Course Description and Format

In this 7 hour online learning course on Power BI, you will learn how Excel files and CSV files can be turned into beautiful, insightful and time saving Power BI reports, first by learning the four elements of Power BI in Pre-Report Learning followed by developing two different reports. The first report is a novice report and will take approximately 2 hours to complete while the second, more complex report will take around 4 hours to finish.

Finally at the end of the course, you’ll receive a Course Completion Certificate verifying the 7 hour course completion time – just perfect for those CPD requirements!

Pre – Report Learning

In pre – report learning we lay the theoretical foundations of how Power BI works. We’ll discuss what Power BI is and how it works, as well as the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Online and then go onto the four elements of Power BI that are used to create, show and refresh reports. They are:

• Power Query, which allows us to connect our Power BI files to a variety of data sources and then transform the structure of that data so that it’s easy to use in the Data Model.
• The Data Model which is where we link our datasets together, create new columns of data as well as create dynamic column totals called measures, using Power BI’s analytical code called DAX.
• The Report View where we present our data in beautiful, easy to understand visualisations (graphs and charts) and then…
• Finally publish the whole reports up on Power BI Online, so that others can delight in your report
  
  Once we’ve discussed the theory, then we’ll open up Power BI and walk through the four elements in Power BI itself so that you can see how the different parts of Power BI work together to create some beautiful reports.

Report 1 – Supplier Invoices

We start off with a novice report which you’ll be done and dusted with in around 2 hours. This report is all about turning a single CSV file, filled with a list of supplier invoices, into a simple Power BI report that:

• calculates the total spend with suppliers,
• counts the amount of invoices and
• calculates the average cost of an invoice.
  
  We’ll cover the most straightforward of report connections and dataset transformations in Power Query and then load the data to the Data Model, where we’ll understand how to create implicit measures (Power BI does it for us really if you ask it nicely). We then create a simple report using card visualisations and table visualisations to present our aggregations and then segregate our aggregations by different dimensions such as Supplier Name, Location and Department.
  
  We then introduce the idea of filter context, which is fundamental to understanding how Power BI creates its graphs and charts and which we’ll look at in every report. Once our report is created, we’ll learn how to change a supporting dataset and use the refresh button, so that our Power BI reports can be updated (literally) at the click of a button!
  
  Finally, we publish the report to our personal workspace on Power BI Online and learn how to export the report to PDF, Powerpoint and Excel ready for those reviewers, not yet ready for Power BI, to interrogate.

Report 2 – Procurement Review

After the novice report, we move onto an easy report that practices and builds on the knowledge gained from the ‘Supplier Invoices’ report. In our Procurement Review report we’ll create a report that:

• matches two tables together; a Purchase Order table and an Invoices Received table (like a VLOOKUP but better)
• identifies purchase orders that haven’t been billed yet
• works out which invoices don’t match their purchase order values
  
  In Procurement Review, we build on our CSV connection knowledge from Supplier Invoices to connect to a .xlsx report, which is slightly more complex than a CSV file connection which we also practice (you’ll be fine). In Power Query we then introduce the concepts of merging, which joins together two datasets, and removing columns and rows that we don’t need.
  
  In the Data Model we’ll develop the theme of implicit measures from Supplier Invoices by creating explicit measures using DAX and look in more depth at the concept of filter context as well as introducing row context by creating calculated columns.
  
  In the Report View, we’ll bring in some slicers which are like buttons that your report reviewers can use to interact with the report as well as category charts, like pie charts. We’ll learn about the filter pane too and then publish our report to Power BI Online, where we’ll learn how to share a report with other people, if you have at least Power BI Pro, and bookmark particular views of data.