Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence tool. It turns raw data (Excel files, databases, flat files) into interactive dashboards. You can learn it in a few weeks — no programming required.
What is Power BI for?
Power BI lets you connect, clean, model, and visualize data so you can make better decisions. In practice: tracking sales, a budget, or HR metrics, and sharing reports that refresh on their own.
The 5 steps to learning Power BI
- Connect your data — import Excel, CSV, or a database.
- Clean and transform — with Power Query (remove duplicates, fix formats).
- Build the model — link your tables together.
- Create visuals — charts, maps, interactive filters.
- Measure with DAX — Power BI’s formula language for advanced calculations.
How long until you’re self-sufficient?
Plan on 10 to 20 hours to produce your first useful dashboard, and a few weeks of practice to master data modeling and DAX.
Do you need to know how to code?
No. Power BI is no-code for 80% of use cases. DAX looks a lot like Excel formulas: you pick it up gradually, as you need it.
On MAK-IA, the Power BI course comes with an AI assistant that answers your questions as you go through the lessons and adapts its explanations to your level.