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Best resources to learnPower BI & Tableau

Study sheet

Power BI and Tableau turn data into interactive dashboards. You will learn data modelling, DAX or calculated fields, visual design and how to publish reports that decision-makers actually use.

8 resources · · How we curate

🎓Courses(2)

course

Introducing DAX Video Course

Free 150-minute course from Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari covering calculated columns, measures, iterators, row and filter context, CALCULATE, relationships and time intelligence. Finish it and you can predict why a DAX measure returns the number it does. The single best free on-ramp to DAX that teaches evaluation context as a mental model rather than a formula cookbook.

beginner🇬🇧
course

Data Visualization Fundamentals

Introductory Power BI course on building reports, charts, and graphs. Covers matching chart type to data type, using Power BI's visualization tools, and assembling report pages intended to support decisions rather than simply display numbers.

beginner🇬🇧

📚Books(2)

bookPaid

Dashboards That Deliver: How to Design, Develop, and Deploy Dashboards That Work

Tool-agnostic guide to the full dashboard lifecycle: requirements gathering, discovery, prototyping, release and maintenance, with annotated real-world dashboards from healthcare, finance, marketing and transport. Readers learn to manage stakeholders and deliver dashboards that people actually use.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

The Definitive Guide to DAX: Business Intelligence for Microsoft Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Excel, 2nd Edition

Russo and Ferrari's second edition covers table functions, evaluation contexts, CALCULATE and CALCULATETABLE, variables, calculation groups and the VertiPaq storage engine, ending with query plans and optimisation. The reference text for DAX beyond simple aggregations. The only text that explains filter context, context transition and the engine underneath rigorously enough that readers stop writing DAX by trial and error.

advanced🇬🇧

🌐Websites(4)

website

Workout Wednesday

Weekly challenge archive where you rebuild a published visualization in Tableau, Power BI or Sigma from a screenshot plus written requirements, then compare against the author's solution. Includes a WOW Essentials track for newer users.

intermediate🇬🇧
website

Tableau Level of Detail Expressions: Overview and Order of Filter Operations

Tableau's official reference on FIXED, INCLUDE and EXCLUDE expressions, plus the order in which extract, context, dimension and measure filters execute. Explains why a FIXED calculation ignores your dimension filter and how to make it respect one. LOD expressions are Tableau's equivalent of DAX filter context - the concept nearly everyone gets wrong. This page treats granularity and filter ordering as a model rather than a recipe, which is what separates competent Tableau authors from click-path users.

intermediate🇬🇧
website

Understand Star Schema and the Importance for Power BI

Microsoft guidance on shaping Power BI semantic models as star schemas with fact and dimension tables. Covers surrogate keys, snowflaking, role-playing, slowly changing, junk and degenerate dimensions, and factless fact tables for many-to-many relationships, so models perform well and totals stay correct.

intermediate🇬🇧
website

DAX Guide

Auto-updated reference for all 600+ DAX functions, operators and statements, with parameter details, version compatibility across Power BI and Analysis Services, and notes on how each function behaves inside row and filter context. Goes beyond Microsoft's own function reference by annotating context transition and evaluation-context behaviour per function, which is exactly where practitioners get burned.

intermediate🇬🇧
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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free resources to learn Power BI & Tableau?

Dantes has curated 8 resources for Power BI & Tableau, including 2 books, 2 courses, 4 websites. All resources are hand-picked for quality — no algorithmic filler. Browse the full list above to find the format that works best for you.

Is Power BI & Tableau hard to learn?

Power BI & Tableau is approachable at the beginner level — there are resources here specifically for those starting from scratch. As you progress, intermediate and advanced material is also available to take your skills further.

What types of Power BI & Tableau learning resources are available on Dantes?

For Power BI & Tableau, Dantes has curated 2 books, 2 courses, 4 websites. Each resource type serves a different learning style: videos and YouTube for visual learners, books for depth, courses for structured progression, and websites for quick reference.

How does Dantes select Power BI & Tableau resources?

Dantes is an algorithm-free learning directory. Resources are hand-curated based on quality, accuracy, and usefulness — not engagement metrics or paid placements. The goal is to surface the best learning material for Power BI & Tableau, whether it's a free YouTube series, a classic textbook, or an open courseware from a top university.

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