Can i get competent in Power BI in 6 weeks?

Bassmansam

Bassmansam

Bassmansam

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2007
Posts
4,209
Hi All

I recently went for a BI report developer job and I got it. My main skills lie in excel where i feel i am at an advanced level however the majority of the time in the job i will be using Power BI and recreating their excel reports in their plus making any new ones needed.

In my current job i have remade a couple of reports in BI, it didn't seem too complex but i wouldn't say i am competent at the moment as i had to do a bit of googling(Dax stuff mainly). I have used power query in excel so know my way around making queries in that and a bit of M language.

So i bought a udemy course and have around 6 weeks to get competent. I've never thoughtit would be a problem before, with the udemy course and google/forums to fall back on. But on Saturday night i had a bit of an anxiety episode about it all worrying about my ability to do the job.

Can i do it?
 
Unless you lied at job application they won’t expect you to be proficient at it.

That aside, learning apps like this isn’t the problem. It’s the knowledge and intuition on how to manipulate the data effectively that is key. Sounds like you may already have that.
 
Imposter syndrome is common.

6 weeks is tight, but if you do the course alongside using something like ChatGPT you should be fine. Just don't copy/paste answers without trying to understand and cross-reference the information provided.
 
D3K said:
It’s the knowledge and intuition on how to manipulate the data effectively that is key. Sounds like you may already have that.
Click to expand...
100% and also figuring out the usual mess of company specific data that makes no logical sense what so ever but "It's always been that way".

As said unless you rolled out a bit too much BS and claimed to be a wizard I wouldn't even give it a second thought, by all means brush up a bit if you've got the time but don't worry about being able to nail it all from memory. Google isn't going to disappear as soon as you start the job :D
 
tom_e said:
100% and also figuring out the usual mess of company specific data that makes no logical sense what so ever but "It's always been that way".

As said unless you rolled out a bit too much BS and claimed to be a wizard I wouldn't even give it a second thought, by all means brush up a bit if you've got the time but don't worry about being able to nail it all from memory. Google isn't going to disappear as soon as you start the job :D
Click to expand...
I did say i was a wizard in excel haha.
 
tom_e said:
100% and also figuring out the usual mess of company specific data that makes no logical sense what so ever but "It's always been that way".

As said unless you rolled out a bit too much BS and claimed to be a wizard I wouldn't even give it a second thought, by all means brush up a bit if you've got the time but don't worry about being able to nail it all from memory. Google isn't going to disappear as soon as you start the job :D
Click to expand...

This, Excel reports to power bi is very easy it's only when you want to do the fancy click through and UI stuff it gets a bit more tricky. I think part of that is I don't have a natural eye for design so don't forget that part of the job.
Also one of the things that's often missed off the generic courses is adding power automate connectivity which can be handy to trigger refreshes or actions based off the data

powerautomate.microsoft.com

Trigger flows from Power BI reports - Microsoft Power Platform Blog

Learn how to trigger flows from any Power BI report using the new Power Automate visual for Power BI and the Power BI button clicked trigger.
powerautomate.microsoft.com powerautomate.microsoft.com
 
mattx4 said:
This, Excel reports to power bi is very easy it's only when you want to do the fancy click through and UI stuff it gets a bit more tricky. I think part of that is I don't have a natural eye for design so don't forget that part of the job.
Also one of the things that's often missed off the generic courses is adding power automate connectivity which can be handy to trigger refreshes or actions based off the data

powerautomate.microsoft.com

Trigger flows from Power BI reports - Microsoft Power Platform Blog

Learn how to trigger flows from any Power BI report using the new Power Automate visual for Power BI and the Power BI button clicked trigger.
powerautomate.microsoft.com powerautomate.microsoft.com
Click to expand...
Isn't the ui stuff just dragging a chart/graph/card to the dashboard?
 
Ayahuasca said:
Imposter syndrome is common.

6 weeks is tight, but if you do the course alongside using something like ChatGPT you should be fine. Just don't copy/paste answers without trying to understand and cross-reference the information provided.
Click to expand...
Yes i think i do suffer imposter syndrome. I had it at the start of my current job as it was my first analyst job mainly using excel. The first few months were stressful but i learnt so much (thanks google/ forums). Doing this course should prepare me although im not a total noob to power bi..
 
Keep it simple. I use power bi and similar tools. Do most of the hard work in power query, i.e. build an appropriate model. But don't get hung up on schemas. From a ui perspective use simple matrix, bar, column and line graphs. And yes also use pie charts though the experts will tell you not too. But always remember you are build reports for your audience which generally don't give a damn about best practice.
 
I sometimes doubt myself mostly because I expect my brain to remember syntax perfectly. But then I remember I am over 40 and accept my noggin is aging and there's no point in sweating over that stuff when a google or search gets you there easily.

I taught myself heaps of my analysis skills over the years, but never set out on specifically being a data analyst as a career.

If I ever need a reminder that I have the skills and then some, I just take a look at the past developers or colleagues work that I have fixed/improved/rebuilt and all is good again! :cry:

The problem I have found is I rarely spend all day or week on the same applications, sometimes many months go by when I am back on that software so its hard to progress fast when too long passes between sessions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom