Learn how to customise, enhance, and validate reports using advanced Power BI features.

  • Discover how to enrich your data by linking it to authoritative sources.
  • Explore how Power BI accesses different data structures such as JSON and XML.
  • Learn how to customise the appearance of visual elements and apply in-house branding to your reports.

Designed to support current users of Microsoft's powerful business intelligence platform, this one-day Creating More Meaningful Insights with Power BI course combines presentation of real-life examples, discussion activities, and hands-on exercises, to help participants build truly effective visual assets to share with colleagues.

You’ll learn how to import data from different sources such as database servers and APIs, and how to use Power Query to assess, clean and restructure this data. You’ll also explore how to add context to this data by sourcing and creating reference datasets.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

  • Fetch data from remote and external sources, including APIs
  • Import and restructure data in non-tabular formats
  • Assess external reference datasets for quality and authority
  • Customise the appearance of visual elements and apply in-house branding to reports
  • Construct queries to generate new parameters or measures from the data.

You must have experience in using Excel, Google Sheets, or equivalent spreadsheet software and prior experience of using Power BI to take part in this course.

“Beyond the basics, Power BI can simplify workflows to supply always current, always clean, data for essential reporting. This course takes you beyond local files and spreadsheets and helps you reduce manual steps in your data pipeline.”

Overview

This course takes place online.

This course will take place in Spring 2026. Please fill out our expression of interest form to be the first to hear about the new dates.

This course costs £235. If you also book onto Creating Meaningful Insights with Power BI, you’ll be offered a discount which should be automatically applied at checkout. If you have any queries, please contact shortcourses@bathspa.ac.uk .

You must have a personal laptop or PC with Power BI Desktop installed.

Meet the team

This training is designed and delivered by The Data Place in partnership with Bath Spa University's Short Course Unit. The Data Place is a social enterprise made up of data scientists, designers, community builders and strategists helping people and places thrive.

The Data Place has worked with Bath Spa University for over two years, providing guest lectures, interview and project feedback and interviews for short course learners, as well as designing industry-led CPD courses that provide real-world experience.

Lucy Knight is an experienced trainer and data scientist with nearly three decades’ experience in industry, government and the non-profit sector. She is an Open Data Institute Associate and Registered Trainer, and Associate Lecturer with Bath Spa University.

Martin Howitt is a data technologist with extensive experience in a wide range of organisations as an IT architect and architecture team leader, product manager and data engineer.

The words

Terms and conditions

Read the terms and conditions for taking part in this short course.

Contact us

For more information about the course please email your enquiries to shortcourses@bathspa.ac.uk .