Microsoft Power BI for Excel Users: Turn Data into Insights

Apply the three-pillar Power BI workflow for Excel users—connect to the Excel data, transform with Power Query, and create a shareable, auto-refreshing report with interactive visuals.

Learn to access Power BI using the desktop application for full features, compare it with the online edition, and download and install the free Power BI desktop on Windows.

Connect to data sources in Power BI to establish the foundation for reliable numbers and refreshable reports, and learn how data types, tables, and import processes work behind the scenes.

Connect to an external Excel data source in Power BI by importing the table TBL Customers, load the data, and explore it in the data pane and report canvas.

Save your Power BI work now and often. Use File, Save As to name the file, browse to the Exercise Files folder, then save with the Quick Access Toolbar.

Power BI favors tables over worksheets when importing Excel data, because tables provide explicit structure, reveal column headers, and keep data updates reliable with stable table references.

Import only the values from Excel into Power BI; formulas are not imported. Recreate row-level logic in Power Query or define aggregates with measures in the data model.

Connect to an Excel data source in Power BI and view your data in table view. Refresh the Power BI connection to pull in updates from the original Excel workbook.

Import a csv text file into Power BI using Get Data, select text/CSV, adjust file origin and delimiter, and load multiple data sources like orders and customers for analysis.

Review and correct data types in Power BI from Excel and CSV sources, setting dates to short date and keeping postal codes as text for accurate reporting.

Explore how Power BI connects to diverse external data sources, with a focus on Excel, text files, and common options like SQL Server, web data, PDFs, Dataverse, and dataflows.

Connect to the Excel employees file, import the data into your Power BI project, and inspect the TBL employees with employee ID, last name, first name, and title.

Learn how Power Query in Power BI automates data cleaning by recording steps and refreshing data, eliminating repetitive Excel cleanup and ensuring repeatable transformations.

connect to the excel products table in power bi, then transform and clean the data with power query by removing notes, temp flag, and last updated to prepare for reporting.

Filter out junk data in Power Query when pulling from Excel, CSV, or databases to create clean Power BI reports by removing nulls, blanks, totals, and sample records.

Learn how to revisit and tweak a Power Query step to refine filters, such as removing nulls and sample records, by editing the step's settings and adjusting operators or values.

Identify and fix data types to prevent silent report errors in Power BI, converting mixed columns to whole numbers, text, decimals, fixed decimal currency, booleans, and dates.

Clean the discontinued column by replacing yes with true and no with false, then switch to a true/false data type to ensure accurate grouping and reporting.

Learn to clean inconsistent product names in Power BI by capitalizing each word, trimming leading and trailing spaces, and removing non-printable characters to produce consistent data for reporting.

Split a column into two columns using a hyphen delimiter in Power Query, extracting quantity and packaging, and clean up by trimming and capitalizing.

Load cleaned data from Power Query into Power BI using close and apply, then explore orders, customers, employees, and products in the data view to create reports.

Power Query saves and reuses cleaning steps; duplicate the cleaned products query and point it to the new data source 05 products to apply the same transformations.

Learn to append two product tables in Power BI using Power Query to create a master products list, ensuring headers match and duplicates are removed.

Connect to the 06 new products-03 list via Power Query, import it into Power BI, clean the data, and close and apply to load it alongside the master product list.

Learn how Power BI builds relationships between data tables, keeping them separate while reporting across customers and orders, instead of merging with VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP.

Learn how to manually define relationships in Power BI when automatic links aren’t created, using customer ID to connect customers and orders, including dragging, saving, and verifying one-to-many links.

Demonstrate how a relationship between customers and orders yields correct per-customer order counts in a Power BI report, and recreate the customer ID link to verify results.

Learn how report visuals in Power BI transform raw data into concise, story-driven insights using charts, cards, tables, and slicers to highlight key metrics and trends for decision making.

Update visuals in Power BI to ensure the latest options. Use the three-dots menu in the report view to restore default visuals and reintroduce the card visual (lightning bolt version).

Explore the properties of different visuals in Power BI using the visuals panel, and apply aggregations such as count, sum, average, min, and max to tailor charts and tables.

Create a record-level calculation in Power Query to compute order total using unit price, quantity, and discount, then use the result as a card visual to display total revenue.

Create a pie chart in Power BI to visualize product sales by summing order totals and displaying product names in the legend. Filter for top products and refine the chart.

Build core column and bar charts in Power BI. Map sales by employee to the x-axis and order totals to the y-axis, then filter to top employees and top countries.

Explore how to display detailed data with the Power BI table visual, pulling order IDs, company names, product names, quantities, and totals across related tables without VLOOKUPs.

Create visual distinction in Power BI layouts by using a background rectangle to separate the slicer and the cards, then adjust layering to guide readers through the report.

Edit default Power BI visual titles to descriptive labels for readability, changing cards to total orders and charts to monthly total via visuals and formatting.

Explore how to format card visuals in Power BI for Excel users by removing background and borders, adjusting value and label colors, and aligning text.

Modify chart visuals by adjusting x- and y-axis titles and display units; set y-axis title to order amount and switch to thousands for clearer, more readable Power BI visuals.

Apply quick formatting to Power BI slicers by adjusting callout values, renaming the title to 'year filter', centering text, removing the background, and choosing column counts to fit the slicer.

Sign in with Microsoft credentials, publish the report to My Workspace, and view the fully interactive Power BI service report with filters and visuals in the browser.

Recaps connecting to data sources, cleaning and transforming in Power Query, and reporting with Power BI visuals to turn Excel data into insights.