Power BI is a Microsoft service for business analytics service developed by Microsoft that enables organizations to visualize their data and share insights in a way that is easy to understand and use. It provides a suite of tools for data analysis, data visualization, and business intelligence (BI) reporting. Power BI can be seen as being used by businesses and data professionals to transform raw data into interactive and visually appealing reports and dashboards.
Power BI’s versatility allows it to be used in many aspects of business in many different industries including Business Intelligence and Analytics: Power BI is primarily used for data analysis and business intelligence. Data professionals, analysts, and data scientists use it to transform raw data into actionable insights. It aids businesses in making data-driven decisions. It can be useful in the Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Accounting departments. As well as Supply Chain, Operations, Retail, and Manufacturing to just name a few, which is why understanding Power BI is a major advantage
If you plan on elevating your intelligence in the realm of business analysts and professionals then learning how to use this tool can be incredibly beneficial for you. Coursera offers top-of-the-line courses that will help you better understand Power BI, and how much of an advantage it is to be fluent in this tool if you are a business professional. We will take a look at the top 5 courses that will improve your skills in Power BI.
For some more information about courses see the following: 5 Best Artificial Intelligence Courses and Best Web 3.0 Courses.
Table of Contents
- Getting Started with Power BI Desktop
- Data-Driven Decisions with Power BI
- From Excel to Power BI
- Use Power BI for Financial Data Analysis
- Data Visualization in Power BI
- Conclusion
Getting Started with Power BI Desktop
This course is a great foundation for beginners who want to get started with BI power desktop. This course will give you a better understanding of how to import and transform data with a Power BI desktop as well as envision data with a Power BI desktop. There are no downloads or installation required for this course, it is only available on desktop.
A cool feature is that this task offers hands-on learning, like practicing new skills by being assigned job-related tasks. This is a project-based course that takes about 2 hours to complete, a very reasonable time for the amount of information you will be receiving. You will also be receiving excellent instruction along the way; you can follow the course with pre-recorded videos from experts using a unique side-by-side interface. Your instructor is Amit Yadav, a Machine Learning Engineer with an interest in building machine-learning products and a machine-learning instructor at Coursera.
In this guided project, you will:
- You will be able to use Microsoft Power BI to load, transform, and visualize data.
- You will be able to create interactive reports, quite easily and quickly.
- Also, you will learn some of the basics of Power BI by importing, transforming, and visualizing the data.
This course has a step-by-step learning style in order to complete the course. It consists of a nine-step process, that exhibits split-screen content with a work area with instructor Amit walking you through the steps. A lot of the skills you learn in this course will directly translate to projects in the real working world.
Data-Driven Decisions with Power BI
Making data-driven decisions with Power BI helps data analysts make informed decisions based on insights and patterns extracted from data visualizations as well as data analysis created using Power BI. This course does a fantastic job of providing new BI students with a notional understanding of the Power BI desktop application and the Power BI service. Numerous hands-on experiences are provided for students to discover how to import, connect, clean, transform, and model their own data in the Power BI desktop application. It truly is the best way to learn this material to help prepare for these projects/problems in the real world. Your instructor for this course is the CEO of Knowledge Accelerators and has 40 years of Customer Service Experience, Keith Gibson so it is safe to say you will be getting quality guidance along the way in this course.
The course length is approximately 13 hours to complete, with a flexible schedule where you can learn at your own place. Another great facet of this course is the career certificate you receive after completion that you can add to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or cover letter.
Some of the key points that you will learn during this course include:
- Data Modeling
- Data-Drive Decision Making
- Group Decision-Making
- Data Analysis
- Report Building
There are 5 five phenomenal learning modules in this course, that will really help students of the course learn how to make better data-driven decisions using Power BI. First, you will take a look at understanding Power BI and Power BI data Analysis. Module 2 will look into the introduction to modeling data and report visualizations. Module 3 will teach students to navigate reports and visualizations. Module four is navigating the Power BI service and finally module 5 will be a final review.
From Excel to Power BI
This course will help its users on how to make use of Excel and Power BI to collect, maintain, share, collaborate, and make data-driven decisions. This course will teach you how to do more with your data if you already have experience previously using Excel to manage, anywise, and visualize data. The course will again be instructed by Keith Gibson whose credentials we already covered.
This course isn’t very time-consuming either, only 3 hours to complete, and is designed for the student to learn at their own pace. There is only one module to complete in this course, called “From Excel to Power BI”. The module will cover how Power BI and Excel tools and mechanisms coexist across Microsoft Excel and Power BI. This means Excel users are positioned to have a clean transition to data modeling and visualization in Power BI.
- What all this means is that this course can:
- Help you to build up a foundation for Power BI knowledge and skills.
- You will be able to import data from Excel straight to Power BI making your analyses a whole lot easier.
- Be able to comprehend the Power BI environment and the three views that come with it, building beginner-to-moderate level skills for navigating the Power BI product.
- You will learn more about important relationships within datasets.
- You are going to be designing Power BI visuals and reports.
- Learn how to build dashboards for presenting and collaborating with peers.
Overall, this course offers an excellent opportunity for Excel users to have a smooth transition from moving from that data tool to Power BI. It will certainly increase your skill and produce some tricks of the trade you would not find out on your own.
Use Power BI for Financial Data Analysis
One of the incredibly strong points of the Power BI tool is the great analysis it aids for financial professionals and analysts. It provides professionals with the capabilities needed to analyze/visualize financial data, gain insights, and make better-informed decisions than other tools. This course does exactly that in teaching all of its students how to utilize Power BI for financial analyses in a profound manner.
The course is taught by Cole Hamilton a Ph.D. working for the Coursera project network and only requires about 2 hours of work, requires a desktop, and is structured in a hands-on learning style like the first course.
This course will truly help you to:
- Navigate the process of importing data into Power BI.
- Create and design a reporting dashboard.
- Publish and share their reports.
- Use Power Query to clean data before creating visuals and reports.
- Find out relationships between data and use reference tables in Power BI.
There are not any modules in this course, but it is a guided project. This is almost a more interactive style of learning for a lot of users because you will be following along at your pace with your instructor correctly, step-by-step until you complete the course. It is all done by a video playing split screen between you and your work area.
Data Visualization in Power BI
The dashboard in Power BI is a visual display of data insights and key performance indicators (KPIs) that provides an integrated view of information from multiple reports and datasets. This course is very important when learning Power BI because creating a dashboard in Power BI is such a powerful way to visually represent and interact with your data. Instructed by data scientist Emmanuel Segui.
Again, this course is a guided project meaning it is a hands-on learning experience that only requires less than two hours of your time. You will learn from an industry expert and practice by getting your hands on real-world job tasks. It is another course you will be learning in a step-by-step interactive style. You’ll be following along with your instructor for 8 steps that he will do an excellent job walking you through.
This course provides its students the opportunity to create interactive dashboards using Power BI Just like how a data analyst uses Power BI to build an interactive dashboard that can track key business metrics to help business investors make the right decisions for their business. Dashboards truly do play a crucial role in data-driven decision-making and communication within organizations.
Conclusion
To sum things up, in the growing landscape of data analytics and business intelligence, Power BI really does stand out as a game-changer in the analytical industry. As we conclude our exploration of the top Power BI courses, it’s evident that acquiring proficiency in this powerful tool is not just a skill but a strategic advantage and certification more companies are looking at to hire you.
These courses offer a structured path for learners of all levels, from beginners to intermediate users, to harness the full potential of Power BI. With the knowledge gained from these courses, you’ll be equipped to tackle complex data challenges, transform raw information into actionable insights, and elevate your career to new heights.
