📎 This article includes 2 downloadable practice files ↓
In this article
Power BI Desktop is free and runs on Windows. If you’ve done the Power Query course, half of it will already feel familiar: data comes in through the same Power Query editor.
Install
Install Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store (it updates itself monthly). On a Mac you need a Windows virtual machine; the Power BI web service can view and lightly edit reports.
Three views
Icons on the left edge:
| View | For |
|---|---|
| Report | Building visuals on pages |
| Table (Data) | Seeing table contents and adding columns |
| Model | Tables as boxes with relationships between them (Lessons 2-3) |
Load the practice model
- Home › Get data › Excel workbook ›
pbi-sales-model.xlsx. - Tick all four sheets: Sales, Products, Customers, Calendar.
- Click Transform Data to check them in Power Query.
Check each table’s column types: OrderDate and Date as Date, Qty, Price, Cost as numbers, IDs as whole numbers. Then Close & Apply.
Save and refresh
Save as a .pbix file. Home › Refresh reloads from the Excel file; if the file moves, update it in Transform data › Data source settings.
Where beginners go wrong
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Loading one huge flat sheet | Separate tables (Lesson 2) model better |
| Numbers loaded as text | Fix types in Power Query |
| Dates as text | Set the type, with locale for dd-mm-yyyy |
A quick first report: your first Power BI report.
Practice
Download the data model and expected results below. Load all four tables into Power BI Desktop and build this lesson’s steps; compare your numbers with the expected-results workbook.
📎 Practice files for this article
- 📗Practice data model (Excel)Four tables: Sales (600 orders, FY 2024-25 and 2025-26), Products, Customers and a Calendar with FY columns.⬇ XLSX · 40 KB
- 📗Expected resultsThe values your measures and visuals should show.⬇ XLSX · 7 KB
Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.
Stuck on a step? Ask a question and the AI answers using this article.