TL;DR: From 2nd June to 8th June, 2025, take Power BI courses for free on DataCamp. Plus, sign up for the Data Analyst in Power BI course and get 50% off on the Microsoft certification exam.
Power BI is the backbone of data-driven decision-making today—97% of Fortune 500 companies use it to translate raw data into actionable insights.
Compared to other tools like Tableau, Power BI’s seamless integration, affordability, and robust features like Power Query and customizable dashboards make it the go-to choice for giants such as Walmart, Apple, and Cigna.
If you’re an aspiring or junior data analyst, you know that mastering Power BI is essential, but it’s more than a technical skill. It’s a way to stand out in a competitive, crowded job market.
A certification in Microsoft Power BI highlights your solid analytical skills, storytelling ability, and command over visual communication—something that companies look out for.
A certification in Power BI shows you’re taking the initiative. When we’re looking through a stack of CVs, the certification catches our eye. It’s a good signal, especially if you don’t have a ton of work experience yet.
– Lead Data Analyst, Morgan Stanley
But it’s crucial to complement your certification with personal projects and an analytical approach. A comprehensive course does that by pushing you to apply the theory you learn and offering an industry-recognized certification.
To help you get there, DataCamp offers two standout learning paths:
- Power BI Fundamentals: A hands-on, beginner-friendly course covering the essentials of data modeling, shaping, and visualization.
- Data Analyst in Power BI: A comprehensive, Microsoft-partnered track with 18 courses, real-world projects, and step-by-step guidance from fundamentals to advanced analytics—plus a 50% discount on the globally recognized PL-300 certification exam.
With DataCamp’s interactive platform and real-world datasets, you’ll get the best of both worlds—an industry-recognized certification and a stunning portfolio of real-time projects.
And you can access these courses and the entire BI catalog for free from June 2nd–June 8th, 2025, during DataCamp’s Free Access Week.
Get Data and Career-Ready with Power BI
Power BI is one of the most popular tools in the analytics field, gradually leaving competitors like Tableau behind. While both are still leading visualization tools, a Gartner survey revealed that (slightly) more people would recommend Power BI over Tableau.
For companies relying on Excel and Azure, Power BI is a more powerful choice than its competitors, not only because it fuels profitability, but also because:
- Its customizable dashboards offer quick insights for better decision-making (something Harvard Business Review believes makes a great analyst)
- The user-friendly interface and MS Office 365 integration, which helps internal teams and client-facing employees get more hands-on with data without needing a specialized data science degree
- It’s more cost-effective (than Tableau) and aligns with other collaboration tools
- The Power Query feature allows you to clean, shape, and transform data with ease
- The agile AI integration speeds up insights and reporting
- It handles scalability, especially when used with Microsoft Azure. It helps in driving business growth too, with real-time insights and advanced analytics
As an analyst, using Power BI helps you:
- Get data from various external sources like SQL databases, cloud platforms, APIs, etc. This multi-source connectivity helps you reveal cross-functional, holistic insights that others might miss
- Clean and structure raw, messy data, and analyze relationships on a deeper level (spotting non-obvious patterns and relationships)
- Build dynamic, interactive dashboards and high-quality reports that don’t just offer numbers, but tell a visual story
- Identify untapped business opportunities and offer a direction for operational decision-making
With Power BI, you’re not just an analyst, you’re a strategic partner, guiding teams with data-driven insights. When used to fulfill business objectives and maximize key performance indicators (KPIs), Power BI can help you optimize returns.
This massive potential of the tool justifies the growth of the data analysis market (25% every year) and the current average salary of a data analyst ($90,000 per year).
Data visualization is among the most in-demand data analysis skills, and according to Indeed, you need it to get hired. Power BI pushes you to be a better visualizer, which leads to deeper insights and storytelling.
DataCamp’s learning paths bring you closer to such expertise for free (from June 2nd to June 8th, 2025).
For Beginners: Power BI Fundamentals
If you’re an aspiring data analyst, irrespective of the sector you’re aiming for (finance, healthcare, retail, business, etc), this beginner-friendly program will transform you into a confident Power BI user.
This structured, 17-hour learning path emphasizes practical application over theoretical concepts. It pushes you to implement your skills in real-world business scenarios from day one.
This was a great course to learn the basics of Power BI. I never used it before this course, and now I feel pretty confident in using it for work.
– Power BI Fundamentals Learner
As a beginner, you’ll learn how to:
- Connect to various data sources and import data
- Navigate Excel spreadsheets, databases, online services, and various file formats
- Handle missing values, standardize formats, and restructure datasets for optimal analysis
- Develop sophisticated and compelling visualizations that bring data to life
- Conduct a technical analysis and practice business communication
- Develop expertise in executive-level, interactive dashboards that enable rapid decision-making
- Use DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) formulas for advanced calculations and analysis
Over 50,000 learners have built strong Power BI foundations with this course, and you can do it too, for free.
