Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence Review (Udemy)

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Where we would start, among the ones that pay us

This is a course about one Microsoft application, Power BI Desktop. Its eleven sections follow the order that work usually takes — connect and shape the data, model it, write DAX, build the report — and add a section on artificial intelligence. The questions worth settling before you buy are narrower than the syllabus: whether your computer can run it, whether you need an exam at the end, and whether 17 hours bought once suits you better than a 50-hour track on a subscription. This review is built from the course page as read in a browser on 25 September 2026, and its full curriculum, every section expanded, read on 26 September; it says so wherever that page runs out.

What is it?

One Udemy course, sold by Maven Analytics, which Udemy lists as an instructor alongside Chris Dutton and Aaron Parry; the course page showed Maven Analytics with more than 2,000,000 learners. Udemy lists 17 hours 0 minutes of lectures, 200 of them, in eleven sections, taught in English with captions listed in 33 languages, the two it names first marked as automatic. Udemy showed it as last updated in September 2026.

Udemy labels it All Levels. We publish it as Beginner, because its requirements say that experience with Excel Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX “is a plus, but not required”. It is not tied to an exam: the page claims to prepare you for none. And its subject is narrower than the business-intelligence title suggests: it is named for Power BI Desktop, the application in which reports are built, and no section is about the Power BI Service, where reports are published and shared: the Service appears in the title of one two-minute lecture, PREVIEW: Publishing to Power BI Service.

What you'll actually learn

The page shows six promised outcomes and, with every section expanded, all 200 lectures in eleven sections, so the list below is complete. The lecture counts and lengths are the ones Udemy shows; its five quizzes appear in the curriculum but are not counted as lectures.

The six promised outcomes, in the page's words

• “Build professional-quality business intelligence reports from the ground up”
• “Blend and transform raw data into beautiful interactive visuals & dashboards”
• “Design and implement the same tools used by professional data analysts and data scientists”
• “Showcase your skills with two full-scale course projects (with step-by-step solutions)”
• “Explore powerful artificial intelligence tools and advanced data analysis & visualization techniques”
• “Learn from a #1 best-selling instructor and professional Power BI developer”

All eleven sections, in the course's own titles

1. Getting Started · 7 lectures, 14min
2. Introducing Microsoft Power BI Desktop · 6 lectures, 19min
3. Connecting & Shaping Data · 34 lectures, 3hr 12min
4. Creating a Data Model · 25 lectures, 1hr 44min
5. Calculated Fields with DAX · 43 lectures, 3hr 56min
6. Visualizing Data with Reports · 57 lectures, 4hr 12min
7. Artificial Intelligence (AI) · 6 lectures, 47min
8. Power BI Optimization Tools · 7 lectures, 30min
9. New Power BI Features & Updates · 9 lectures, 1hr 57min
10. BONUS PROJECT: Maven Market · 5 lectures, 9min
11. BONUS LESSON · 1 lecture, 2min

Read in order, the sections make a sensible path. Two short sections of orientation come first, then the four that carry most of the subject, 159 of the 200 lectures: getting data in and shaping it in the Power Query Editor; building a data model, from relationships to star and snowflake schemas; writing calculations in DAX, Power BI's formula language, up to CALCULATE, iterator functions and time intelligence; and building reports, from cards and charts to drillthrough, bookmarks and custom tooltips. Power BI Optimization Tools covers the Optimize ribbon, pausing visuals, optimization presets, applying all slicers, the Performance Analyzer and external tools. New Power BI Features & Updates is a short introductory article and eight feature lectures whose titles carry dates from October 2023 (Calculation Groups) to May 2025 (List Slicer); the other six cover the new card visual, DAX query view, the button slicer, visual calculations, DAX INFO.VIEW functions and AI documentation with TMDL.

Two outcomes are worth reading as claims. “Two full-scale course projects (with step-by-step solutions)” can now be placed. Getting Started introduces the course project, and the four core sections carry 25 ASSIGNMENT lectures, each followed by a SOLUTION lecture, though the titles do not say whether those assignments are the project's steps. The second is BONUS PROJECT: Maven Market, five articles rather than videos, in four parts that retrace the path: shaping the data, the data model, DAX measures and the report; the page does not say whether it comes with a solution. “Learn from a #1 best-selling instructor” is the page describing itself, and we could not check the ranking it implies.

