Pluralsight

"Review
Course: Getting Started with Power BI
Date: 10-15 July 2019
1. The course is provided on a third party site Pluralsight. This requires separate credentials.
2. Instructor has a clear voice and provides good explanations. However, she talks in a very fast pace through the material. You need to stay very focused to keep up.
3. The course level marked as Beginner and the course release date is Jun 23, 2016 (this information is not mentioned on the Springest website). Note however, that the instructor assumes that the trainee has understanding of data models. Hence to my opinion this training level is not Beginner. It does however provide a good starting point for learning Power BI for users that already versed in data modeling.
4. The training shows data modelling and visualization in both Power BI and in Excel. This might sometime be a bit confusing.
5. During the training you are instructed to install the Microsoft Power BI Desktop application on your computer and the Power Query, Power View and/or the Power Pivot Add-Ins for Excel. Installer rights are required.
6. For development of your dashboard reports you can use either Excel (with Power Query to get your data, Power Pivot to build your data model, and Power View to build reports). Or, you can you can use the Power BI desktop tool with the same functionalities.
7. Data modelling is clearly explained. However, what I am missing is explanation on dimensional modelling.
8. Power BI is a cloud service. To share your Power BI report with others you must publish it on PowerBI.com. When you do this you are uploading your model, data and reports into the Power BI Service cloud.
9. To schedule a refresh of your Power BI data you must purchase Power BI Pro (available for free during a 60 day try-out). Furthermore you must download and install the Power BI Gateway Personal on your computer; this is triggered automatically when try to schedule a data refresh. To configure you must provide all credentials (including Windows) for access to the data sources of the data model. If you store your data and data model on OneDrive (Personal or Business) or SharePoint then you do not need the Power BI Gateway.
10. Instead of multiple Power BI personal gateways have your IT team install the Power BI Gateway Enterprise on a server.
" - 18-07-2019 13:11

"Review
Course: Introduction to Microsoft Business Intelligence End-user Tools.
Date: 8 July 2019
1. The course that I followed was last released on 19 August 2013, hence very old!!! It does not even mention PowerBI as an end user tool and when showing the tools we see SkyDrive instead of OneDrive. This info is not visible in the Springest. Recommendation: please include the course release date in Springest.
2. None the less, even though the training course is old, it still does provide an insightful overview of Microsoft BI tools. However, I would recommend to look for an update of this course as it does contain elements (e.g. the PerformancePoint Services), which likely will soon no longer be supported by Microsoft.
3. As I had already purchased this course, I decided to complete it. Below are my comments on the course.
4. The course is more a demo than a training course. It is very narrative.
5. The instructor knows his stuff, but speaks very monotonous, and dull.
6. The course teaches 5 MS BI tools for creating reports. Level: intermediate.
a. For all 5 tools the instructor shows: (i) connectivity to data sources (which and how), (ii) how to create reports, (iii) how to interact with the report, (iv) make calculations in the reports, and (v) how to deploy the report.
b. Excel: shows how to create reports in pivot tables, add charts and conditional formats.
c. PowerPivot: shows how to create power pivot models and power pivot table reports, add charts and conditional formats
d. Reporting services: shows how to create interactive line item and dashboard and KPI reports, with flags, triggers, etc. Collapsible/Expandable user interactions (with drill-down options) and all sort of charts are supported. Interactive maps are supported.
e. PerformancePoint Services (part of SharePoint): shows how to integrate Reporting Services, Excel and other functionalities to create dashboards and score cards. Deployment only possible via SharePoint.
Note: a Google search shows that not many organizations use this tool and that probably in the near future Microsoft will cease support of this tool.
f. Power View (part of Reporting Services and of Excel (as of 2013): Shows how to create a limited number of charts on a Power Pivot data model. Power View is to view information only, you cannot add calculations, otherwise then to the data source. Power View reports can be deployed via SharePoint.
" - 08-07-2019 21:04