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LifestyleMicrosoft Power BI - The Practical Guide (Udemy.com)
Dive in and learn the Power BI tools! Learn Data Analysis & Visualization and more in Power BI Desktop & Power BI Pro!
Created by: Manuel Lorenz
Last updated January 2026
Our take
Based on the ratings of 76,334 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in January 2026. No course pays to be reviewed.
Manuel Lorenz's course, published under the Academind banner with Maximilian Schwarzmüller, is a click-by-click tour of Power BI Desktop and Power BI Pro. It runs about 17.6 hours across 204 lectures, but there is also an optional two-hour crash course section for anyone who just needs the basics fast. The syllabus is heavy on Power Query cleanup and transformation, then moves through relationships and DAX, report visuals, and sharing through workspaces and apps. More than 313,000 students have enrolled, and it was last updated in January 2026.
Reviewers keep using the same words: detailed, easy to follow, step by step. Beginners like that every tab and menu gets explained, and one student singled out how the course points out traps and shows how to track down errors. The lectures are short and cover one topic each, which one reviewer said helped her focus. The complaints are the flip side of that detail. A two-star review says too much time goes on self-explanatory things, while another student had to rewind because the instructor moves quickly. One reviewer found the Power BI Pro section behind the current interface, and another had trouble locating the course documentation on GitHub.
Value is solid for a paid course this long, and the 4.6 rating from more than 76,000 reviews backs that up. On our Data Analysis list it sits beside Microsoft Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence, which, judging by its title, stays inside Desktop; this one also covers Pro, workspaces and mobile. Pick this if patient, granular teaching suits you and the sharing side matters. Skip it for something project-led, or if the basics are already familiar.
Pros
- Short lectures on one topic each, which reviewers call detailed and easy to follow step by step
- Covers Power BI Pro sharing, workspaces and mobile, not just Desktop
- Optional two-hour crash course section for a fast start or a quick refresher
- Refreshed in January 2026, with 4.6 stars from more than 76,000 reviews
Cons
- Spends a lot of time on self-explanatory clicks, which a two-star reviewer found tedious
- One reviewer found the Power BI Pro section behind the current interface and hard to follow
- Needs Windows for most of it and a work or school email address for several modules
very detailed explained, easy to follow step-by-step guidance which helps for first time user of Power Bi
Listed as all levels, but it is really for first-timers; anyone already comfortable in Power Query will find the early sections slow.
What you will learn
- At the end of this course students will be able to analyse data from different data sources and create their own datasets
- Students will be able to comfortably work with the different tools of the Power BI universe and know how the different tools work together
- Students will have the required knowledge to dive deeper into Power BI and find out more about its advanced features
Course content
14 sections · 204 lectures · 18 hours of video 3 assignments, 6 articles
- 1Getting Started 11 free previews11 lectures · 53 min
- 2Understanding the Power BI Desktop Basics & Preparing the Course Project4 lectures · 22 min
- 3Data Preparation in the Power Query Editor22 lectures · 2.1 hours
- 4Data Transformation in the Power Query Editor24 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.9 hours
- 5The Data Model: Working with Relationships & DAX (Data Analysis Espressions)35 lectures · 1 quiz · 2.8 hours
- 6Creating Visuals in the Report View30 lectures · 1 quiz · 2.6 hours
- 7Power BI Pro & Mobile: Sharing & Collaborating with Workspaces & Apps24 lectures · 2.1 hours
- 8Other Data Sources7 lectures · 29 min
- 9How to Stay Up-to-Date in the Power BI World?3 lectures · 7 min
- 10Course Round Up1 lecture · 7 min
- 11Optional: Power BI Desktop Crash Course / Introduction & Summary33 lectures · 2.3 hours
- 12Bonus: Selected Features by Example & Refresher Project7 lectures · 1.3 hours
- 13This Course Was Completely Updated1 lecture · 1 min
- 14Course Roundup2 lectures · 1 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- People who never worked with Power BI and who want to understand how to use these tools
- Anyone who is interested in learning how to connect the different Power BI tools with each other
- People who want to understand how to create customized visuals with the Power BI Developer tools
What you need before you start
- For the majority of the course you must have a computer with Windows as operating system
- Basic understanding of data analysis is a plus but not required
- For multiple modules of this course a work or school email address is required to sign up
How it compares
Against the other 371 rated Udemy courses in Data Analysis on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 73% of them
- Reviews76,334#2 of 372 by number of reviews
- Length17.6 hourslonger than 89% of them
- Last updatedJanuary 2026more recently than 59% of them
Course Description
This course turned more than 300.000 students into Power BI professionals and was specifically created for business users who need to learn fast, comprehensive and efficient to get the job done!
-
In the course you can take two paths:
- The Complete Path (full >15h course also teaching more advanced concepts & features)
- The Summary Path (2h crash course to master Power BI as quick as possible)
Both approaches will teach you Power BI in great detail and turn you into a Power BI professional. You decide what learning type you are - it’s your choice!