The AI section, and what the page does not say about it

This is a site about AI certifications, so the AI content deserves an exact answer. One of the eleven sections is titled Artificial Intelligence (AI): 6 lectures, 47min. After a section introduction, its lectures are Anomaly Detection, Smart Narratives, Q&A Visuals, Decomposition Trees and Key Influencers, the features the course description lists among its “powerful artificial Intelligence tools”; Decomposition Trees is marked Preview on the page. One more lecture carries AI in its title, AI Documentation with TMDL (Jan 2025), in the new-features section, and its title does not say which AI tool it uses. The word Copilot appears nowhere on the course page, read in full on 26 September 2026, not only the description.

Copilot is the question to ask, because Microsoft's current PL-300 outline names four Copilot tasks, as our review of DataCamp's Power BI track sets out. Neither route claims them: that track teaches the decomposition tree, key influencers and the Q&A visual in three chapters of two courses and no Copilot at all, and this course's AI section, by its titles, covers those three plus anomaly detection and smart narratives. Microsoft's overview of Copilot for Power BI also says it needs a paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Power BI Premium (P1 or higher), so no course can promise you will be able to practise it on a personal account.

So this is a business-intelligence course with a 47-minute AI section, not an AI course. If AI skills brought you here, treat them as a separate step; our guide to the best AI certifications for data analysts covers that half.

Windows only: what the requirements ask for

The page lists three requirements, in full: “Microsoft Power BI Desktop (free download)”; “This course is designed for PC/Windows users (currently not available for Mac)”; and “Experience with Excel Power Query, Power Pivot & DAX is a plus, but not required”.

• Windows. The page offers a Mac user no route through the course, so settle how you will get to a Windows PC before you buy, not after.
• Power BI Desktop. Free, by the page's own account. The requirements say nothing about the Power BI Service or any paid Power BI licence, which fits a course whose sections stay inside Desktop.
• Excel. If you have used Power Query or Power Pivot in Excel, or written a DAX measure there, the early sections should feel familiar; if you have not, the page says you can still start.

The contrast with DataCamp's track is practical: our review of it describes remote-desktop exercises in a copy of Power BI that DataCamp hosts. On a Mac, that may decide the choice before either syllabus does; check it on DataCamp's own pages first.

The details: cost, time, certificate

Cost. Sold per course on Udemy, bought once rather than subscribed to. This review prints no price: Udemy prices by country, so a single figure would be wrong for most readers. Check the price the course page shows you.

Time. Udemy lists 17 hours 0 minutes across 200 lectures, just over five minutes a lecture on average; its includes box lists 17 hours of on-demand video, 9 articles and 9 downloadable resources. That is the length of the lectures, not of the work: the curriculum sets 25 assignments, five quizzes and two projects but gives no estimate of practice time, so plan for more than the lecture total.

Certificate. Udemy's certificate of completion, its standard for a paid course. Accreditation was not checked, the page names no exam the course prepares you for, the five quizzes show no question count, and nothing on the page says an assignment is marked: each is followed by a solution lecture. It shows that you finished a course, not what you can do.

Learner evidence. 197,115 ratings averaging 4.6 out of 5 from 808,648 learners, as Udemy showed them on 25 September 2026, on a course last updated that same month. A sample that large says the teaching works for most people who got far enough to rate it; it says nothing about how many reached the bonus project.

Does it prepare you for PL-300?

Not by its own account. The page names no exam, and PL-300 is the Microsoft exam behind Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate. Microsoft's certification page for Power BI Data Analyst Associate is where the exam's current fee and format are stated, so we do not repeat them here, and the same page links Microsoft's free practice assessment. The PL-300 study guide sets out the skills measured.

