Do You Want To Be A Power BI Developer? | Belayet Hossain

For a ?????????? ???? ?????????????????? who has just entered the job market as a data analyst, there must be a continual learning plan for both the short term and the long term. The good thing in this field is that the ?????????? and ???????????????????? are well defined to a large extent in terms of learning areas, certifications, and skills.

There are many ways to continue learning and developing. You can take formal courses, read books and articles, attend workshops and conferences, or simply learn from your colleagues and manager. It is important to choose learning activities that are relevant to your goals and that fit into your schedule.

Here are a few tips for developing a ?????????????????? ???????????????? ?????? ?????????????????????? ????????:

• ?????? ???????????????? ?????? ???????????????????? ??????????

– What do you want to achieve by the end of your plan?

– How will you measure your progress?

• ???????????????? ?????? ?????????????????? ?????? ???????? – What courses, books, or other resources will you need to achieve your goals?
• ???????????? ?? ???????????????? – When will you complete each learning activity?
• ???? ???????????????? – Keeping in mind that things change, how will you adjust your plan as needed?

we are going to share a two-year continual learning plan based on our experience, the emerging features inside Power BI and its ecosystem, and the demand it will generate in the analytics market. This plan assumes a monthly learning dedication of ????–???? ?????????? for a full-time working professional. This is almost an average of ???????? ???? ???????? ?????????? ???? ???????????? commitment in total either during weekdays or on weekends.

Let us take a look at the tasks by month.

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Strengthen the foundation first. The pillars of Power BI are ?????????? ?????? ???????????????????? ?????????? ??????????, ??????, ???????? ????????????????, ?????????????????????????? ?????? ??????????????????, ???????? ????????????????????????, and online distribution. All these pillars need to be strengthened to close any gaps you find in your learning and understanding of the core concepts.

?? ?????????? ??:

Start preparation for the ????-?????? ??????????????????????????. ?????????????????? ?????????? ???? has two certifications that are globally recognized. If you have not cleared these, make sure that they are at the top of your list of goals. For a beginner- or intermediate-level Power BI developer, PL-300 is the exam that needs to be cleared to earn the certification of Power BI Data Analyst.

A certification validates your learning and being a globally recognized credential, it is very important for somebody working in Power BI. You can put this as a recognition on your CV/resume as well as your LinkedIn profile. A beginner-level resource requires two to three months to clear the PL-300 exam based on the 20-25 hours of monthly commitment we have assumed for this plan.

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Keep preparing for the ????-?????? ?????????????????????????? as per the official course syllabus shared by Microsoft. We will list all the resources in the next section.

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Appear in the ????-?????? ?????????????????????????? exam to clear it. If you have used the right resources to prepare and spent enough time doing it, this should not be a problem. If you cannot clear the exam, you can re-attempt it based on the report shared by Microsoft, which highlights the areas in which you might not score well on the exam. Go back and revise the topics and re-appear within a few weeks.

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One of the tools you should feel comfortable with as a Power BI developer is ?????????????. ChatGPT is one of the most popular generative AI tools in the market that can boost your analysis quality, creativity, and robustness, and speed up your productivity immensely. Make sure you understand how it works and try to use it in your day-to-day work.

An important consideration with generative AI tools is security and privacy. Make sure you strictly adhere to your company’s policy on using ChatGPT at work. Otherwise, you can use dummy or mockup data from open datasets to understand the features and capabilities it offers.

?? ?????????? ??:

Start using Power BI templates to learn from the past and boost your productivity using pre-made solutions. You should focus on reducing the development time by using templates and on developing reports and dashboards quickly by cutting down on the things that are repeatable. You should also prepare your ?????? ?????????????? ???? ???????????????? ???????? ?????? ????????????????, ???????????????????? ??????????????????, ????????????, and other artifacts to make your development process fast and increase your productivity.

