Data analysis and analytics. Uncover insights and transform your organisation.

This one-day Power BI Business Analytics Course will help you develop skills in applying Power BI in a business analytics context. You will learn how to read trends and interpret data using Power BI, upgrading your business intelligence skills.

We will commence with an overview of Power BI. Basic functions taught include how to aggregate, visualise, analyse and share data. The course will then show you how to model data in Power BI and create visual reports that reveal data insights.

We will then link Power BI to business analytics by connecting to data sources, using the query editor and modeling data. We will build your skills by creating a data visualisation, and will then develop a dashboard for reporting. From this output, story-telling skills in communicating key analytics insights will be practiced, including trend analysis.

Specific analytics techniques covered in the course include operational analytics (measures of variability and error), decision-making analytics (scenario planning, payoff matrices and decision trees), financial analytics (ratios, variances), customer experience (CX), user experience (UX) and digital marketing metrics.

Aims

The course aims to build your skills in using Power BI, and using Power BI for analysis and storytelling.

Outcomes

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

• produce an analytics report using Power BI
• translate metrics into meaningful infographics
• report on trends by analysing the underlying data
• combine data from different sources to visually tell stories with impact
• use analytics techniques to determine the metrics as a measure of an entity’s success
• perform analytics diagnostics across operations, marketing and sales functions
• use analytics techniques to improve user and customer experience
• develop informative dashboards and interactive visuals.

Content

Fundamentals of Power BI

• Connecting to data sources with Power BI Desktop
• How to aggregate, analyse and share data with Power BI

Basic analytics functions with Power BI

• Transforming and sanitising data
• Using the Query Editor
• Data modelling

Business analytics techniques performed using Power BI

• Conducting a trend analysis
• Measuring variability and error as part of an operations analytics function with Power BI
• Using Power BI with a range of decision-making analytics tools, including scenario planning, payoff matrices and decision trees
• Applying a range of financial analytics principles in Power BI, including calculating and reporting ratios and variances
• Generating digital marketing metrics, including reporting on Customer Experience (CX) and User experience (UX)

Business diagnostics with Power BI

• Applying diagnostic techniques for highlighting the root cause of problems in operations, sales and marketing functions
• Interpret the trends in data patterns

Producing infographics with Power BI

• Working with maps, cards, gauges, KPIs and slicers
• Developing dashboards of organisational performance
• Reading and interpreting trends
• Preparing key business metrics with the assistance of visual reporting
• Creating a report with visualisations

Storytelling with Power BI

• Highlighting organisational achievement against key performance targets with Power BI
• How to tell impactful analytics stories using Power BI
• Communication with key analytics insights, including trend analysis

Intended audience

This course is designed for the novice user in Power BI and business analytics. It will help you understand and use the basic techniques within Power BI for analysing data and creating visualisations.

Participants include:

• anyone wishing to learn the basics of Power BI and business analytics
• anyone considering using Power BI as part of their analytics function
• Business Analysts.

Prerequisites

You will a need a basic level of Excel expertise to comfortably participate in this course. Please refer to Microsoft Excel Course: Level 1 and make sure you can complete at least 80% of the learning outcomes.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter taught workshop using your own device
• Online workshop via the platform Zoom

Materials

Course materials are provided electronically using Dropbox

You will be provided with online training materials including a mixture of step-by-step instructions and exercises. These materials will serve as a useful reference when working with Power BI in the future.

Before the course

You will need your own device with a Windows operating system and Power BI Desktop installed. It can be downloaded from the Microsoft Website.

Please note, Power BI desktop only runs on a Windows operating system. It does not operate on Mac (unless your Mac has Windows installed).

Please ensure your device is fully charged as access to power is limited. The University does not carry any responsibility for your lost, stolen, or damaged devices whilst on the University premises.