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You want to analyze data from single or multiple sources? You want to create your individual datasets based on these sources and transform your results into beautiful and easy-to-make visualizations? You also want to share your results with colleagues or collaborate on your projects? Finally, you want to be able to access your data from multiple devices?
Then the Power BI tools are the tools to choose for you!
In this course you will learn why Power BI offers you a comprehensive set of Business Intelligence tools for your data analysis goals and how to use these tools to fulfill all of the above tasks - and more. Imagine to quickly structure your data, to easily add calculations to it and to create and publish nice-looking charts in just a few minutes.
This is what you will learn:
Get to know the different tools of the Power BI universe and learn how to use them
Understand Power BI Desktop and its components
Learn how to use the Query Editor to connect Power BI to various source types, how to work on the Data Model and understand the difference between those two steps
Learn how to filter and format data, how pivoting and unpivoting works
How to work in the different views of the Data Model
How to create calculated columns and measures
How to build relationships between different tables
How to create a report with different interactive visualization types
Learn how to use Power BI Pro to create dashboards and to share and publish your results
How to access your results from multiple devices using Power BI Mobile
And more!
Don't miss this opportunity to become a Power BI expert today! Enrol now, unlock your potential & transform your career today!
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Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
76,334 Reviews
Manuel Lorenz
Having worked as a business analyst in both a major consultancy and an investment bank, I always found myself confronted with both various and complex problem sets and challenging client demands. The rapid development of technology and business requirements forces everyone to constantly adapt and to continue learning.
Being an early adopter of new and quickly evolving tools, I always enjoyed both learning these tools and passing on my knowledge to my colleagues and fellow students.
Since working as a business analyst implies a high affinity to programming, I also enjoy working as a web developer. It's that combination of self-taught knowledge and its application in a highly competitive consulting environment for various clients which gave me the ability to evaluate solutions from an industry perspective as well as from a learner's perspective. The latter also allows me to identify the pain points students might hit when learning these tools.
Since I always found it hard to find high quality, understandable and comprehensive learning materials, I decided to create such materials on my own. Together with Maximilian Schwarzmüller I founded Academind to offer the best possible learning experience on web development and data science to our more than 2.000,000 students.
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Reviews
By Rajesh Dhyani on 5/6/2026
The course is at very detailed level. It covers each and every small concept and provide granular level understanding. Thank you !
By Arash Haghshenas on 5/6/2026
As someone with no background in Power BI, I found the course very useful and easy to follow. The example is well-designed and shows different ways to achieve an objective. The most important factor is that the course shows the traps you may encounter and provides guidance on how to avoid mistakes, track errors, and get back on track. I needed a quick way to complete a project in Power BI, and I am glad I took this course to build my foundational knowledge rather than relying on other sources. I am sure that after building the basic foundation through this course, I will benefit from other sources, but just jumping into the wild would have been confusing.
By Sunil Lohra on 4/13/2026
Yes absouletly it was great to learn this particular course and helpful to understand the concepts eager to complete the full course.
By Weronika Giefert on 4/10/2026
Very useful. Appreciate the crash course section for a quick refresher. PowerBI Pro section not updated to the latest version though - difficult to follow at times.
By Priyanka Rawool on 3/21/2026
Indeed it was! Having short sessions focusing on one topic at a time really helped me focus. I enjoyed learning the Power BI thoroughly and can't wait to use it for my day-to-day work!
By Bhekimpatho Humphrey Nxumalo on 2/26/2026
The course is very enlightening and interesting. I am enjoying it so much as it opens new reporting possibilities for me and the business!
By Lyudmil Kotev on 2/25/2026
One of the most valuable courses I've ever attended to. Simple explanations, nice examples. The only downside is that the course is not up to date as the interface at the moment of my comment is slightly different than what's in the videos.
By STUART ARNOLD on 12/31/2025
This was a great course. Very informative and helpful to transition from using Tableau to Power BI. The course was easy to follow I was able to execute the tasks as the videos played. Well done.
By Nagendra Mani Tripathi on 12/21/2025
Very good course on power BI. Explained really well all basic concepts. I feel the course length could have been shorter or within same course length Advance concepts including DAX Functions should have been covered. overall almost perfect course to learn power BI .
By Ankit Patel on 12/9/2025
It was a great experience! I gained a lot more confidence after watching your videos. You explained every detail clearly, and the communication throughout the course was smooth and easy to follow. Thank you for such an excellent learning experience!
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 92 / 100
- Video Duration:
17.6h - Price: $149.99
- Provider: Udemy
- Updated:
January 2026 - Level:
All Levels - Language:
English - Certificate:
Yes - Lectures:204 in 14 sections
- Students:313,700
- Subtitles:23 languages
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