Here are some tips on how to learn Power BI and how to use it!

Business intelligence platforms, like Microsoft Power BI, make it possible for businesses to generate revenue in ways previously unattainable. Why? When working with BI, one is working with business decisions that are data-driven—collected, analyzed, and understood by the key decision-makers. This is now done with much greater ease and speed.

Power BI, in particular, has features that allow even the data reporting novice to put together comprehensive reports full of actionable data so your business can thrive.

In this article, we explain why learning Power BI is a good strategy to improve your business performance. Check it out!

What is Power BI?

Power BI is the cloud-based analytics and reporting platform developed by Microsoft. Organizations can pull business data from various sources to a central location. The information is then harmonized in such a way that users are able to perform analysis, finding insights pertaining to business performance across all functions.

The platform offers hundreds of options for visualizing data and creating reports. And customizable dashboards make it easy to manipulate these visuals, find insights, share reports, and collaborate — even on mobile.

Getting into the data is so easy that Power BI gives insights for transformative, actionable decisions to be taken by any person in an organization.

Power BI is one of the most popular business intelligence tools available in the market, and it keeps on getting better. Microsoft continually updates the platform to meet the needs of today’s users. This is a major benefit given how the way we work has changed so dramatically in the past year and the value of real-time analytics has moved to the forefront.

How can it help companies in decision making?

Power BI can work with structured data, like the example above, or unstructured data, like blogs, videos, images, and meeting minutes, both on-premises and in the cloud. Data connectors let you point your BI tool to a specific application or dataset and incorporate that data into your queries.

The service can bring together multiple data sources into one view to provide a useful overview of sales, customer complaints, intranet engagement, social marketing results, or almost anything else for which you have raw data.

Switching to Microsoft Power BI is a surefire way for businesses to gain a competitive edge by making smart decisions.

Hence, planning the strategic moves based on insights from the big data enhances the growth potential of the organizations, be it big or small.

Easy-to-use visualization tools provided by Microsoft Power BI give decision-makers an upper hand in making faster decisions. It will help businesses outshine their competitors through value to customers before other brands make their move. The tool comes with features that allow both novice and experienced users to access detailed reports. In turn, it becomes easier to leverage actionable insights.

How to learn Power BI?

Thanks to the popularity of Power BI, there are many educational resources available for aspiring professionals on all aspects of the platform to learn Power BI. They range from the basics to advanced features.

To start working with data modeling, visualization and analytical techniques with the help of Power BI, we recommend starting with the following free training courses.

Power BI — Microsoft Learn

Microsoft Learn is a free online platform that provides access to a suite of training courses for acquiring and improving digital skills. It combines short training sessions, interactive coding environments, browser-based scripting, and task-based learning.

The platform aims to encourage and facilitate the learning of advanced skills and preparation for certification. Training is focused on various types of Azure tools, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, among others.

With Microsoft Learn’s Power BI training courses , you can learn everything from basic processes, such as creating a chart, to more advanced techniques. The platform divides the training into targeted modules, such as:

creation of analysis reports;
data modeling and visualization;
compilation of dashboards;
work with artificial intelligence visuals;
use of temporal data intelligence functions ; among others.

In addition to training, Microsoft Learn offers other types of content, such as articles and tutorials, which are updated regularly. The platform also has a community for sharing experiences using the application.

Microsoft Power BI for Data Science, Version 2.0 — Data Science Academy

Data Science Academy is an online learning platform focused on training in the areas of data science , big data, business intelligence and other related areas. It has free and paid learning paths.

In the platform’s Power BI course , which lasts 72 hours/class, you will learn everything from the basics of the Microsoft application to its use for data science. After finishing the course, you will be qualified to:

connect and extract data from multiple sources;
build interactive dashboards;
analyze data from the platform;
automate processes .

The training is completely free and includes a certificate upon completion.

How to improve your knowledge?

Training is essential to learning data modeling techniques with Power BI, but here are some extra tips to enhance your learning journey.

Embrace the experience

There’s a lot to learn, but don’t start your Power BI skills-building journey thinking you have to know it all. Just like you, we’ve all been at the beginning at one point in time. The best thing about starting now is that there are more people who can teach you things. One of the best ways to start your journey is by joining the Power BI community , which has forums and related content.

We also recommend joining a local user group. Interacting with other Power BI users is a great way to network. These communities connect you with other people like you and open a lot of doors.

Start with the basics

Download Power BI Desktop and open it. Keep it open while you’re looking for new things to learn. Within the tool, there’s a link to guided learning. You can see that it’s incredibly easy to get started. Now you can test what you learn without having to have your own dataset selected.

Find your learning style

One of the best things you can do is figure out which learning methods work best for you. Is it video? Are you a bookworm who will never give up the feeling of paper? Or do you need bite-sized content like blog posts or community posts? Try them all! Once you’ve figured that out, dive into those sources of information.

Ultimately, wherever you are on the skills matrix spectrum, learning Power BI is always an ongoing process. Find the time, figure out a game plan, and execute it. Building your skills and embracing a learning mindset will help you get started in data modeling and business intelligence. It will also help you expand into other areas like data science, analytics, and even artificial intelligence.