Learn how to use Power BI, a powerful data visualization tool, to create interactive and aesthetically pleasing charts, graphs, and maps. Learn how to connect to datasets, analyze and structure data, customize visualizations, and publish reports.
Learn to clean, organize, and reshape data quickly with Power Query, a powerful tool built into Excel and Power BI. This hands-on course will teach you how to streamline your data preparation process for analysis and reporting.
Learn Power BI for data analysis & visualization and become a certified Power BI Data Analyst Associate in this hands-on certification course.
We live in the age of data. Not a single business decision is made today without reference to data, of which there is an enormous amount being collected, bought, and sold. The question isn’t where to get data, but rather, what to do with it once you have it. Without the tools to interpret data, it is just a collection of many little bits of information.
Microsoft’s Power BI (the BI stands for Business Intelligence) is one tool that allows you to transform data into intelligible information that can be used at any level of a business. It is a data analysis tool that performs impressive calculations with enormous amounts of data. It’s also a data visualization tool that transforms its findings into charts, graphs, and tables that can be understood and acted upon by non-data professionals. A further advantage of Power BI is the way in which it places data analysis within the grasp of just about anyone so that all levels of an organization can make use of the information. The software is also designed so that its visualizations can be shared across an entire group, department, or even company. Power BI makes data and the conclusions drawn from it accessible to everyone and can be an extremely valuable tool to companies of all sizes.
Knowledge of how to use Power BI won’t allow you to replace an entire team of Data Analysts, Data Scientists, and Data Engineers, nor will it allow you to build a career all by itself; but it is an extremely useful skill to have in your professional toolkit. The way in which the software was designed to democratize data makes being able to use it something useful to people at all levels of an organization: indeed, Microsoft’s marketing slogan for the software promises “business intelligence for all.” Thus, anyone looking to make a career in business can benefit from knowing how to use Power BI. The software also provides insight into what a data science professional’s career might be like, and can, therefore, be a useful stepping stone to people interested in breaking into that field.
In Detroit, Data Analysts, who study a company’s previous performance by interpreting data, take home an average annual compensation package of roughly $72,000. Data Scientists, whose job it is to employ data to predict a company’s future performance, earn more, along the lines of $88,000. Among the other careers towards which Power BI can begin to open doors is that of Digital Analysts, who focus on interpreting the data generated by a company’s digital media; in Detroit, their average salary is approximately $84,000 per year.
Students in Detroit interested in learning to use Power BI will find two local schools that teach classes on how to use the software. ONLC Training Centers has a full menu of classes, from beginner to advanced, that guides students from Excel spreadsheets through to Power BI analyses and visualizations. By the end of their advanced Analyzing Data with Power BI class, students will have a solid grasp of the software’s many powerful capabilities. Certstaffix Training offers its own series of Power BI classes as well, geared more towards beginner and intermediate students.
At both ONLC and Certstaffix Training, instruction is conducted by remote instructors in the schools' local computer labs (which are located in Troy and Livonia, respectively.) Either school’s classes may be taken fully online as well.
Another option for learning Power BI is to take an online class in the subject. Online classes have much to recommend them, not least of which is the convenience of being able to attend class from home, sparing you both time and hassle. An online class also puts at your fingertips the class offerings of far more schools than are locally available, meaning that you stand a better chance of finding exactly the class you want. You should also be aware that online classes are taught in real-time, meaning that, even though you’re not in the same room as the teacher, you can still ask the instructor questions and even share your screen should you need to be extricated from a particularly thorny problem.
The creator of this tool, Noble Desktop, teaches a variety of Power BI classes, the flagship among them being a Power BI Bootcamp that leaves graduates thoroughly conversant in the ways in which the software can be used both to analyze data and visualize the conclusions drawn from that analysis. Power BI Bootcamp students also learn how to use Power Query and Power BI’s built-in DAX language and receive advice on how to further their education with the software.
Other Power BI classes are available through NYC Career Centers. NYIM Training also provides Power BI courses that may be of interest.
Would you like for your team to be able to get the most out of Power BI? Noble Desktop can help by offering you corporate onsite Power BI training. The school can set up live training with your staff and one of its expert teachers, or provide you the same classes virtually, via Google Meets, Zoom, or whichever teleconferencing platform you prefer. Noble also has a voucher program through which your staff may attend any of the school’s regularly scheduled classes. Please email Noble Desktop for further particulars.