NANODEGREE PROGR AM SYLL ABUS

Data Analysis and

Visualization with
Microsoft Power BI
Overview
The Data Analysis and Visualization with Microsoft Power BI program will equip any learner who wants to
develop in-demand skills in data pre-processing, visualization and analysis using Microsoft Power BI as the
primary tool. Students in this program will learn to connect Microsoft Power BI to multiple data sources,
process and transform data to prepare it for reporting and visualization, build compelling data visualizations
that tell a story and employ best design practices, and draw insights from data dashboards and visualizations
that can allow for insights and help a business make critical decisions.

Estimated Time: Prerequisites:

3 Months Microsoft Excel

Flexible Learning: Technical Mentor

Self-paced, so you Support:
can learn on the Our knowledgeable
schedule that works mentors guide your
best for you. learning and are
focused on answering
your questions,
motivating you and
keeping you on track

*The length of this program is an estimation of the total hours the average student may take to complete all required coursework,
including lecture and project time. If you spend about 5 hours per week working through the program, you should finish within the
time provided. Actual hours may vary.

Data Analysis and Visualization with Microsoft Power BI | 2

Course 1: Introduction to Preparing
and Modeling Data
In a perfect world, every BI professional would be able to rely on a pristine data warehouse and enterprise
level data models to easily build and deploy reliable data models — but where do you even start when the
data you need for a single report lives in a bunch of different files and software systems?

This is where preparing and modeling data becomes essential! This course is a crucial step in Microsoft
Power BI for anyone who needs to mash together multiple data sources, clean them, restructure them and
harmonize them into a single and efficient data model to support reporting. We’ll cover Microsoft Power BI’s
built-in Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) tool, Power Query, learn foundational data modeling principles, cover
some introductory DAX (Data Analytics Expressions) and touch on troubleshooting and optimization.

Each of these steps creates the foundation for beautiful reports and efficient DAX, ideally positioning
students to take on the remaining courses in the Nanodegree program.

Introduction to Preparing and Modeling data culminates with a final

project in which you will create a data model and Microsoft Power
BI report for Seven Sages Brewing, a small company struggling to
leverage their disjointed data to facilitate smart decision-making.
Course Project : Your mission is to tame their datasets and create an efficient data
model that will help the company better understand what products
Build a Data Model for are popular — and profitable — so they can mark smart decisions
Seven Sages Brewing about what products to prioritize as the company continues to grow.
Company
Students will demonstrate an understanding of core data modeling
principles, including the ability to clean, organize and structure data
in Power Query, to make a date table, to build a data model with the
appropriate relationships and filters and to create a simple report
using common visualizations and DAX measures.

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 LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Describe the Microsoft Power BI data Pipeline

Introduction to • Recognize the range of stakeholders a data modeler should
LESSON ONE Preparing and collaborate with
Modeling Data • Become familiar with the role of Power Query, data modeling
and reporting to meet business needs

• Conceptualize data modeling, including fact tables,

Key Concepts in dimension tables, key columns, and relationships
LESSON TWO
Data Modeling
• Define the role each component plays in reporting

• Access a range of data sources using Get Data

Getting Your • Leverage Power Query to perform initial transformations
LESSON THREE Data & Initial to make your queries user friendly
Transformations • Develop a familiarity with Data Types and their role in
Microsoft Power BI

• Correct — errors know when to correct — errors and gaps

Bigger • Make more complex column changes within queries
LESSON FOUR Transformations &
Date Tables • Morph data across queries to align with reporting needs
• Choose and build the right data table for your purposes

Relationships • Select the correct relationships for your data model

LESSON FIVE and Relationship- • Create Implicit and Quick Measures
Related DAX • Leverage relationships and filters in common DAX functions

• Choose between a Measure and Calculated Column

Reports and DAX • Create basic report visualizations such as Matrixes and Cards
LESSON SIX for Common
Reporting Needs • Make DAX functions that leverage Conditional Logic
• Troubleshoot and Organize your Microsoft Power BI file

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Course 2: Creating Visualizations with
Microsoft Power BI
In this course, students will learn how to carry Microsoft Power BI beyond mere bar charts and transform
their reports into data exploration & storytelling tools that companies can use to better understand their
data. Students will start by learning about a variety of common and more advanced data visualizations,
ranging from bar charts and line charts to scatter plots and bubble maps.

