Getting Started with Power BI Desktop: Your First Interactive Report
Getting Started with Power BI Desktop is a beginner-level course of 5 lessons (about 1 h 30 min), with 15 exercises and 15 quiz questions. No prerequisites. The course needs a Windows virtual machine with Power BI, planned for a later phase of the platform.
- Power BI
- Beginner
- 5 lessons
- 1 h 30 min
- 15 exercises
- Windows virtual machine (phase 2)
The course in brief
This introductory course introduces you to the Power BI ecosystem and the Power BI Desktop interface. You import a sales file, build cards, column charts and tables, add slicers and filters, then finalize a first report that is readable and well formatted. No technical prerequisites are needed.
What you will be able to do
- Find your way around the Power BI Desktop interface (ribbon, views, panes)
- Import a CSV or Excel file and check the data types
- Create basic visuals and master automatic aggregation
- Filter a report with slicers, the Filters pane and interactions
- Format and organize a multi-page report
- Save a .pbix file and export it to PDF
Syllabus: 5 lessons
- Place Power BI Desktop, the Power BI service and the mobile app in context
- Identify the main views of Power BI Desktop and their role
- Describe the typical workflow: get, transform, model, visualize, share
- 02
Importing Your First Data File
- Import a CSV or Excel file with Get data
- Choose between Load and Transform data
- Check column types and refresh the data
- 03
Creating Your First Visuals
- Create a card, a column chart and a table from fields
- Understand the automatic aggregation of numeric fields
- Change the visual type and adjust the field wells
- 04
Filtering: Slicers, the Filters Pane and Interactions
- Add a slicer to filter a report
- Use the three levels of the Filters pane
- Understand and edit interactions between visuals
- 05
Formatting and Finalizing a First Report
- Apply a theme and format visuals
- Organize a report into pages with clear titles
- Save and export a report
Final project
First Sales Dashboard for a Retail Chain
A small three-store retailer (Lyon, Lille, Nantes) gives you its sales file for the first quarter of 2026 (the course's ventes.csv file, 12 rows). In Power BI Desktop, build a two-page report: an overview with key figures, a comparison of stores and categories, and a detail page by product. The reader must be able to filter by store and by category.
Deliverables
- The ventes-projet.pbix file
- A PDF export of the two pages
- A short text (5 lines) summarizing the three main takeaways of the quarter
Assessment criteria
- The data is correctly imported (12 rows, types checked)
- The key figures are correct (revenue €415, 243 units)
- The visuals suit the questions asked and are explicitly titled
- The Magasin and Categorie slicers work and are synced across both pages
- The formatting is consistent (theme, currency format, alignment)
Frequently asked questions
Is Power BI Desktop free?
Yes. Power BI Desktop is a free application for Windows. A license is only needed to share reports through the Power BI service.
Do you need to know how to code to follow this course?
No. This course is done entirely with the mouse. A few DAX formulas are shown as a preview, but they will be explained in the following courses.
Can you use Power BI Desktop on a Mac?
Power BI Desktop only runs on Windows. On a Mac, you use a Windows virtual machine, like the one provided in this course.
What is the difference between Power BI and Excel?
Excel is a versatile spreadsheet. Power BI specializes in preparing, modeling and interactively visualizing data, with centralized report sharing.
This course, told for your job
Say what you want to be able to do: “Getting Started with Power BI Desktop” takes its place in your path, with examples from your field. The concepts stay those of the course.