Continuing With Power BI

In our follow on course from Getting Started With Power BI, continue learning some incredible new Power BI skills and practice your report creation capabilities with a new intermediate and advanced report totalling over 11 hours of video.
During these reports you’ll learn how to make your reports more efficient by connecting to and transforming multiple Excel files at once, protect your reports from unwanted reviewers and improve your ability to give insights with more advanced DAX. You’ll continue to learn how to resolve and avoid refresh errors, see common report planning issues and at course completion, you’ll have downloaded Living With Power BI’s accompanying E-book, as well as other materials, designed to support you in your continuing report writing career.

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Report 3 – Spot the Difference

InIn our intermediate report we’ll compare two sets of data against each other and spotting the differences to ensure that the reports reconcile correctly which any number of different departments including Finance, HR, Sustainability, Sales and others will need to do. This particular reconciliation sorts out differences between two payroll reports. After all, everyone who works gets a payslip, so the subject matter should be pretty familiar!

To be able to identify differences between two reports, we need to be able to match the two reports together somehow. In Excel, we would probably perform an XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP, and in a Getting Started with Power BI we used a merge. Those methods work if your two reports are at the same granularity (level of detail), but what do you do if the two reports are not at that same level of detail, so you can’t match row to row?

In Power BI we can solve this problem using Relationships. Relationships are ways that tables of data can be linked together, and then data from those different tables can be used seamlessly together in visualisations. We also solve the age old problem of needing to add new data to a pre-existing file. In Excel world, someone will need to copy data from a new file and paste it into the old. In Spot the Difference, we go through folder connections, how they work and their pitfalls to consign the copy and paste shenanigans to the history books.

We’ll also talk about how to create conditional columns (creating a column based on whether a statement is true or not) in both Power Query and the Data Model, as well as donut charts, stacked charts and line charts and the filter pane.

In Power BI Online, we’ll learn how to create workspaces so that more than one team member can work on a report, as well as publishing reports to apps so that our reports can be neatly organised online. Finally, we’ll refresh our report and see a refresh error that is really tricky to pinpoint with folder connections, until you know where to look!

Report 4 – A Logistical Analysis

In the second and final practice report, we put everything in Getting Started With Power BI (or other assumed knowledge!) and in Spot the Difference and tackle an analytical report for a fictitious retailer. Our made up company imports goods into a country from different factories around the world, and it’s up to us to keep track of how much money we’ve spent on transport and compare the costs to our budget. Along the way we’ll need to identify particular journeys that have cost us more than we expected, and most importantly, to understand why. This report is as close to a real life analytical report as we can get including having big wide data sources that have tons of columns ( most of which you won’t need), a boss who gives you some only rough guidelines and plenty to figure out as we go along (with the customary lighthearted guidance of course).

We’ll be working a lot with percentages. mostly by comparing budget percentages to actual percentages. That means that this is the report where we really delve into DAX. The DAX functions we’ll learn about (among others!) include CALCULATE, FILTER, ALL, ALLSELECTED and DIVIDE. We’ll discuss the idea of table functions vs scalar functions and use the CALENDAR table function to create a date table, which we will then use to manipulate our budget cost and actual cost table.

A significant question that most companies have to answer when sending out one type of report, is whether to send one report that has all possible information to lots of people, or whether to create lots of reports tailored individually for their recipients. The first option takes less time but means that recipients may see information that the report developers don’t want them to see. The second option means information is more secure but takes a lot more time. Row Level Security in Power BI removes both these problem. Row Level Security filters reports to only show information configured for a reviewer’s profile based on their email address. We go through RLS in this report!

Finally we’ll discuss setting up refresh schedules so that you can create reports that self update, check usage reports so that you know whether your reports are being used, as well as seeing how to solve a tricky little refresh error, the happens due to Power Query being case sensitive but the Data Model not being case sensitive.

As well as new skills, this report will also practice most of the skills we’ve learned to date. To help you practice for going solo in your own work and creating your own reports , the videos will ask you to complete tasks that you already know how to do before continuing with the lessons. If you don’t know how to do a task then you can use your supporting workbooks, or wait for the video to continue!

Report 5 – Going Solo

Not actually a guided report this one, but in these final lessons, we provide some information that can help you with your more complex report creation including:

• Our Living With Power BI E-book, a 200 page picture based pdf covering all the skills learned in the entirety of the Getting Started With Power BI and Continuing With Power BI to have on your phone, computer, or go old school and print out to pop on your desk at work.
• A checklist taking you through the Power BI journey, to guide you through report creation and to go alongside the E-book.
• A prioritisation worksheet to help you identify the best reports in your business to convert to Power BI first or the best projects to get stuck into

Finally, even after Continuing With Power BI, there’s still plenty to learn (I’m still learning after 8 years of practice!) so we finish off with some recommendations of what you could choose to study once finishing the course, to continue your professional development.

