Power up your data storytelling with Power BI, the industry-leading business intelligence platform.

  • Learn about the language of charts, and how they come together to tell your story.
  • Explore Power BI鈥檚 desktop interface, the data model that powers it, and the approaches that add impact to your reporting.
  • Practise preparing data, constructing reports, and adding interactive elements.

Designed to support new and current users of Microsoft’s powerful business intelligence platform, Getting Started with Power BI combines presentation of real-life examples, discussion activities, and hands-on exercises, to inspire you to create truly effective visual assets to share with your colleagues.

Guided by an experienced analyst, you’ll explore the tools available to you in Power BI, following a typical industry scenario from data import right through to polished reports.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

  • Clean and structure data using Power Query
  • Describe the principles of effective data visualisation and good dashboard design
  • Understand how to work with different data formats
  • Create a range of simple visual assets in Power BI
  • Source and create reference data
  • Apply interactive elements to a dashboard in Power BI.

This course is suited for beginner level, provided you have some experience of analysis using Excel or Google Sheets.

Overview

During Getting Started with Power BI, you'll cover: 

  • Data visualisation theory 
    • Knowing your audience 
    • Defining the problem to be solved 
    • Principles of good dashboard design 
  • Basics of using Power BI 
    • Working with common chart types 
    • Managing interactive elements and filters 
    • Editing and updating elements 
  • Using Power Query to clean and structure data 
    • Tabular (Excel, CSV, TSV) 
    • Hierarchical (JSON, XML) 
    • APIs 
    • Web links and scraping 
  • Enriching your data 
    • Sourcing and creating reference data 
    • Building the data model 
    • Using DAX to create parameters and measures. 

Getting Started with Power BI is a live online course, led by an experienced analyst.

The next course takes place Tuesday 9 March 2027, 10am – 4pm.

Getting Started with Power BI costs £245 per person.

You must have a personal laptop or PC with .

Meet the team

This training is designed and delivered by in partnership with 黑料正能量's Short Course Unit. The Data Place is a social enterprise that helps all sorts of organisations and communities use data to supercharge their ambitions.

The Data Place has worked with 黑料正能量 for over two years, providing guest lectures, interview and project feedback and interviews for short course learners, as well as designing industry-led CPD courses that provide real-world experience.

Lucy Knight is an experienced trainer and data scientist with nearly three decades’ experience in industry, government and the non-profit sector. She is an Open Data Institute Associate and Registered Trainer, and Associate Lecturer with 黑料正能量.

The words

Terms and conditions

Read the terms and conditions for taking part in this short course.

Contact us

For more information about the course please email your enquiries to shortcourses@bathspa.ac.uk .