DATA & ANALYTICS ACADEMY

Power BI & Business Data Analytics

From raw business data to an executive dashboard. Learn Power Query, modelling, DAX, visualisation and commercial analysis through practical exercises and a 624-row fictional business dataset.

Download Practice Workbook

18-module learning journey

Build. Analyse. Explain.

This is not just chart-building. Learners are asked to explain what changed, why it matters, where the problem sits and what management should do next.

Final output:

Executive Power BI dashboard + written management recommendations.

LEARNING WORKFLOW

Follow the full analytics process.

Raw Data
Power Query
Data Model
DAX
Visualise
Investigate
Recommend
FULL CURRICULUM

18 in-depth modules

The modules progress from beginner foundations into management-level analysis and an independent final challenge.

M01

Power BI Foundations

Desktop vs Service, interface, report/data/model views and the end-to-end analytics workflow.

M02

Business Data Literacy

Rows, dimensions, measures, granularity, KPIs, targets and asking useful management questions.

M03

Importing Data

Excel, CSV and folder-based imports; data-source settings and refresh concepts.

M04

Power Query Fundamentals

Applied steps, data types, rename/remove, filters and reproducible transformation.

M05

Cleaning Messy Data

Nulls, errors, duplicates, split/merge, replace values and quality checks.

M06

Combine & Append Files

Append weekly files, merge lookup tables and create repeatable folder workflows.

M07

Data Modelling

Fact vs dimension tables, star schema, cardinality and filter direction.

M08

Date Tables

Calendar tables, date relationships, month/quarter/year fields and sorting.

M09

DAX Foundations

Measures, calculated columns, filter context and core aggregation functions.

M10

DAX for Managers

DIVIDE, CALCULATE, variables, conditional logic and reusable KPI measures.

M11

Time Intelligence

YTD, prior year, YoY growth, rolling trends and comparable-period thinking.

M12

KPI & Variance Analysis

Actual vs budget, variance £/%, labour %, productivity, quality and service metrics.

M13

Visual Design

Cards, trends, bars, matrices, conditional formatting and choosing the right visual.

M14

Interactivity

Slicers, drill-through, tooltips, bookmarks and report navigation.

M15

Root-Cause Analysis

Move from headline KPI to site, region, week and driver-level investigation.

M16

Executive Dashboards

Information hierarchy, management storytelling and decision-focused page design.

M17

Publishing & Governance

Workspace concepts, refresh, sharing, permissions, privacy and responsible data handling.

M18

Executive Power BI Challenge

Clean an unseen dataset, model it, write DAX, build a dashboard and present recommendations.

LIVE-STYLE PRACTICE DATA

Analyse a realistic fictional business.

The downloadable workbook contains 12 sites across 52 weeks. Figures are deliberately varied so learners can uncover hidden operational issues.

Executive scenario

The board says revenue is growing, but performance is inconsistent. Build the report and determine which sites need management attention and why.

Records624
Sites12
Weeks52
Core fields14
Example investigation: Which three sites show revenue growth while labour productivity, quality, SLA or error performance is deteriorating?

DAX skills learners will practise

Commercial

Total Revenue • Budget • Variance £ • Variance % • Revenue LY • YoY Growth %

Productivity

Labour Cost • Labour % • Revenue per Labour Hour • Transactions

Operational

Error Rate • Average SLA • Quality Score • Customer Score

Download Excel Dataset & Exercises

Final Executive Power BI Challenge

Learners clean and model data, create measures, build a one-page executive dashboard, identify hidden performance problems and present a concise action plan.

Training status: Independent professional learning using fictional data. It is not Microsoft certification and does not claim Microsoft endorsement. Power BI is a Microsoft product. Learners should use appropriate data-protection and organisational policies with real business data.