Ian Stuart, Principal Consultant – Altis UK
Microsoft’s Power BI Dashboard In A Day workshop has been developed over the past three years as a free event for those interested in exploring Power BI or furthering their Power BI knowledge. It is aimed at those with some reporting expertise and prior knowledge of Power BI is not required.
The DIAD material has been developed and refined by Microsoft incorporating feedback from delivery partners and DIAD delegates. The workshop is delivered by selected Microsoft partners, with the necessary Power BI certifications and expertise, across the globe in numerous languages.
The day consists of a brief introduction and demonstration and then delegates get straight into working through the DIAD manuals which use a pre-prepared dataset and provide step by step instructions to the student on how to import, analyse, transform and visualise data and then how to bring it all together in a dashboard for sharing with others.
During breaks in the training we show examples of dashboards we have built previously in order to demonstrate the possibilities and good practice. These demonstrations are well received with many attendees asking how they can implement similar in their organisations. At a recent DIAD we paraded the following dashboards:
- Business Intelligence Maturity Survey
- UK Fuel Price History
- Human Resources
- University Admissions
- Paragliding and Hang-Gliding Incidents
DIAD is a very popular, always oversubscribed, event and the feedback we have received from the events we have led has been very positive:
“The training was clear and concise, the trainers were extremely helpful not only on the day but afterwards.”
“The friendliness of the hosts and the quality of the workbooks”
“Fast-paced, lab style learning suits me – with presenters on-hand most of the time to resolve problems or answer questions.”
“Being a beginner in Power BI I enjoyed building a dashboard from scratch”
“Good Location. Great Content. Presenter was engaging, humble and easy to understand.”
It should be remembered that DIAD will provide newcomers to Power BI a flavour of the possible. Power BI is a highly functional product that has many facets and it is not possible to learn everything in a single day. Neither is Power BI the silver bullet that will magically transform your organisation from a spreadsheet jungle to a nimble data-led decision making environment. The latter is possible but further strategy definition that includes training, governance and process is a must. DIAD should be seen as the start of a journey that will require ongoing investment but should return tangible and soft benefits if executed with care.
Altis take an holistic view of an organisation’s data and analytics processes and propose tailored offerings specifically designed to progress the organisation through the various stages of maturity. We sometimes start this journey by asking key stakeholders to complete our business intelligence maturity survey. The results of this can be played back during a data and analytics strategy workshop where future state and roadmap options are also discussed. During roadmap execution the maturity survey can be repeated to measure progress towards the goal.
Regarding Power BI and data visualisation specifically, we offer more in-depth, on-demand, training and consultancy that can be delivered at your premises. These include:
- A 3-day custom Power BI training course and workshop
- Data Visualisation Principles workshop
- Dashboard quick start consultancy
- Data Literacy workshop
Whether you are just getting started on your data and analytics journey or you want to improve your data and analytics function we would be delighted to hear about your challenges and explain our offerings in more detail. Please contact us for more information on DIAD and our other service offerings.
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