Then, students will learn how to design reports around these data visuals in order to focus user attention
on key insights, help users navigate different features and report pages, and enable accessibility options for
diverse audiences.

Next, the student will learn how to use filters and slicers to make the Microsoft Power BI tools they develop
more interactive and encourage users to explore datasets and visuals. Finally, the course will culminate with
students combining elements they have learned from the rest of the lesson to deliver a couple of advanced
features capable of elevating how users navigate and engage with visuals and the report itself.

Waggle is a hot new start-up that produces smart devices

for pets. Their leading product, the Lapdog collar, has been a
tremendous success for the company and it allows pet owners
to easily track their dog’s steps, heart rate and general health
from the convenience of their phone. The product has been so
successful, in fact, that the company is considering releasing
a similar product for cats called Lapcat and has been testing
hundreds of prototypes in the field for the past several months.
Course Project :
Building a Microsoft Power Now, the data from those tests has been compiled and Waggle
BI report for Waggle leadership has requested a Microsoft Power BI report that
summarizes key insights comparing Lapcat and Lapdog devices
that can be presented to the CEO. This project will test students
on the data visualization and report design skills learned in the
course while also challenging them to implement a variety of
interactive features that can enhance the user experience. By
the end of the project, students will have designed a detailed
Microsoft Power BI report with many data visuals that tell the
story of how the new Lapcat devices compared to Lapdog collars.

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 LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Describe the learning objective of the course

Welcome
to Creating • Explain why data visualization is important for business
LESSON ONE Visualizations intelligence
with Microsoft • Identify the main stakeholders that BI analysts interact with
Power BI
• Identify when data visualization is useful and when it is not

• Identify important business metrics and pair them with

appropriate data visuals
• Build common data visuals, including bar charts & line charts
• Design complementary visuals, including cards, donut charts
Building
& tables
LESSON TWO Compelling Data
Visualizations • Build more complex data visuals, including scatter plots &
bubble maps
• Recognize standard formatting options for Microsoft Power
BI visuals and navigate the unique formatting features that
vary between visuals

• Customize Microsoft Power BI themes with unique color

palettes
Designing • Insert elements like images, shapes and buttons to create
LESSON THREE User-Friendly compelling and versatile layouts for their reports
Reports • Apply design principles that reduce noise & highlight data
stories
• Maximize accessibility for diverse user groups

• Design visuals that interact with one another and help

users explore data by filtering and drilling for insights

Creating • Identify the differences between filters and slicers in a

Interactive Microsoft Power BI report, including when to use each and
LESSON FOUR differences in functionality
Reports for Data
Exploration • Apply filters to data visuals, pages and reports
• Customize the Filter Pane for reporting needs
• Help users explore the data with different types of slicers

• Customize Microsoft Power BI reports in ways that foster

interactivity and help users tell compelling data stories
Elevating Reports • Build custom data stories with Microsoft Power BI
LESSON FIVE with Advanced bookmarks
Report Features
• Empower users with navigation buttons
• Design drill-through pages for deep-dive analysis

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Course 3: Advanced Data Analysis
In this course, students will focus on the techniques and skills needed for data analysis in Microsoft Power
BI. The course is centered around building a strong foundation and intuition of analytics so that students
can take their skills beyond simply aggregating data in Microsoft Power BI and into the realm of statistics,
forecasting and strategy. We first start with an introduction to data analysis looking at different terms and
techniques such as descriptive and inferential statistics, histograms, linear regression and an introduction to
the concepts of correlation and probability.

After taking the introductory lessons on data analytics, the course then moves to M, the language of Power
Query, and learning to build custom formulas as part of the data transformation process. In this section,
the syntax of the language is explored and students are challenged with different exercises to build their
familiarity and skills. After Power Query, the course then moves to DAX. In a similar approach, the syntax of
the language is reviewed along with common functions and exercises to build an intuition for analyzing data
with DAX. The final lesson of the course goes through a number of visualizations in Microsoft Power BI and
explores how those visuals may be used, edited or enhanced to effectively relay information to an audience.

