BI Service, Power BI Desktop & Power BI Mobile
  • Comparison with Excel Power Query and Power Pivot tools
• Overview of the various types of data that can be imported into Power BI
• Preview of the example report we will create during the training

Session 2

During the first morning we will explore the desktop interface and become familiar with connecting to different data sources whilst creating our first interactive example report:

• Desktop interface: Report, Data and Model views, Visualizations panel, etc
• Connecting to various data sources and understanding the difference between Direct Query and importing data
• Using Query Editor to profile the data (check distinct and unique values, etc) then clean and filter data, such as removing rows, find and replacing values, splitting data into separate columns
• Editing, renaming and deleting the applied steps
  • Creating calculated columns including the Column by example tool
• Formatting chart visualisations including adding data labels and hiding axis
• Formatting table and matrix visualisations including applying conditional formatting
• Saving a pbix file

Session 3

During the first afternoon we will understand how to refresh data and deal with common issues such as source data being renamed, moved and changed. We will then focus on how best to design a report:

• Applying a theme
• Including text boxes, shapes, a company logo and a background
• Working with Filters (including slicers, field filters, Top N, page filters v report filters)
• Creating drill through pages
• Using the selection pane effectively
• Turning interactions (cross high lighting) on or off
• Grouping visualisations

Session 4

We will create our first DAX measures.

Session 1

To start the second day, we will learn more about modelling data in Power BI:

• Append, merge and reference queries
• Building the Data Model by creating relationships between the different data sources
• Creating calculated columns in the model v. Power Query
• Creating and using hierarchies
• Using Enter Data to create a parameter table

Session 2

An important focus of day two is the creation of a Date Table

• Change setting for auto dates
• Create a date table using ‘M’
• Sorting columns correctly (date order rather than alphabetically)
• Date hierarchy drill down charts
• Create active and inactive relationships between the date table and your transaction data
• Relative date slicers

Session 3

We will continue learning DAX:

• Understanding Implicit and Explicit Measures
• Organising your measures into one ‘folder’
• Creating some useful DAX functions including
  • COUNTX and COUNTROWS
  • CALCULATE with USERELATIONSHIP
  • SELECTEDVALUE and ISFILTERED
• Using DAX aggregate functions in visualizations
• Using DAX measures to create custom report titles

Session 4

We will finish the workshop by considering how to share the report:

• Save as PDF
• Overview of publishing to Power BI Service workspace and viewing your published report