But don’t let perfect be the enemy of started. The 2020 edition is clean, focused, and complete. Search for it on YouTube (look for the 2–3 hour full course), grab a coffee, and watch it in one sitting.
By the end, you’ll go from “What is Power BI?” to “Here’s my interactive dashboard, want the link?” But don’t let perfect be the enemy of started
And that never goes out of date.
You’ll watch the instructor click Get Data → Excel → Load . Boring? No. Watch closely. They’ll connect a messy sales spreadsheet and, without touching the original file, transform it. Empty rows? Removed. Inconsistent dates? Fixed. Capitalization errors? Cleaned. You learn that Power BI doesn’t change your data—it changes how you see your data. By the end, you’ll go from “What is Power BI
Excel makes you do VLOOKUP gymnastics. Power BI (2020 edition) teaches you the “Modeling” tab. You drag a line from “Orders[CustomerID]” to “Customers[CustomerID]” and boom —all tables talk to each other. It feels like cheating. It’s not. It’s relational intelligence. In tech years
Start with the 2020 intro to learn the fundamentals (Get Data, Power Query, DAX basics, relationships, visuals). Then spend one hour on “What’s New in Power BI” for 2024/2025 to learn about Copilot, preview features, and the new card visual.
At first glance, it sounds dated. 2020? That’s five years ago. In tech years, that’s practically the Jurassic period. But here’s the twist: