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Skills you'll gain: Algorithms, Analysis, Analytics, Application Development, Big Data, Budget Management, Business Analysis, Business Communication, Change Management, Cloud Computing, Communication, Computational Logic, Computer Architecture, Computer Networking, Computer Programming, Computer Programming Tools, Cryptography, Data Analysis, Data Analysis Software, Data Management, Data Mining, Data Model, Data Structures, Data Type, Data Visualization, Data Visualization Software, Database Administration, Database Design, Databases, Decision Making, Design and Product, Distributed Computing Architecture, Entrepreneurship, Extract, Transform, Load, Feature Engineering, Finance, Financial Analysis, Full-Stack Web Development, General Statistics, Ggplot2, Interactive Data Visualization, Leadership and Management, Machine Learning, Mathematical Theory & Analysis, Mathematics, Network Security, Other Programming Languages, Plot (Graphics), Presentation, Probability & Statistics, Problem Solving, Product Design, Programming Principles, Project Management, R Programming, Research and Design, SQL, Security, Security Engineering, Security Strategy, Small Data, Software Engineering, Software Security, Spreadsheet Software, Statistical Analysis, Statistical Programming, Storytelling, Strategy and Operations, Tableau Software, Theoretical Computer Science, Visual Design, Web Development Beginner · Professional Certificate · 3-6 Months
The Power BI Paginated Reports in a Day video-based course empowers you as a report author with the technical knowledge required to create, publish, and distribute Power BI paginated reports. It comprises almost 4 hours 20 minutes of viewable content—available on demand, and is free of charge. There's also an attendee kit that you can download and use to complete nine hands-on labs. Specifically, the course targets:
After you complete the course, you'll know how to:
Watch the welcome and introduction video to start the course.
Note This video might use earlier versions of Power BI Desktop or the Power BI service. The course of 26 videos is organized into eight modules. We recommend you watch the videos in the recorded sequence, starting with video 01 and ending with video 26. Attendee kitYou can download and set up an attendee kit, which consists of the presentation content and nine hands-on labs:
Note In the localized attendee kit, you will find documents for the following eight languages:
Important You're responsible for having your own Power BI account. If you don't already have one, see Sign up for Power BI as an individual. A newly signed up account can benefit from a 60-day trial license. To complete the labs, you must sign in to Power BI to publish a Power BI Desktop file to a workspace. The publication results in a dataset that's used as a report data source. You will need a Power BI Pro license or Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) license to use a dataset as a report data source. Some lab tasks involve publishing paginated reports to a Power BI service workspace. You can only open a paginated report in the Power BI service when it's saved to a workspace that has its license mode set to Premium per user or Premium capacity. Instructor kitUse this link to download the instructor kit (.zip) locally to your PC. Next stepsFor more information related to this article, check out the following resources:
Learn how to find, collect, and clean data from different sources using Power BI. Take the courseLinkedIn Learning is an online educational platform that helps you discover and develop business, technology-related, and creative skills through expert-led course videos. With more than 5,000 courses and personalized recommendations, you can discover, complete, and track courses related to your field and interests. You can also choose to add these courses and related skills to your LinkedIn profile once you've completed them.
If you have read my previous article on the best Excel courses, you’d know how versatile and indispensable Excel is. Now, if you want to go one step further, there is Microsoft’s business analytics tool, Power BI. Power BI is an excellent software that lets you analyze and visualize your data in minutes to gain actionable insights and improve decision making for your business. In this article, I’ve selected the 10 best free and paid Microsoft Power BI online courses for you from over 200 Microsoft Power BI courses on our catalog by following a well-defined methodology that you can find below. But if you want to jump straight to the results, here are my top 10 picks. You can click on a course to jump to the corresponding section: What is Microsoft Power BI?Power Bi is a business intelligence product suite developed by Microsoft. It is used to visualize data by connecting to various data sources and creating rich, interactive business reports that deliver meaningful insights within your data, thereby helping you make better business decisions. But what exactly is business intelligence? Microsoft states that business intelligence (BI) helps organizations analyze historical and current data, so they can quickly uncover actionable insights for making strategic decisions. Before using Power BI, it’s good to know what data modeling is. According to Microsoft, data modeling is the process of analyzing and defining all the different data your business collects and produces, as well as the relationships between those bits of data. Why are Power BI skills important?Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. Forrester recognizes Microsoft as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Augmented BI Platforms, Q3 2021. According to Forrester, in 2020, 49% of data and analytics decision-makers at firms with an advanced level of insights-driven business maturity expect their organization to use augmented BI platforms, compared with only 31% at firms with a beginner level of maturity. In 2020, two-thirds of data and analytics decision-makers reported that their organization was recruiting more talent with advanced data and analytics skills. Moreover, data and analytics decision-makers said their organization allocated as much as 45% for combined investments in reporting, dashboards, performance management, data exploration, and OLAP. “It is hard not to consider Power BI as your top choice for an enterprise BI platform, especially if your organization plans to deploy most of its business and productivity applications and store and process most of the data on Microsoft Azure”. What is my experience with Power BI?I am a Guided Project Instructor at Coursera. I am also a Beta Tester at Coursera, having tested many courses before they’re officially launched. I have taken over 50 online courses in various subjects. My experience as an online learner and teacher has given me some perspective on what to look for in an online course. I used my experience to evaluate each course in this list. Course Ranking MethodologyI built this ranking following the now tried-and-tested methodology I used in previous rankings (you can find them all here). It involves a three-step process:
The end result is a unique selection of courses that combines a decade of Class Central data and my own experience as an online learner to try to get the best of both worlds. So far, I’ve spent more than 16 hours building this list, and I’ll continue to update it. Course Ranking StatisticsHere are some statistics regarding this course ranking:
So without further ado, let’s get to my picks for the best Microsoft Power BI online courses. 1. Microsoft Learn Resources (Microsoft)My first pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is a collection of free-to-audit courses offered by Microsoft on Microsoft Learn. Here are the four Microsoft Learn resources I have selected: These courses do not offer certificates for themselves. However, Data analysis in Power BI and Model data in Power BI can help you prepare for Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate certification and Exam PL-300: Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst. What You’ll LearnConsume data with Power BI (3 modules)
Design effective reports in Power BI (6 modules)
Data analysis in Power BI (2 modules)
Model data in Power BI (3 modules)
How You’ll LearnThe courses are broken down into 3, 6, 2 and 3 modules respectively. Each module involves about 2 hours of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos, readings and practice quizzes.
One Thing to NoteThe Sales and Marketing app, required for Consume data with Power BI, is provided with the course. 2. Microsoft Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence (Udemy)Chris Dutton, instructorMy second pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is Microsoft Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence on Udemy. Designed for Windows users, this course is a comprehensive, hands-on guide to learning Microsoft Power BI Desktop. This is a project-based course, and the instructors will guide you through each step using detailed explanations and helpful pro tips. What You’ll LearnFirst, you’ll learn how to connect and transform the raw data. You’ll be introduced to the Power BI Query Editor, types of Power BI data connectors, basic table transformations, text, number and date tools, and index and conditional columns. You’ll also learn about grouping and aggregating data, pivoting and unpivoting, modifying, merging and appending queries, connecting to folders, defining hierarchies and categories, query editing, and Power BI best practices. Next, you’ll build a relational data model. You’ll be introduced to database normalization, data (“fact”) tables vs. lookup (“dimension”) tables, create Power BI table relationships, and learn about “star” vs. “snowflake” schemas. Also, you’ll learn about active vs. inactive relationships, relationship cardinality, connecting multiple data tables, filtering and cross-filtering, hiding fields from the Power BI report view, and data modeling and Power BI best practices. After that, you’ll learn to add calculated fields with DAX. You’ll be introduced to Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), calculated columns vs.measures, row context vs.filter context in Power BI, DAX syntax and operators, and common Power BI functions. You’ll also learn about basic date and time formulas, logical and conditional statements, text, math and stats functions, joining data with RELATED, and work with CALCULATE, ALL and FILTER Functions. Then you’ll work with DAX iterators (SUMX, AVERAGEX), time intelligence formulas, and learn some of the DAX and Power BI best practices. Moving on, you’ll learn how to design interactive Power BI reports. You’ll be introduced to the Power BI report view, and learn about adding basic charts to Power BI reports, formatting and filtering options, matrix visuals, slicers and timelines, and cards and KPIs. You’ll take a look at Power BI map visuals (basic, fill, ArcGIS), treemaps, lines, areas and gauges, and learn about editing report interactions, adding drillthrough filters, linking to report bookmarks, using “What-If” parameters, and managing and viewing roles. Finally, you learn about publishing to Power BI service and Power BI data viz best practices. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 9 sections. Most sections involve about 1 to 3 hours of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos, readings and quizzes. This is a project-based course. Your job will be to design and deliver a professional-quality, end-to-end business intelligence solution, created only using Power BI. Paid learners can complete the graded assessments to earn a course-completion certificate.
