Power BI Core
Foundations for Business Intelligence
Lead Data Engineer & Architect
About this course
Power BI Core is the foundation course in the CareerSwerve data trilogy. You'll learn to connect to enterprise data, shape it in Power Query, build a dimensional data model, write your first DAX measures, add date intelligence, design clear visuals, and publish to the cloud.
Every concept is taught on genuine business datasets: a retail sales database for worked examples and a banking compliance database for your hands-on labs — so the skills transfer directly to the work you'll do in a real analyst role.
This isn't a click-along tutorial; it's how data professionals build for production.
Course at a glance
Datasets used
| SalesLT | Retail dataset — used for sales dashboards, KPI cards, and time-intelligence examples. |
| ComplianceLT | Compliance dataset — used for risk-monitoring report pages and slicer-driven analysis. |
Tools you'll need
- •Power BI Desktop
- •Power BI Service account (free tier)
What you get when you enrol
- ✓Lifetime access to every lesson, exercise, and update — including future revisions to this course.
- ✓12-month Azure SQL practice access against the same datasets used in the course (read-only). Renews on request for active learners.
- ✓Auto-graded labs in your browser — write SQL, hit Run, get instant feedback against the expected result.
- ✓AI-graded Professional Challenges — open-ended scenarios reviewed against a published rubric, not just a single right answer.
- ✓Course discussion + community — talk to other learners and ask the instructor questions inside the course.
- ✓Basic Certificate on demonstrated capability — awarded when you complete every Hands-On Lab and Module Readiness Check, plus the Professional Challenges. Confirms you can write, run, and defend course-level SQL against real datasets.
- ✓Optional Advanced Certificate on completion of SQL Core multi-project— a separate credential awarded when you complete all three capstone projects, each independently assessed and approved by an instructor. Each project is end-to-end query engineering against a real brief with defined acceptance criteria — proves competence at a level an employer can actually evaluate. The Basic Certificate alone confirms course mastery; the Advanced Certificate confirms you can deliver.
- ✓Optional live training upgrade — instructor-led cohort sessions with capped capacity, sold separately.
What you'll learn
- ✓Connect to and transform data using Power Query
- ✓Build interactive visualisations (bar, line, scatter, map charts)
- ✓Create calculated columns and basic measures in DAX
- ✓Design effective dashboard layouts
- ✓Publish reports to Power BI Service
- ✓Complete a business intelligence dashboard project
Who this is for
Curriculum
141 lessons · 23h 44m1. What is Power BI?12 lessons
2. Connecting to Azure SQL14 lessons
3. Power Query Essentials15 lessons
4. Data Modelling & Star Schema13 lessons
5. DAX Foundations15 lessons
6. Date Intelligence11 lessons
7. Visuals & Interactions20 lessons
8. Layout and Design17 lessons
9. Publishing & Sharing13 lessons
10. Capstone Project — Cubed Analytics NHS Trust Operational Dashboard2 lessons
11. Quick Reference Cheat Sheet9 lessons
Prerequisites
- •SQL Core recommended but not required
- •No prior Power BI experience needed
What learners say
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