Power BI Beginner to Advanced — Lesson 1: Power BI and Data Preparation

Lesson Overview

This lesson develops practical understanding of Power BI and Data Preparation within the Power BI Beginner to Advanced learning path.

Learners connect the key concepts to a realistic complete Power BI data preparation, modeling, analysis, and reporting scenario and document the decisions, evidence, risks, and improvement opportunities identified during the activity.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the purpose and role of power bi and data preparation.
• Apply the lesson concepts to a practical complete Power BI data preparation, modeling, analysis, and reporting requirement.
• Recognize security, governance, operational, and quality considerations.
• Validate the result and recommend appropriate next steps.

Topics Covered

• Power BI ecosystem
• data connections
• Power Query transformations
• data quality and profiling

Hands-On Activity

1. Review the scenario, stakeholders, current process, requirements, and expected outcome.
2. Prepare the required Microsoft environment, design, query, report, script, or configuration.
3. Complete the guided implementation and record important decisions and dependencies.
4. Test the outcome using functional, security, data-quality, and operational checks.
5. Document issues, corrective actions, evidence, and an improvement recommendation.

Validation Checklist

• The solution or analysis matches the documented requirement.
• Configuration, calculations, queries, scripts, or workflows produce the expected result.
• Security, access, governance, data quality, and operational impacts are reviewed.
• Errors and limitations are documented with clear corrective actions.
• The final output includes reusable notes and practical next steps.

Lesson Outcome

After completing this lesson, learners can explain, apply, and validate power bi and data preparation in a realistic workplace scenario.