22-25 April 2026 
An absolute beginners guide to Power BI
2018TL; DR
In only two years Power BI has become a dominant player in the BI arena but many have not seen what it is and how it can help them. In this one-day session, you will be guided through the reporting process of creating and sharing reports in Power BI.
Session Details
During this full-day training session, you will learn Power BI from the ground up. Starting with a little bit of theory before diving into several practical demonstrations covering the full spectrum of the report creation lifecycle.
Preparing your data:
- Import, cleanse and transform your data using Power Query, Microsoft’s Excel-like data import tool. Power Query supports connections to a large number of data sources and a large collection of transformations to clean and shape the data just the way you need it.
Modelling your data:
- Create relationships, the ability to create relationships between tables is one the key differences between Excel and Power BI enabling you to interact with data in new and exciting ways.
- Introduction to DAX, a powerful calculation language used by Power BI unleashing a wealth of reporting options.
Visualising your data:
- Power BI’s rich set of built-in visuals supported by a growing set of custom visuals allowing users to create stunning interactive visuals that help drive deeper insights into their data.
Publishing your report:
- Not only does the Power BI service allow you to share your report with your peers but also includes an amazing set of machine learning tools such as Q&A and quick insights that allow you to interact with your data in ways that you could not have imagined
Using the knowledge you learn in this session, you will return to work with a great understanding of what Power BI is and the type of problems it can help you solve.
Pre-requisites
None, this session is aimed at people who know very little about Power BI or BI in general.
Laptop Required:Yes
- Spec: 4GB; i5; 80 GB ; Windows 8 or greater,
- Software: Power BI Desktop, this can be down loaded from https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/get-started/
- Subscriptions: yes, Attendees should have a Power BI subscription, you can sign up at https://app.powerbi.com/signupredirect
3 things you'll get out of this session
Speakers
Michael Johnson's previous sessions
Data Lakehouse Vs Data warehouse in Fabric, which is right for you
Microsoft Fabric offers a variety of data engineering solutions that can suit different needs and goals. However, this also means that choosing the right solution can be challenging and confusing for those who want to migrate to Microsoft Fabric.
The accidental administrator's guide Power BI
If not properly planned and managed, your Power BI environment quickly becomes a mess., making it hard to use and improve. Join this session where we will look at 6 key areas that you as a Power BI administrator will need to look at.
Building a robust deployment pipeline in Power BI
Does your organisation need to manage the deployment of Power BI better? Join this session to learn how to shorten the time to deploy new features to your users while ensuring you maintain a standard for high quality using tools such as Azure DevOps and Power BI deployment Pipelines.
Power BI Premium on a budget
Power BI Premium has many features that organisations desire yet the price makes it impractical for most. In this talk you will learn how Power BI Embedded can be used to enable many of these features at a much lower cost.
Analyzing real-time data using Azure Streaming Analytics.
Businesses today require real-time information to make better-informed decisions, this requires a new set of tools. In this session you will learn about Azure Stream analytics and how it can help address real-time data scenarios