One Thing to NoteExperience with Excel Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX will be helpful, but that’s optional. Fun Facts
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 3. Introducción a Power BI para los negocios (València)Ignacio Despujol Zabala, instructorMy third pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the free-to-audit Introducción a Power BI para los negocios, offered by Universitat Politècnica de València on edX. All you have to do is understand Spanish to be able to take this course. Packed with ample practice opportunities, this course covers the major topics that you need to know in order to analyze data in Power BI to make better business decisions. What You’ll LearnIn module 1, you’ll understand what Power BI is. You’ll be introduced to Power BI and Power BI Desktop, and get examples in Power BI. In module 2, you’ll learn about loading data with Power Query. You’ll be introduced to Power Query, and learn about importing text files, working with the columns in the import, importing databases with multiple tables, and using calculated fields and query merge. Module 3 is all about data models and measurements. You’ll be introduced to data modeling, and learn how to add fields to a table, understand dates and hierarchies, bring all fields to a table, and work with measures in modeling. Next, in module 4, you’ll understand data visualization. You’ll be introduced to data visualization, and take a look at general recommendations on information panels, the Power BI canvas, basic options, and most common visualizations. You’ll also use specific visualizations, filters, and navigate a hierarchy. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 4 modules. Each module involves about 4 to 5 hours of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos, readings and practice quizzes. Throughout the course, there are ample practice quizzes and graded assessments. These provide a good opportunity for you to practice what you’ve learned. Paid learners can complete the graded assessments to earn a course-completion certificate.
Fun FactsIf you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 4. Power BI Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)Gini von Courter, instructorMy fourth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the free-to-audit Power BI Essential Training on LinkedIn Learning. You can access all the videos of this course for free. This is a short and concise course but teaches all the important topics of Power BI that you need to know in order to create and share visualizations with others in your organization. What You’ll LearnIn the first module, you’ll get started with an overview of Power BI concepts, and learn to sign up and navigate in the Power BI service. Then, you’ll learn how to get data with an overview of data sources, how to get existing content, create refreshable data files, upload a CSV file, upload an Excel workbook, and connect to a sample. Next, you’ll create a report with visualizations. Learn how to create a new report, create and arrange visualizations, format a visualization, and create chart visualizations. You’ll also use text, map and gauge visualizations, use a slicer to filter them, sort, copy, and paste visualizations, and download and use a custom visual from the gallery. After that, you’ll learn how to modify and print a report by managing pages, adding a filter to a page or report, setting visualization interactions, printing a report page, and exporting to PowerPoint or PDF. Then you’ll move on to create and manage dashboards, pin a report tile to a dashboard, pin a live report page to a dashboard, pin a tile from another dashboard, and add a tile to a dashboard. You’ll add a comment or alert to a tile, subscribe to a dashboard or report, build a dashboard with Quick Insights, create a mobile view, and set a featured (default) dashboard. You’ll also ask questions about your data, ask a question with Power BI Q&A, and tweak your dataset for Q&A. Moving on, you’ll learn to share data with colleagues and others with reports and dashboards, publish a report to the web, manage published reports, embed a report in SharePoint Online, and share a dashboard or report. You’ll also create a workspace for collaboration, add users to it, publish an app, and create a QR code to share a tile. Next, you’ll learn how to use Power BI Mobile Apps with view reports and dashboards on a mobile device, use workspaces in the mobile app, manage sharing Mobile, and present data using the Windows app. Finally, you’ll learn how to use Power BI Desktop. You’ll install and launch Power BI Desktop, get data, reduce data, transform data, relate tables, get data with the Power BI service, and export a report from Power BI service to Desktop. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 9 modules. Each module involves about 15 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos, practice exercises and 10 quizzes. Free trial is available for this course. Paid learners can complete the graded assessments to earn a course-completion certificate.
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 5. Curso Power BI – Análisis de Datos y Business Intelligence (Udemy)What you’ll learnMy fifth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is Curso Power BI – Análisis de Datos y Business Intelligence on Udemy. This is a fairly extensive and comprehensive course on Power BI. Totally project-based, this course gives an interactive, hands-on approach to learning the software. You only need to know Spanish in order to take this course. Take a look at what learners are saying.