The overarching goal of the course is to help students become effective at the process of retrieving, analyzing
and visualizing data in order to answer questions and draw conclusions.

An online national clothing chain needs your help creating a

targeted marketing campaign. Sales have been flat and they
want to lure lost customers back. They want to advertise specific
products to specific customers in specific locations, but they don’t
know who to target. They need you to conduct an analysis to
determine the best product to advertise to each customer.

In this project, you will use population statistics from the US Census
Bureau to determine where the greatest income exists around
the country and whether there is a correlation between sales and
income. We don’t know the incomes of our customers, but we
Course Project : should be able to predict it by looking at their purchase history and
Market Analysis Report for locations and comparing that against the census data. Additionally,
National Clothing Chain we want to analyze our inventory, specifically customer ratings and
return rate and see if there’s a correlation between the two.

Through this project, you will demonstrate the ability to use

custom M code to import, clean, format and organize data in Power
Query and use custom DAX code to analyze data in Microsoft
Power BI. You will also conduct statistical analysis to understand
relationships and probabilities of the data sources, including linear
regression, histogram and standard deviation, and create advanced
visualizations to present conclusions and recommendations that are
driven by the statistical analysis.

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 LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Describe the learning objectives of the course

Welcome to • Explain what data analysis is and why it’s important
Advanced Data
LESSON ONE • Identify the main stakeholders that data analysts interact
Analysis in
Microsoft Power BI with
• Identify when data analysis is useful and when it is not

• Define, investigate and analyze data in order to draw

conclusions
Advanced Data • Use historical analysis to investigate, aggregate and
LESSON TWO
Analytics describe data
• Use predictive analysis to understand relationships between
data and forecast the probabilities of future outcomes

• Compare and contrast Power Query and DAX

Power Query • Use M in Power Query to manually edit table columns
LESSON THREE
Transformations • Write custom formulas using the advanced editor in order to
effectively clean and format imported data

• Write custom DAX formulas to perform calculations or format

data
LESSON FOUR DAX Functions • Use DAX to create calculated tables
• Troubleshoot common DAX errors and fix the underlying
issues with their code

• Use advanced visualizations in order to analyze data and

draw conclusions
Advanced
LESSON FIVE • Distinguish between advanced and standard visualizations
Visualizations
• Customize advanced visualizations with filters, formatting
and trend analysis

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Our Classroom Experience
REAL-WORLD PROJECTS
Build your skills through industry-relevant projects. Get
personalized feedback from our network of 900+ project
reviewers. Our simple interface makes it easy to submit
your projects as often as you need and receive unlimited
feedback on your work.

KNOWLEDGE
Find answers to your questions with Knowledge, our
proprietary wiki. Search questions asked by other students,
connect with technical mentors, and discover in real-time
how to solve the challenges that you encounter.

WORKSPACES
See your code in action. Check the output and quality of
your code by running them on workspaces that are a part
of our classroom.

QUIZZES
Check your understanding of concepts learned in the
program by answering simple and auto-graded quizzes.
Easily go back to the lessons to brush up on concepts
anytime you get an answer wrong.

CUSTOM STUDY PLANS

Create a custom study plan to suit your personal needs
and use this plan to keep track of your progress toward
your goal.

PROGRESS TRACKER
Stay on track to complete your Nanodegree program with
useful milestone reminders.

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Learn with the Best

Joseph Lozada Lenore R Flower

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SENIOR BUSINESS
A N D O P E R AT I O N S P R O F E S S I O N A L INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIS T

Joseph works as a client services team Lenore is a Senior Business Intelligence

leader at Morneau Shepell, where Specialist with a background in finance and
he manages a team of analysts and a passion for empowering her colleagues
oversees the data management and to make data-driven decisions — even if
systems functionality for his clients. He the information they have to work with is a
also works as an adjunct instructor of little rough around the edges.
Excel and Microsoft Power BI analytics
at the Community College of Rhode
Island.

