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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Getting Started with Power BI Desktop by Coursera Project Network

4.7
stars
3,629 ratings

About the Course

In this 2-hour long project-based course, you will learn the basics of using Power BI Desktop software. We will do this by analyzing data on credit card defaults with Power BI Desktop. Power BI Desktop is a free Business Intelligence application from Microsoft that lets you load, transform, and visualize data. You can create interactive reports and dashboards quite easily, and quickly. We will learn some of the basics of Power BI by importing, transforming, and visualizing the data. This course is aimed at learners who are looking to get started with the Power BI Desktop software. There are no hard prerequisites and any competent computer user should be able to complete the project successfully. Note: This course works best for learners who are based in the North America region. We’re currently working on providing the same experience in other regions....

Top reviews

AZ

Nov 16, 2020

Simple, easy and short course. Would definitely recommend it if you were looking to learn about power BI in a short period. Very informative and provide good explanation of the basics of the software,

EG

Nov 2, 2021

Only needed a refresher course, as I was using BI, after a long time. The instructor touched upon every importanat detail that you are going to need and the rest you can figure out on your own. Kudos

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1 - 25 of 807 Reviews for Getting Started with Power BI Desktop

By Samaa S S A A

Nov 10, 2020

DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE.

If I could rate this zero stars I would. If you want to do anything complex in Power Bi, this "guided project" is a total waste of time. For $9.99, all this course does is show you just the basics of setting up simple visualizations. For $0.00, you can get a much better and in depth introduction through YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmhQCQr_DCA.

The project was too short and simplistic. You will not learn how Power Bi works as a system and how it interfaces with other Microsoft applications (no mention of SQL or table relations). The instructor just showed us how to import data from an Excel file and then create basic visualizations (something you could find for FREE on YouTube). Did not even show us how to normalize data for meaningful visualization. The visualizations were just plotting TOTAL NUMBER of credit card payment defaults. I would have liked to learn how to plot the PERCENTAGE of defaults. There was also no mention of the more advanced Power Bi features such as drill through.

The whole course was delivered through a frustrating platform called "Rhyme". It's supposed to be a "cloud desktop" that has Power BI installed and includes the data set file. The file is not provided within Coursera, you are forced to use Rhyme to work on them. The cloud desktop did not work for me, and many other students also posted in the discussion forum saying the cloud desktop wasn't working. The instructor says the project was set up in Rhyme so "students do not have to worry about installing Power Bi and can focus on learning". This makes no sense, Power Bi is FREE through MicroSoft. Would have at least been nice to have the option to access the data files on my personal computer.

By Arash S

Nov 26, 2020

This course might be a fine/acceptable first introduction to PowerBI and basic data analytics/descriptive analysis for complete starters. However, for those with already a basic or very good understanding of analytics or other ETL programs such as Excel, or experience in 'R', this is an extremely short, underwhelming, and extremely basic/easy course. Way too bare-bones for even a 2-hour beginner course and given its asking entry price.

Although the explanation was done pretty well and calmly, I expected to explore the possibilities of PowerBI much more in-depth. Even though I realize this is just a crash course/getting started type of course, I feel this much more with basic data exploration rather than explaining Power BI as a tool and what (even theoretically) can be achieved if related skills are acquired.

As a result, I now only know what PowerBI's report and data view look like in general, but not what the unique selling point(s), main advantages, and differences (with other programs) are of this interactive and (growing in) popular(ity) data visualization tool.

By Sagar G S

Jul 11, 2020

Gives the right amount of basic overview for understanding Power BI. A good crash course (video?) sort of thing for someone who wants to understand what Power BI is about and its capabilities. However, the interface for this project was annoying. Also, was unable to download files back to my local computer. If that was restricted on purpose, a simple pop up to say the same would have been good.

By Shrinidhi R

Jun 23, 2020

Gives you a basic understanding of PowerBI, Very good pacing for starters

By Abd A Z

Nov 17, 2020

Simple, easy and short course. Would definitely recommend it if you were looking to learn about power BI in a short period. Very informative and provide good explanation of the basics of the software,

By Chaitanya G

Jul 26, 2020

Perfect Guided Project if you want to get yourself familiarize with working knowledge of PowerBI maybe for a specific task. However, for a detailed understanding, this may not be of much help.

By Julia V

Jun 17, 2020

It is a perfect teaser for Power BI and makes you want to use the tool right away. It provides the basics in a very nice way and it was easy to do the excercises while following the video.

By Seung T K

Dec 8, 2021

The course itself was fine, and I am glad that I took it, as I did not have any experience with or exposure to Power BI whatsoever. If you are someone who is approaching Power BI with a completely blank slate, then this course is pretty good. I just have some criticisms:

The Cost:

In my opinion, the course's contents do not really justify the $10 price tag. If the course was longer and added more learning material, like say for example, 4 or 6 hours of guided project time and walkthroughs instead of just 2, I'd say it'd be worth it. I really could've used a more lengthy tutorial of Power BI.

The Discussion Forums:

The Course description guides you to the Discussion Forums if you have any questions, which is fine, but the problem is that the Discussion Forums are used so infrequently that you will have to wait several days or even weeks for a response. When I was dealing with software issues, I could not rely on the Forums for any kind of assistance, as the questions that were asked by people already in the past, were never answered. Which leads me to my next and biggest criticism.