Once all lessons and topics are completed, you’ll be able to download your Course Completion certificate, demonstrating the amount of hours spent in watching the videos, which should help for CPD purposes!

Assumed prior knowledge?

This course represents the second two reports in the course Living With Power BI and it is expected that students will either have already completed the first two reports which are taught in the course Getting Started With Power BI. or be familiar with the concepts covered in that course as they will be expected knowledge prior to starting Continuing With Power BI

Power Query	Data Model	Report View	Power BI Online	Refreshing and Errors Resolution
The purpose of Power Query and its layout including the Query Pane, Applied Steps pane, Ribbon, Formula Bar and Preview Screen	The purpose of the Data Model and and its layout including the Data Pane, Data Preview, Ribbon and Formula Bar	The purpose of the Report View and its layout including the Canvas, Data Pane, Filter Pane, Visualisations Pane and Ribbon	Publishing a report to the Power BI Service to your workspace	Understanding and fixing data type errors
Connecting to ,csv and .xlsx	Basic understanding of Row Context	Creation of basic visualisations including Tables, Pie Charts, Funnels, Cards and Text Boxes and how to format them	Exporting data in different formats from the Power BI Service	Understanding and fixing errors due to header name changes
Basic Merging	Basic understanding of referencing tables and columns in DAX	Creation of Slicers and how to format them	Sharing and bookmarking	Understanding and fixing errors due to worksheet name changes
Appending (not covered further in Continuing with Power BI)	Implicit measures
Data Types and their importance	Creating basic explicit aggregation measures including SUM and COUNT
	Basic Understanding of Filter Context

Why choose to learn Power BI?

ToLearning Power BI can be a game-changer for your career, opening doors to in demand roles in data analysis, business intelligence, and strategic decision-making or opening up opportunities in your current role. Businesses across industries rely on Power BI to transform raw data into actionable insights, making professionals with these skills invaluable. Microsoft Power BI has consistently been recognized as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms, reinforcing its dominance in the market and ensuring long-term relevance. With organizations prioritizing data-driven strategies, Power BI expertise can significantly boost earning potential, with salaries for skilled professionals often exceeding industry averages. Whether you’re looking to advance in your current role or pivot into a lucrative field, Power BI is a powerful tool to elevate your career trajectory. Due to the way that Power BI can drive efficiencies and uncover business insights, those who can use Power BI can command a premium of between 10% to 20%, while experienced report developers can earn up to £100k in the UK.

Perhaps this is a less formal answer, but there’s also a real feeling of fulfilment and pride that I get from building a complex report, particularly when it is designed well from start to finish and accomplishes what I set out to achieve. Also (and this is definitely a less formal answer!) being able to use Power BI, particularly if you are in departments where there aren’t many or any Power BI specialists can make you appear like some sort of wizard :-).

Do I have permanent access to the course? >

Yes, once paid for, you have permanent access to the course while the website continues to function!

I’m a complete beginner at Power BI. Can I still take the course? >

No, as noted in the Assumed Prior Knowledge section, some basic to intermediate skills are expected prior to starting this course. If you are a Power BI beginner, then I advise that you take a look at the preceding course Getting Started With Power BI or the full course Living With Power BI to see if either of those courses may be a better fit for you.

What do I need to complete the course? >

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• A PC with Microsoft Excel downloaded. Please note that this course is specifically for PCs not Macs.
• A school or work email address as this is required for downloading Power BI desktop here
• Two screens is helpful, one on which to watch the training videos, and one on which to practice the reports
• While not absolutely necessary, familiarity with basic Excel files also helps as the data that we use to create our reports is stored in Excel files and CSV files. However, in each of the two reports, we open up each of the files that we will use to review the data, so even this familiarity isn’t absolutely required.
• The total run time of the course video is approximately 11 hours. However, as you will follow along with the instructions on the video and there are exercises to complete in the videos, we would recommend leaving 13-14 hours to complete the course.

Are there course materials? How do I access them? >

Tes, the course is supported by course materials including Excel files, text files and PDF guides for each of the skills that we cover. These are available in the introductory lesson section of the course and full instructions on how to get these materials is included. In addition, at the end of the course, there are a number of file downloads at the end of the course to support you in your first attempts at building your own reports, including a complete ‘Living With Power BI E-Book’ that gives picture by picture instructions on how to complete each of the skills that the course covers, as well as templates for identifying reports for creation and setting up your own reports.

What is your refund policy for the course? >

TWe’re sure that you’ll really enjoy this course and find it incredibly useful. However if you would like to cancel your access to the course after paying, then please check our Terms and Conditions which comply with the UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Our Terms and Conditions can be found here

Do I need to complete Getting Started With Power BI before starting this course? >

TAs noted in the Assumed Prior Knowledge section, this course assumes that you already have some basic Power BI knowledge that you wish to expand. You don’t have to have completed Getting Started With Power BI, as long as you are already familiar with the concepts in the Assumed Prior Knowledge section as these skills will either be built on, or will not be covered further in Continuing With Power BI.