Setting the curriculum's titles against that guide is a rough test, not a proof. Microsoft's study guide, as our DataCamp review read it on 25 September 2026, divides the exam into four areas: prepare the data, model the data, visualize and analyze the data, and manage and secure Power BI. By title, the first three have sections here: Connecting & Shaping Data; Creating a Data Model and Calculated Fields with DAX; Visualizing Data with Reports. The fourth has no section of its own. By lecture title, two short lectures inside the reports section come near it, Managing & Viewing Roles and PREVIEW: Publishing to Power BI Service, and no title names workspaces, sharing or permissions. And a title says nothing about depth.

So if PL-300 is where you are heading, treat this course as a first pass through the Desktop half of the exam. The management and security area, and the Copilot tasks, would still have to come from elsewhere: Microsoft's own free training, or DataCamp's track, which our review found covers all four areas.

Pros and cons

Who should take it (and who shouldn't)

Take it if you work in Excel on a Windows PC, want to build reports and dashboards in Power BI Desktop, and would rather pay once for a course of 17 hours than keep a subscription running; or if you want a first working knowledge of Power BI before deciding whether an exam is worth it. Our guide on how to become a data analyst shows where a tool course like this fits, and our list of AI certifications for business analysts covers a next step.

Skip it if your computer is a Mac. Skip it if PL-300 is the goal from the start: the page names no exam, and DataCamp's Data Analyst in Power BI track is built as preparation for it. Skip it if AI skills are what you need, since one section of eleven, 47 minutes, is about AI, and it never mentions Copilot. And skip it if you need an assessed credential: for Power BI, that is Microsoft's, earned by passing PL-300.

How it compares to DataCamp's Data Analyst in Power BI

Three routes into Power BI compared: this Udemy course at ~17 hrs, bought once; DataCamp's Data Analyst in Power BI at ~50 hrs on a subscription; and Microsoft's free PL-300 training, whose length is not stated. Only the Udemy course names no exam, and only Microsoft's training is labelled Intermediate.

Data Analyst in Power BI is the like-for-like alternative, and the longer one: seventeen required courses, which DataCamp labels as made in collaboration with Microsoft and describes as preparation for PL-300. It comes with a DataCamp subscription, which DataCamp prices by country, at about $330 a year at US list price; DataCamp's pricing page shows the price for your country. Its exercises are graded, and our review of the track sets out what it covers and misses. Finishing it certifies nothing either: PL-300 is a separate exam you book with Microsoft.

Three differences decide it. Payment: this course is paid for once, while the track costs for as long as the subscription runs, and that subscription also covers the rest of DataCamp's catalogue, which matters if Power BI is one of several things you mean to learn. Length: this course runs about a third as long as the track, the gap between a first working knowledge of Power BI Desktop and a path built to reach the exam. Practice: the track's exercises are graded, while this course sets 25 assignments, each followed by a solution lecture, and five quizzes, and nothing on its page says an assignment is marked.

On content the two overlap more than their lengths suggest. Both teach the decomposition tree, key influencers and the Q&A visual, and neither mentions Copilot. This course adds lectures on anomaly detection and smart narratives, and one on visual calculations, an item in Microsoft's PL-300 outline that our review of the track could not find in it.

Microsoft's own training is the free third route, written by the company that sets the exam. For a reader who already knows Power BI Desktop, from this course for example, it is the natural place to fill in the Service and security material before booking the exam.

Is it worth it?

For a Windows user who wants to build reports in Power BI Desktop, especially one coming from Excel, the page makes a good case: a complete, published curriculum from connecting data to finished reports, 25 assignments with solution lectures and two projects, a very large number of high learner ratings, and an update in September 2026. It is also short enough to finish alongside a job, and completion is one of the two things our methodology weighs hardest.

What it is not is an exam course or an AI course. It names no exam, its sections stay inside Power BI Desktop, and its one AI section is 47 minutes on five Power BI features, with no mention of Copilot. Buy it for Power BI Desktop on Windows; for PL-300, pair it with Microsoft's free material or choose DataCamp's Data Analyst in Power BI track instead, and on a Mac, look at the track first. We have not scored it yet: until a course has been through our six-factor methodology, this page says “Not scored” rather than show a figure nothing supports.

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