Review of Advanced Microsoft Power BI course on LinkedIn Learning
I always strive to learn new skills and over the summer I did a course on Power BI using LinkedIn learning called “Advanced Microsoft Power BI”- https://www.linkedin.com/learning/advanced-microsoft-power-bi .
What is Power BI?
Power BI is Microsoft’s key data analytics tool that allows enterprises to create spectacular dashboards, reports by connecting several different data sources into one interesting and enticing story-line. This analytical tool is very powerful and is a very strong SaaS offering from Microsoft that has been recognized by the industry as a leading solution. Power BI can be used on your desktop or in the cloud negating the requirement to install it on numerous machines.
Because I was very much interested on the visual aspect and the fact that I have experience within Tableau I wanted to extend my skills, and Power BI is also an extremely popular and useful tool, so it made sense to learn more of the fundamentals.
Course Structure
1.How the Power BI platform works
2. Working with Data
3.Query Editor
4.DAX Language
5.Introduction to DAX Formulas
6.Advanced DAX Calculations
7.Graphing and Dashboard Design
What I liked from the course:
The course was detailed and went over the key functionalities of Power BI as well as going over the different data sources the system supports, major differences compared to Tableau.
The data that is used during the exercises is interesting and goes over the different steps in a lot of detail, which is useful if you are new to Power BI. The most interesting part for me was the DAX language, which lets you create your own bespoke calculations. The DAX language in my opinion is very similar to the normal Excel functions creation and I believe it was intentional as a lot of people are already used to the syntax. The DAX languages is more powerful as it allows you to filter, put exclusions and calculations of multiple types on the data. These then becomes embedded in your dashboard, thereby forgoing tedious refreshes and re-scales. Another benefit show during the course is that even if something seems complicated at first you can always find a solution using a simple trial and error approach. Another aspect which I found useful is that the course was very practical in nature, where you join multiple data sources, and by going through the steps you learn more about how the Extract, Transform and Load(ETL) process works in Power BI, which is extremely useful.
The other useful thing is that at the end of important sections you get quizzed on your knowledge, which is very important as the course tries to emphasize the key topics and tests you on them.
What I didn’t like about the course:
With any course there are some downsides.
I would have definitely preferred to have some more time spent on building stunning Power BI reports given that wrangling with the data is half of the work. The other half is actually creating an enticing story-line that tells us what the data is showing, which can be a very powerful, especially when presenting your results to senior stakeholders. Also, I would have definitely appreciated some examples of embedding custom R/Python scripts withing the overall calculations as this could definitely improve the functionality of the dashboards if you have to build something more bespoke.
Also Power BI is a very functional tool but any course can only go over a small section of the different capabilities. The best solution is to practice it using the free-tier version.
Conclusion
Overall I liked the course and I found the content and exercises quite interesting and informative. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to get more familiar with Power BI and its’ powerful visuals and analytics that would enable you to become a master of data in your team.
