Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep)

No. It is preparation for Microsoft's PL-300 exam, organised around the skills measured that Microsoft publishes on Microsoft Learn (the outline dated 20 April 2026, checked on 5 October 2026). The Power BI Data Analyst Associate credential is awarded only by Microsoft after you pass its exam. EDWartens is not affiliated with Microsoft.

An EDWartens Certificate of Completion, issued when you finish the modules and pass the final assessment, with a number anyone can verify on our site. It is not a Microsoft certification and is never described as one.

Yes. Every module, the notes, the practice tasks, the project and the final assessment are free. The only paid item is the certificate, if you want it.

Alex The Analyst, Pragmatic Works, Guy in a Cube, SQLBI, Chandoo and other named educators, on their own YouTube channels, credited on each module. None is affiliated with EDWartens. EDWartens wrote the study plan, notes, worked problems, practice tasks, question bank and project.

No. Power BI Desktop is a free download from Microsoft and every modelling, DAX and report module can be done on it. It runs on Windows only. Publishing and sharing through the Power BI service need a work or school account and a licence, which many employers already have; those modules explain each step and can be followed without one.

This is the general analyst course, on sales data. It covers every PL-300 skill area, including the service, security and performance. Power BI for Manufacturing: OEE and Production Dashboards is the follow-on. It is for engineers who want the same skills applied to downtime, production and quality data.

About 13 hours of video lessons, notes and practice, at your own pace; the videos alone are about 8.5 hours. The optional project takes about 14 hours more.

You build a sales director's report on Microsoft's AdventureWorks Sales sample from start to finish. It has Power Query, an unpivoted targets sheet, a star schema with a role-playing date table and hand-checked measures. It also has a drillthrough detail page, row-level security by territory group, and the refresh and access procedure. A complete sample pack shows the requirements, model and measure registers, traceability matrix, validation record and procedure.

No. The lab is optional practice. You can skip it whenever you like, and it never blocks your progress, the final assessment or your certificate.

Yes. Every lab level for this course opens in your browser, free, with nothing to install.

The Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep) course has 15 modules. It opens with "What a Power BI data analyst does, and your first report", goes through "Getting data: sources, storage modes and parameters", "DAX basics: measures, calculated columns and CALCULATE", "The Power BI service: publish, share and refresh" and "Capstone: an end-to-end report" and ends with "Final Assessment". The full list with minutes is under "What you learn" on this page.

After the Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep) course: Choose Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake for a table and give the reason; Profile and clean data in Power Query with recorded steps that rerun on every refresh; Merge, append, unpivot and group queries into long, narrow tables. These are the practical outcomes the course is written around, and the final assessment of 15 questions checks them.

For the Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep) course, software: Power BI Desktop, a free download from Microsoft that runs on Windows only (a Mac needs Windows in a virtual machine). Microsoft's free AdventureWorks Sales sample workbook. Publishing and sharing in the Power BI service need a work or school account and a Power BI licence or trial; those modules can be followed in Desktop without one. Copilot is not needed for any module. Hardware: A Windows PC or laptop with 8 GB of memory or more. The course itself is free.

Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep) is rated beginner. Beginner to intermediate. For engineers, analysts, MIS staff and students moving into data analysis. Comfort with Excel (tables, filters, simple formulas) is enough; no Power BI, SQL or coding experience is needed. It is written for engineers, analysts, MIS staff and students moving into data analysis with Power BI, and takes about 12.7 hours at your own pace.

Skills from the Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300 Prep) course (for example: choose Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake for a table and give the reason) are used in roles such as data analyst, data engineer, reporting analyst and business intelligence developer, and in data analyst work. The course gives you practical evidence of the skill; it does not promise a job, and employers decide on experience and interview.