?????????????? ??–??:

The most neglected bit of the Power BI tool suite is ?????????? ??????????. If you know it well, it can be your secret weapon. Power Query is important, as this is where the end-to-end analytics journey starts. If you invest your time in mastering Power Query, it streamlines the entire process and makes things such as Data Modeling and DAX simpler. Make sure you spend time getting to know some of the things such as query folding, custom functions, parameters, and how you can re-use some of the M-code to create an impact in your daily work.

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Most Power BI developers think about ?????? as the thing that is the most difficult to master. Writing DAX is one thing; optimizing it for performance along with your data model is another. If you want to create reports and dashboards that can work for billions of row tables and datasets, this is the area where you want to spend a lot of time. DAX and data model optimization require you to learn about a few external tools such as DAX Studio and Tabular Editor.

If you can understand this bit, you are well on your way to becoming a Power BI expert because very few people can handle the complexities of optimizing this area. As the size of the data increases, this bit impacts report performance, and this is where your expertise can make a huge difference.

?????????????? ????–????:

Power BI is a business intelligence tool, and there are certain scenarios in day-to-day analysis work that require an understanding of advanced analytical concepts. This is where higher-level programming languages such as ???????????? or ?? come to the rescue. It is a good investment to spend time learning R or Python. You do not need to learn both, as either one is good enough to help you understand advanced analytical concepts within the Power BI environment.

?????????????? ????–????:

After working for almost 15–16 months and using Power BI daily, now is the time to take your learning to the next level by preparing for the ????-?????? exam and becoming an Azure Enterprise Data Analyst. Enterprise-level data analysis expertise requires much more than being a master of Power BI. It requires you to understand how the complete ecosystem works for an enterprise where hundreds or even thousands of users are utilizing data for analysis. This data architecture also needs to have proper governance in place. Governance comes with security, privacy, data discovery, data classification, and end-to-end data lineage.

All these aspects are covered under the DP-500 exam, which is the advanced-level certification involving Power BI as one of its components. You will need to understand the Azure cloud data infrastructure for data and how utilities like Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Purview, and Azure Data Factory are used for different data transformation and governance functions.

This is a major milestone in your Power BI development journey; clearing the DP-500 exam can open new opportunities for your career. You also have the option to explore a brand-new learning path based on the ????-?????? exam called the “Fabric Analytics Engineer.” Fabric is a new ???????????????? ???? ?? ?????????????? (????????) offering from Microsoft, which is an end-to-end analytics environment but less complex than Azure Synapse Analytics, as Microsoft takes care of all the configuration required for Azure Synapse. With Fabric, it is easy to simply build an analytics solution inside one tool and leverage the flexibility without having to go to any other service or tool. Just like Azure Synapse, Power BI is a critical item inside Fabric and part of the end-to-end analytics ecosystem.

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In terms of learning and continual development, this is the time when you should have a look at the gaps you see in your Power BI portfolio. You must have learned a lot of things at work and fine-tuned some of the aspects related to advanced DAX calculations, performance tuning, and complex data transformations. You should fully understand what areas you need to improve and where the gaps are.

Now you can start to deep dive into books, workshops, and community data challenges, start posting in forums, attend Power BI user group meetups and conferences, and build a strong network of professionals in the BI field.

????????????????: the learning is never going to stop and you will always feel that there is an area you need to work on or improve. Keep in mind that you cannot be an expert on everything. You should know enough stuff to grow your career and focus on improving every day. You need to be aware of the major updates and look out for material that is useful in your day-to-day work. Throughout this roadmap, regular practice by working on projects and reflecting on your experiences during the learning journey is the most important thing. Remain flexible and be ready to adapt your plan as new features and updates to Power BI are released.

????????????????: the key to success in any tech field is lifelong learning and staying curious. For further learning, advanced concepts in SQL, Python programming, and data warehousing concepts must be pursued. All of these skills are necessary for working with Microsoft Fabric

From: The Complete Power BI Interview Guide (Book)