The software:

This is the most glaring problem that I had and that you will have with this course. The software that you use for the guided project really leaves a lot to be desired. Especially Rhyme, which offers the Cloud Workspace. Not only is there a TIME LIMIT for it, the connection and reliability of it is very dubious, plus the fact that Rhyme relies upon your web browser's history, cookies, and cache to be regularly cleaned out in order for the site to function.

Also, if you take breaks and have to step away from the computer, the Cloud ability times out, and you have to re-load the site to regain the Cloud space, which takes a long time.

The aforementioned time limit for the Cloud Workspace truly is the biggest weak point in this course. Not only do you not have a lot of time to get to use the Cloud Workspace, there is no mention of a time limit anywhere in the course description, plus, once the time limit runs out, you will actively be denied the ability to use the Cloud Workspace, thus taking away your ability to actually do the guided project. A message appears stating that 'You will no longer be assigned a cloud workspace.' It really feels punishingly unforgiving, as well as a feeling of just being completely and utterly ripped off.

I had to contact Coursera customer service to get this issue resolved. Thankfully they were able to fix it, but this time limit issue shouldn't even be a problem to begin with.

TL;DR, OVERALL, this course is ok. The content is fine, despite its pretty short length, the software is frustrating, the forums are useless, and this course could really use more transparency and frequent contact with the professor.

By Juana E A T

Sep 14, 2020

The course was totally worth it. It was slow enough for any beginner to grasp the main concepts and actually learn at the end. The price also makes one just want to give it a try, finding out the instructor was good came as an added bonus. I hope there will be another course, something a little more advanced and longer, to continue building one's proficiency.

By Dulce B

Jun 25, 2020

The instructor provided a nice coverage of examples to demonstrate different functionality and spoke at a good speed. The class was short enough at 2 hours for what I needed to grasp the concept and get started on my own. I would look forward to this instructor expanding on more advanced level topics on Power BI Desktop.

By Kelsey P

Dec 13, 2021

This course was the perfect overview for me, as I had no idea what Power BI was before. It was so easy to follow along with and the instructor used relevant data to show different ways to use the visuals. I would recommend this to anyone who is new to Power BI and is unsure what the benefits of this program is.

By Weng H W

Aug 22, 2020

Simple, concise explanations that sufficiently guide a total beginner like me throughout the whole project, which makes it really easy to understand and follow! Really recommend this course to anyone out there who is looking to learn PowerBI!

By Mainak C

Jul 8, 2020

The guided project is a good start for all who are new to the Power BI. The main advantage is that we don't need to install any additional software, everything works in the cloud desktop. It was quite fun to do the project.

By Eeshan G

Nov 3, 2021

Only needed a refresher course, as I was using BI, after a long time. The instructor touched upon every importanat detail that you are going to need and the rest you can figure out on your own. Kudos

By Erika X R G

Aug 11, 2020

It was a really nice way to learn the basics about Power BI Desktop and this course gave me the tools to understand how to use it for my profesional reports. I really enjoyed it!

By Yolanda F

Sep 28, 2020

Excellent instructor! Everything was well-explained. Love the double-window interface used for this project and the window's ability to move with instructor's mouse. Will definitely recommend this course to my colleagues and try more projects!

By Narkhajid O

Mar 14, 2021

The Guided Project course is understandable and approachable for people who are intend to learn new program, system and so on. I obtained skills that I had desired by attending this course. I highly recommend the course.

By PAOLO B L V

Jul 5, 2020

Excellent tool for the development of the area of Data Analysis and professional development.

I would like to thank you for the course, as it has been an excellent learning.

Greetings from Chile!

By Beatriz N A

Sep 7, 2020

I loved it! I didn't know anything of Power BI e this course it was a great start. The instructor is really good, in a few time you learn a lot doing your own Power BI visualization.

By Almog Z

Sep 23, 2020

Well explaind and demonstraited. Thank you!

Small note for improvment, for my opinion the course should explaind more ways to import files into Power BI( such via SQL, excle etc..)

By Laiba K

Jun 26, 2020

Just the right course to get started with Power BI! I appreciate the way the project was structured by Amit Yadav sir. The instructor's teaching was great and easy to understand.

By Anoop B

Jul 2, 2020

Amazing introduction and walk through of a real life project. The course covers a really good amount of Power BI features in a really short span of time. Definitely recommended!

By VAIBHAV B

Jul 20, 2020

More in depth knowledge and hands on for covering all the functionalities will be required. This project is just a simple introduction to the Power BI.

By Diti M

Aug 3, 2020

This course can be made more difficult and exploring more options should be made available of the tool

By Ervin D F

Apr 14, 2022

I kept putting this off, but one day I hunkered down and just did it. I am so glad I did. The cloud desktop approach side by side with the video was so helpful. If school was like this for me growing up - I would have done so much better. The absence of pressure and the ability to watch - try - rewind - try again is superb.

This project in particular was well organized and presented in a clear cadence. The instructor included just the right amount of content to instill confidence that I can do this myself.

Great Project - I hope I can find more like it.