Power BI Basics Explained for Complete Beginners

Applied Steps (shown in Power Query, in order)
1. Source               - loaded sales.xlsx
2. Navigation           - selected the Orders sheet
3. Promoted Headers     - first row became column names
4. Changed Type         - OrderDate = Date, Amount = Decimal
5. Removed Blank Rows
6. Renamed Columns      - "Cust Nm" -> "Customer"
Tip: click any step to see the data at that point.

let
    Source = Excel.Workbook(File.Contents("C:\Data\sales.xlsx"), null, true),
    Orders = Source{[Item="Orders", Kind="Sheet"]}[Data],
    Promoted = Table.PromoteHeaders(Orders, [PromoteAllScalars=true]),
    Typed = Table.TransformColumnTypes(Promoted,
        {{"OrderDate", type date}, {"Amount", type number}, {"City", type text}}),
    NoBlanks = Table.SelectRows(Typed, each [Amount] <> null)
in
    NoBlanks

Total Sales = SUM ( Orders[Amount] )

Order Count = COUNTROWS ( Orders )

Average Order Value = DIVIDE ( [Total Sales], [Order Count] )

Noida Sales = CALCULATE ( [Total Sales], Customers[City] = "Noida" )

Date =
ADDCOLUMNS (
    CALENDAR ( DATE ( 2025, 1, 1 ), DATE ( 2026, 12, 31 ) ),
    "Year", YEAR ( [Date] ),
    "Month", FORMAT ( [Date], "MMM" ),
    "Month No", MONTH ( [Date] )
)
// Then: Mark as date table, relate Date[Date] to Orders[OrderDate],
// and sort Month by Month No.

First report layout
+--------------------------------------------------+
| Total Sales | Orders | Avg Order Value | [Year]  |
+-------------------------+------------------------+
| Sales by month (line)   | Sales by city (bar)    |
+-------------------------+------------------------+
| Top 10 customers (table)           | [City]      |
+--------------------------------------------------+

Report checklist
[ ] Title says what the page is for
[ ] Cards show the key numbers
[ ] Charts sorted and labelled
[ ] Slicers work on all visuals
[ ] Numbers formatted (₹, thousands separators)
[ ] Checked one total against the source data

Two-week Power BI plan (45 min/day)
Days 1-2   Install Power BI Desktop, load a CSV, explore the interface
Days 3-4   Power Query: types, blanks, renaming, merging
Days 5-6   Model: two tables, one relationship, date table
Days 7-8   DAX: Total Sales, Count, Average, CALCULATE
Days 9-10  Visuals: card, line, bar, table, slicers
Days 11-12 Layout and formatting
Days 13-14 Build one complete report from a new dataset

Practice dataset idea: create orders.csv yourself
OrderID,OrderDate,CustomerID,City,Product,Amount
1001,2026-01-05,C01,Noida,Notebook,120
1002,2026-01-05,C02,Delhi,Pen pack,45.5
1003,2026-01-06,C01,Noida,Backpack,999
(add 50+ rows across several months and cities)

Sharing your work
1. Save the .pbix file in a project folder
2. Take screenshots of each report page
3. Write a short README: question, data, measures, insight
4. If your organisation uses the Power BI service, publish there
5. For portfolios, share screenshots and the .pbix with sample data