What You’ll LearnYou’ll begin the course by learning about the Power BI Desktop interface. You’ll take a look at Power BI blocks, get data from Excel, prepare data with Query Editor, perform data modeling, work with lists, pie charts, and bar charts, visualize data with cards and slicer filters, and format the report. As bonus, you’ll use the Slicer Finder, filtering in Data View vs Query Editor, and modify page options. You’ll understand relationships of data tables, prepare data with Conditional Column, make treemaps, work with slicers and maps format, map data colors, correlate data with Scatter Chart, and use conditional formats. As bonus, you’ll learn to show and export data, use filter options, hierarchy levels, and hierarchy groups. You’ll use DAX functions such as COUNT, AVERAGE, YEARFRAC, create group columns with DAX, import themes and edit formatting, change pages with bookmarks, and publish reports to the web. For more bonus, you’ll open a web link from the report, and create filled maps. You’ll also get and update changes to data, use the CALCULATE function, work with KPI and meter visualizations, understand category relationships, interactions and synchronize segmenters, and conditional formatting rules. Next, you’ll perform budget analysis, view earnings with profit indicators, and as bonus, use the analytics dashboard, take a look at Power BI Free, Pro and Premium accounts, Power BI Mobile, share a dashboard, and understand implicit measures and table updates, date functions, logical and conditional functions, and text functions. You’ll also learn other functions such as RELATED, mathematical and statistical functions, COUNT, CALCULATE, ALL/FILTER, SUMX, RANKX, SWITCH, and use Forecast and Parameters (What-If). Finally, you’ll work with calendar tables with DAX and M, connect documents and troubleshoot, and learn how to create backgrounds and interfaces for reports, visualization of decomposition trees, and key influencers visualization. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 10 sections. Most sections involve about 25 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos and readings. This is a project-based course. Throughout the course, you’ll learn by creating a number of projects. Paid learners can complete the projects to earn a course-completion certificate.
Fun Facts
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 6. Power BI Data Methods (LinkedIn Learning)Helen Wall, instructorMy sixth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is Power BI Data Methods on LinkedIn Learning. This course focuses on the data end of Power BI, also known as Power Query (the same Power Query found in Excel). Instructor Helen Wall will teach you how this part of the application can automate the data querying process and restructuring of data sets. What You’ll LearnYou’ll start the course by learning about the Power BI ecosystem. You’ll understand ETL (extract, transform, and load) and focus on Power Query. You’ll extract files, connect to CSV or text files, manually enter data, connect to an Excel file, connect to a PDF file, and connect to folders. You’ll also extract databases, connect to databases, compare data connection modes, and understand query folding and native queries. You’ll extract data from the Web, connect to web tables, query API data, and query REST API connections. Next, you’ll configure odata feeds, install Python, and run Python scripts. You’ll also transform data (cleaning), leverag metadata, leverag data types, make initial field transformations, split fields, merge fields, clean text fields, and transform numerical fields. You’ll also remove or replace values, filter and remove duplicates, access native query in cleaning, transform data (integration), work with table objects, list and record objects, binary objects, group data, pivot data, transpose data, unpivot data, and access native query in integration. After that, you’ll transform data (enrichment), leverage text formulas, use conditional formulas, fill up or down columns, leverage date formulas, combine binary files with formulas, and access native queries in enrichment. You’ll then leverage M language logic and syntax, work with Query Editor steps, break down syntax, rename steps in M, consolidate M steps, add data types as custom M code, and connect to zipped binary data. Next, you’ll leverage M Language objects, utilize parameters, create list objects, reference a list as a column in a table, leverage record objects, leveraging list functions, create data tables, loop with lists, and combine list objects. Finally, you’ll leverage M language custom functions, set up custom functions, convert queries into functions, configure custom filtering, load data, configure loading options, fix errors, refresh data, join sets of data, and work with composite models. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 10 modules. Each module involves about 30 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos, practice exercises and 10 quizzes. Free trial is available for this course. Paid learners can complete the graded assessments to earn a course-completion certificate.
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 7. Power BI Examples, Demos & Tutorials (Chandoo)Chandoo, instructorMy seventh pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the free Power BI Examples, Demos & Tutorials, offered by Chandoo on YouTube. As the name suggests, this YouTube playlist consists of numerous Power BI examples, demonstrations and tutorials all in one package. Chandoo will take you through long videos, interactively explaining the concepts in detail. He also provides downloadable example files. What You’ll LearnThis course consists of tutorials covering different concepts of Power BI. This collection of tutorials will start from the essentials up to some advanced techniques. You’ll begin the course by learning how to load and clean-up data, build a data model, use DAX and Power Pivot to build measures and calculations, create and change visuals, and understand trends and create forecasts in Power BI. You’ll also learn how to customize visuals and interaction effects, create a comprehensive sales performance report, save and publish Power BI files, understand the update and data refresh process, and get additional resources to learn and master Power BI. Next, you’ll understand how to create advanced dashboards, panel charts with R (a programming language), conditionally format visuals, add labels, get dynamic chart titles, make variance charts, and learn important data and business Intelligence terms. After that, you’ll get started with Power Pivot and DAX, compare dashboards in Power BI and Excel, add a measure and a column in DAX, and understand setup a star schema data model in Power BI. You’ll also learn easy tips and tricks to improve your Power BI reports, and make comparisons between Excel and Power BI to understand their differences in various scenarios. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 27 videos. Each video involves about 15 to 30 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos and practical examples. All downloadable files such as example and demo files are provided with the course. To access them, go to the course page on Class Central, click on Start learning and go to Direct link. This will take you to YouTube. There, you can download the files from the Description of each video.
Fun Facts
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 8. Building Your First Power BI Report (Pluralsight)Stacia Misner Varga, instructorMy eighth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the Building Your First Power BI Report on Pluralsight. You can access all the videos of this course for free. After completing this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge to create simple business reports in Microsoft Power BI and also publish your work to the Power BI service in the cloud. What You’ll LearnYou’ll begin the course by learning how to prepare data for Power BI. You’ll get an overview of Power BI, import data, import your data source, transform data, eliminate columns in a query, filter rows in a query, fix metadata, duplicate a query, and split by delimiter. Then, you’ll learn how to use the unpivot transformation, cleanse data, replace values, and create data models in Power BI. You’ll then be introduced to the Power BI data model. You’ll be able to define table relationships, configure model properties, and review and change the demonstration model’s properties. Next, you’ll add calculations, create a calculated column, create a measure, create reports, understand report development workflow, report elements, add visualizations to a report, add static elements to a report, and use customization options. You’ll also customize visualizations, use conditional formatting and Web URLs, format a page and design the mobile layout, report publication, publish a report, and create a dashboard. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 3 modules. Each module involves about 20 to 30 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through short videos.
Fun Facts
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 9. Power BI Training (Learnit Training)Adding visuals in Power BIMy ninth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the free Power BI Training, offered by Learnit Training on YouTube. Consisting of 9 long videos, this is a very detailed and elaborate course. The level of this course starts as “beginner” and moves up to “advanced” step-by-step. The videos can be exhaustive, so take your time to complete them part-by-part. The exercise files are provided as well. What You’ll LearnYou’ll start the course by learning how to get data, tour Report View, Data View and Model View. You’ll work with tables, explore Web data inconsistencies, optimize performance with Excel files and Power Pivot data model, work with Pivot Tables, resolve errors, and understand cloud-based Excel files. Next, you’ll learn about data shaping, enhance data structures, design data models, work with tables, create hierarchy, understand cardinality, review model interfaces, create RLS roles, use table functions such as DATEDIFF, RANKX Highest, RANKX Lowest, RANKX Dense, and create measures and date tables. You’ll then learn about time intelligence functions, optimize model performance, publish dataset to Service, use DirectQuery, variables, build measures, work with pie charts, filter and sort reports, sync slicers, create drill through pages, and use Conditional Formatting. After that, you’ll work with bookmarks, use accessibility features, create histograms, create and work with dashboards, forms and push datasets, access Power Automate, and understand various dashboard features. You’ll also learn about loading sample data, creating paginated reports, sorting reports in Design View, adding report headers, performing Advanced Analytics, using different features of Advanced Analytics, getting data insights through AI Visuals, and creating animated scatter charts. Then. you’ll learn about the share options, copy reports to other workspaces, create and publish apps, manage datasets, create and edit parameters, use refresh options. In the next part of the course, you’ll revise the above topics in more detail. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 9 modules. Each module involves about 2 to 3 hours of work. Concepts are taught through a combination of videos and practice exercises. All downloadable exercise files are provided with the course. To access them, go to the course page on Class Central, click on Start learning and go to Direct link. This will take you to YouTube. There, you can download the files from the Description of each video.
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. 10. Data Literacy: Essentials of Power BI (Pluralsight)Mihaela Danci, instructorMy tenth pick for the best Microsoft Power BI online course is the Data Literacy: Essentials of Power BI on Pluralsight. This is perhaps the shortest course on this list. This means that within less than an hour, you’ll be able to learn the key concepts of Power BI and apply them to perform basic tasks in the software. This course comes with a 10-day free trial for new Pluralsight learners. What You’ll LearnIn this course, you’ll discover Power BI, what Power BI is, and create interactive reports, paginated reports, and create content with Power BI. You’ll also learn how to get and clean data, and model, visualize and share data. Finally, you’ll get demos on importing data, cleaning data, modeling data, creating content, and sharing a report. How You’ll LearnThe course is broken down into 2 modules. Each module involves about 20 minutes of work. Concepts are taught through short videos.
Fun Facts
If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here. |