title	Excel to Power BI — A 3-Day Practical Workshop

Excel to Power BI — A 3-Day Practical Workshop

Advanced Analytics and Reporting: from your first cell to a published executive dashboard

A Global Academy workshop, prepared for ZIMASCO, Kwekwe.

📖 Learners: read this course online at tapsz.github.io/Excel-BI — no GitHub account needed.

---

Who this is for

Anyone. The course starts at "what is a cell" and finishes with a governed, refreshable Power BI model published to the cloud.

If you already know Excel well, start at Day 2. If you don't, Day 1 will get you there — no prior experience assumed.

---

How it works

Every module follows the same three-part shape, so you always know where you are:

Part	What it is
Learn it	A short plain-language explanation
See it	A worked example on a finished file — open it and click through
Do it	A hands-on task, with an answer key to check yourself against

Every day ends with a small practical homework (30–45 minutes) with verifiable answers, so you can confirm the skills stuck before moving on.

A single running dataset — NovaTech Retail, a consumer electronics business — carries through the whole course. You watch the same data grow from a plain list into a formatted report, a PivotTable, a Power BI model, and finally an executive dashboard.

---

The three days

Day 1 — Excel Foundations

Getting comfortable and productive in Excel before going advanced

Morning — the mechanics of a spreadsheet

1. Excel Interface & Workbook Basics
2. Formatting Cells & Numbers
3. Multiple Worksheets & Navigation
4. Formulas Fundamentals — relative vs absolute references

Afternoon — turning a spreadsheet into an answer

5. Functions & Working with Data — SUMIF, COUNTIF, nested IF
6. Sorting, Filtering & Organizing Data
7. Conditional Formatting & Charts
8. PivotTables & What-If Analysis

Homework: The Branch Report Outcome: confidently navigate Excel, write your own formulas, and summarise every order into a decision-ready report.

---

Day 2 — Advanced Excel & Transitioning to Power BI

Finishing Excel, then making the leap — data modelling, integration, and transformation

Morning — finalising Excel

1. Advanced Formulas — XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, IFS, named ranges, dynamic arrays
2. Power Query & Power Pivot in Excel — Get & Transform, the Data Model, first DAX, financial dashboard case study

Afternoon — introducing Power BI

3. The Power BI Ecosystem & Your First Dashboard
4. Connecting to Different Data Sources — files, folders, SQL, JSON
5. Data Cleaning & Transformation in Power BI
6. Data Modelling & Introduction to DAX — star schemas, relationships, filter context, time intelligence

Homework: Clean, Model, Measure Outcome: connect, clean, model and calculate on data from anywhere — ready for visualisation.

---

Day 3 — Visualizing, Publishing & Automating Insights

From data to decisions — advanced reporting and storytelling

Morning — visualisation & storytelling

1. Visualization Best Practices
2. Storytelling with Data

Afternoon — publishing & capstone

3. Publishing, Sharing & Automating — Service, workspaces, refresh, gateways, RLS
4. Capstone — The 45-Minute Dashboard Dash — six timed rounds; clean, model, measure, build and pitch (plus an optional take-home Boss Level)

Homework: Extend, Automate, Publish Outcome: design, present and publish a full Power BI dashboard — and say what should be done about what it shows.

---

Repository layout

datasets/
  day1_excel_foundations/              8 modules + homework
    0N_topic/  LESSON.md, dN_mN_<topic>_start.xlsx, dN_mN_<topic>_answers.xlsx
  day2_advanced_excel_and_power_bi/    6 modules + homework
  day3_visualizing_publishing_automating/  4 modules + homework

powerbi_files/
  day2_advanced_excel_and_power_bi/    My First Dashboard · Data Cleaning (Power Query) · Data Modeling
  day3_visualizing_publishing_automating/  Project Clean Model

Each practice workbook has an Instructions sheet inside it with click-by-click steps, so you can work from the file alone if you prefer.

---

What you need

Day	Requirement
1	Excel (any recent version — Windows, Mac or web)
2 morning	Excel with Power Query. Power Pivot is Windows-only
2 afternoon, 3	Power BI Desktop — Windows only (free)
3 publishing	A Power BI account; Pro to share

On a Mac? Day 1 and Day 2's morning run fine. For Power BI Desktop you'll need a Windows VM (Parallels/UTM), Boot Camp, or a cloud PC. Failing that, the lessons and provided .pbix files still teach the concepts, and Power Query/DAX are identical in both products — nothing is wasted.

Some newer functions (XLOOKUP, IFS, FILTER, UNIQUE, SORT) need Microsoft 365 or Excel 2021+. Where they appear, the lessons give an INDEX/MATCH fallback that works everywhere.

---

Expected outcomes

By the end you will:

• Demonstrate advanced analytical capability across Excel and Power BI
• Produce dynamic, automated dashboards for financial and operational reporting
• Clean and model data so the totals are actually true
• Communicate findings so they change a decision

---

The three things worth remembering

Tools change. These don't:

1. Clean data first. Everything downstream inherits its problems.
2. Model it properly. Facts and dimensions, a star schema, every time.
3. Say what it means. A number without a comparison and a recommendation changes nothing.