Sean Chandler
SENIOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
E N G I N E E R AT H U M A N A

Sean is a Senior Business Intelligence

Engineer at Humana, where he
oversees an enterprise community of
thousands of users & developers. His
Microsoft Power BI work has been
featured recently at the Microsoft
Business Applications Summit and
on Microsoft Mechanics.

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All Our Nanodegree Programs Include:

EXPERIENCED PROJECT REVIEWERS

REVIEWER SERVICES

• Personalized feedback & line by line code reviews

• 1600+ Reviewers with a 4.85/5 average rating
• 3 hour average project review turnaround time
• Unlimited submissions and feedback loops
• Practical tips and industry best practices
• Additional suggested resources to improve

TECHNICAL MENTOR SUPPORT

MENTORSHIP SERVICES

• Questions answered quickly by our team of

technical mentors
• 1000+ Mentors with a 4.7/5 average rating
• Support for all your technical questions

PERSONAL CAREER SERVICES

C AREER SUPPORT

• Github portfolio review

• LinkedIn profile optimization

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Frequently Asked Questions
PROGR AM OVERVIE W

WHY SHOULD I ENROLL?

The data analysis and visualization market is on the rise — Microsoft Power
BI helps enterprises make informed, data-driven decisions, and therefore
is extremely valuable to more and more top companies.

WHAT JOBS WILL THIS PROGRAM PREPARE ME FOR?

The need for a better data visualization in an enterprise organization is
greater than ever. The skills you will gain from this Nanodegree program
will qualify you for roles like business intelligence analyst, business analyst
or data analysts.

HOW DO I KNOW IF THIS PROGRAM IS RIGHT FOR ME?

The course is for individuals who are looking to advance their data analysis
careers with the cutting-edge skills of interacting with data and turning it
into insights more easily.

ENROLLMENT AND ADMISSION

DO I NEED TO APPLY? WHAT ARE THE ADMISSION CRITERIA?

No. This Nanodegree program accepts all applicants regardless of
experience and specific background.

WHAT ARE THE PREREQUISITES FOR ENROLLMENT?

A well-prepared learner is comfortable:
• Using Microsoft Excel to organize and analyze data, including the use of
basic functions (SUM, DIVIDE, AVERAGE, etc.) and creating basic formulae
(a + b = c, for example)
• Creating a table in Microsoft Excel, including filtering using column
headers
• (Optional but beneficial) Creating and using basic pivot tables in Microsoft
Excel for data analysis

IF I DO NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS TO ENROLL, WHAT SHOULD

I DO?
If you aren’t comfortable with the prerequisites above, we recommend
taking our beginner Marketing Analyst Nanodegree program first.

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FAQs Continued
TUITION AND TERM OF PROGR AM

HOW IS THIS NANODEGREE PROGRAM STRUCTURED?

The Data Analysis and Visualization with Microsoft Power BI is comprised of
content and curriculum to support 3 projects. We estimate that students can
complete the program in 3 months working 5 hours per week.

Each project will be reviewed by the Udacity reviewer network. Feedback will
be provided and if you do not pass the project, you will be asked to resubmit
the project until it passes.

HOW LONG IS THIS NANODEGREE PROGRAM?

Access to this Nanodegree program runs for the length of time specified above.
If you do not graduate within that time period, you will continue learning with
month to month payments. See the Terms of Use and FAQs for other policies
regarding the terms of access to our Nanodegree programs.

CAN I SWITCH MY START DATE? CAN I GET A REFUND?

Please see the Udacity Nanodegree program FAQs for policies on enrollment in
our programs.

SOF T WARE AND HARDWARE

WHAT SOFTWARE AND VERSIONS WILL I NEED IN THIS PROGRAM?

Learners will need the Windows operating system, and will need to download
and install free Power BI Desktop software. The hardware/OS requirements
listed are:
• Supported Operating System: Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2,
Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2016,
Windows Server 2019, Windows 11
• Microsoft Power BI Desktop requires Internet Explorer 10 or greater and
Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64)
platforms.

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