Excel to Power BI — 3-Day Practical Workshop
A Global Academy workshop, prepared for ZIMASCO, Kwekwe.
“Without data you are just another person with an opinion.”
— W. Edwards Deming
Welcome. Everything you need for the three days is on this page — the lessons to read, and the practice files to download.
You do not need any prior Excel experience. Day 1 starts with what a cell is. By the end of Day 3 you’ll have built and published a working dashboard.
📦 Get the practice files
Most lessons come with a workbook to practise in and a completed version to check your answers against.
Download them from each day’s page below — every module lists its Start file and Answer key, and the larger data sets come as a single zip you can grab in one click. Pick up each day’s files as you reach it.
The three days
Day 1 — Excel Foundations
Getting comfortable and productive in Excel
Eight modules taking you from the very basics — cells, formatting, formulas — through to functions, sorting and filtering, charts, and PivotTables. Ends with a 30-minute homework on a fresh dataset.
Start here if you’re new to Excel.
Day 2 — Advanced Excel & Transitioning to Power BI
Finishing Excel, then making the leap
The morning finishes Excel properly: XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, dynamic arrays, Power Query and Power Pivot. The afternoon introduces Power BI — and you’ll find it familiar, because the engine underneath is the one you just learned.
Start here if you already know Excel well.
Day 3 — Visualizing, Publishing & Automating
From data to decisions
Choosing charts that don’t mislead, telling a story with data, publishing and scheduling refreshes — then a fast, gamified capstone: the 45-Minute Dashboard Dash, six timed rounds to clean, model, measure, build and pitch a one-page executive dashboard on NovaTech’s own messy export (with an optional 23-sheet Boss Level to take home).
How each lesson works
Every module has the same three parts, so you always know where you are:
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Learn it | A short, plain-language explanation |
| See it | A worked example — open the finished file and click through it |
| Do it | A hands-on task, with an answer key so you can check yourself |
Each practice workbook also has an Instructions sheet inside it with click-by-click steps, so you can work straight from the file if you prefer.
What you’ll need
Please check this before Day 2 — it’s the one thing that catches people out.
| Day | What you need |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Excel — any recent version. Windows, Mac or the web version all work. |
| Day 2 morning | Excel with Power Query (built into Excel 2016 and later). Power Pivot is Windows-only. |
| Day 2 afternoon, Day 3 | Power BI Desktop — Windows only. It’s a free download from Microsoft. |
| Day 3 publishing | A Power BI account (free to sign up; sharing with others needs a Pro licence). |
Working on a Mac? Day 1 and Day 2’s morning run perfectly. Power BI Desktop doesn’t exist for Mac, so for the afternoons you’ll need Windows — a virtual machine, Boot Camp, or a shared Windows PC. If none of those is possible, you can still follow the lessons and open the finished example files, and nothing is wasted: Power Query and DAX work identically in both products.
A note on Excel versions. Some newer functions (
XLOOKUP,IFS,FILTER,UNIQUE,SORT) need Microsoft 365 or Excel 2021+. If you see#NAME?when you try one, your version is older — every lesson that uses them gives anINDEX/MATCHalternative that works everywhere.
A running example
One dataset carries through all three days — NovaTech Retail, a consumer electronics business. You’ll watch the same data grow from a plain list, into a formatted report, into a PivotTable, into a Power BI model, and finally into an executive dashboard.
That’s deliberate. Each day you’re not learning a new dataset, just a better thing to do with the one you already understand.
The three things worth remembering
Software changes. These don’t:
- Clean your data first. Everything you build afterwards inherits its problems.
- Structure it properly. Facts and dimensions, one row per record, every time.
- Say what it means. A number without a comparison and a recommendation changes nothing.
© 2026 Global Academy. Prepared for the ZIMASCO (Kwekwe) workshop. Facilitated by Tapiwa Zireva. Licensed to participants for personal learning — not for redistribution, resale, or reuse in other training without permission.