For Beginner and Entry-level Analysts: Data Analyst in Power BI
This program is DataCamp’s most comprehensive offering, co-created with Microsoft to prepare learners for the official PL-300 Data Analyst with Power BI certification exam.
It’s a professional-level program that turns learners into certified Microsoft professionals capable of advanced data analysis and high-level decision-making.
The partnership with Microsoft ensures a curriculum that’s aligned with trending best practices and platform updates.
I got a lot of insights on advanced methodologies to not only manipulate data but create meaningful and appealing data insights that are shareable and certifiable per international standards. As an amateur in Power BI, this track will definitely have you feeling like an expert.
– Power BI Data Analyst Learner
This 50-hour track includes the Power BI Fundamentals, and apart from that, you’ll learn how to:
- Manage relationships between tables, and optimize data models for performance
- Develop expertise in managing data refresh schedules and maintaining data integrity across multiple source systems
- Expand DAX knowledge and use it for Row Level Security (RLS) and create nested functions
- Conduct time series analysis and decomposition trees for trend analysis and predictive insights (valuable for financial and retail analysts, marketing professionals, and operations managers who need to identify seasonal patterns and forecast future performance)
- Identify root causes of performance changes and present compelling explanations to executive stakeholders
- Prepare for the Microsoft PL-300 certification exam, which provides opportunities for career advancement and benefits
P.S. This program includes a 50% discount code for the Microsoft PL-300 exam, exclusively for DataCamp learners. Plus, you can get free access to all Power BI and Data Engineering courses from June 2nd to June 8th, 2025.
Microsoft PL 300 Certification
The Microsoft PL 300 certification is one of Microsoft’s highest-paying certifications, with a global salary of $95000 and around $142,000 in the United States.
Surveys prove that Microsoft certifications can increase your salary by 15%-30%. In a LinkedIn survey, around 75% of users said the certification would be good to have (and 8% said it’s essential).
This Power BI certification doesn’t just claim you have Power BI skills, it also builds a competent image in front of employers. This is because DataCamp and Microsoft have co-developed the curriculum for Data Analyst in Power BI.
With the certification, you’ll be perceived as an analyst who:
- Knows the Power BI software end-to-end, and has experience in translating data in it
- Creates robust, understandable, and visually appealing reports and dashboards
- Can communicate areas for decision-making by uncovering hidden insights, uncovering relationships, and identifying blind spots that are hard to find otherwise
I took the PL-300 and got a score of 778/1000. I had only been using DataCamp to prepare for the exam. The Power BI Data Analyst career track is phenomenal, and I highly recommend completing it to improve your Power BI skills.
With a 50% discount, the exam will cost you around $83, as opposed to the $165 exam fee.
Why Learn from DataCamp?
Power BI is a powerful tool, and it’s gaining more momentum than Tableau. DataCamp’s Power BI courses instill the skills that the industry wants with:
A robust curriculum
DataCamp’s meticulous curriculum takes you from creating your first dashboard to mastering complex analyses. The curricula are developed and updated by industry experts (data scientists, strategic analysts, and more), and as a result, they have had 17 million learners worldwide!
Self-paced, personalized, and gamified learning
Since DataCamp caters to both beginners and experienced professionals, it lets you learn at your own pace and revisit material as needed. The DataCamp mobile app also lets you learn on the go, during commutes, walks, whenever you’re away from the computer.
Plus, it offers a gamified experience that lets you earn points as you complete exercises, and the personalized dashboard keeps score of your progress. The career, work, and skills tracks also help you stay connected to your goals and the purpose of learning.
Hands-on training
DataCamp pushes you to practice what you learn through exercises and projects. In this case, if you don’t have a portfolio, both tracks will offer you real-time data sets to practice on.
The training aims to bridge the gap between technical knowledge and applications.
Expert instructors
Courses on DataCamp are created and taught by industry experts and university professors who instill real-world experience and technical prowess.
DataCamp collaborates with instructors from top institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Microsoft, ensuring high-quality, updated content.
Esteemed partnerships
DataCamp partners with leading technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM to co-create content and certification prep courses. This is to align the curricula with real-world job requirements and in-demand skills.
These partnerships increase employability and make learning cost-inclusive. The Microsoft partnership, for example, offers learners a 50% discount on the PL-300 Power BI certification exam, making professional certification more accessible.
Community support and networking
Join a community of thousands of active members who participate in forums, challenges, and events to sustain motivation and boost learning outcomes.
DataCamp also hosts live webinars, Q&A sessions, and hackathons, offering you platforms for collaboration and professional growth.
The Bottomline of Learning Power BI from DataCamp
The lead data analyst at Morgan Stanley said:
Power BI can make you a better analyst. You’re constantly thinking, “Okay, what’s the best way to show this data?”, “Which chart makes sense here?” You develop an understanding of what makes a dashboard easy to understand.
DataCamp helps you reach this level of expertise with these two tracks (Power BI Fundamentals and Data Analyst in Power BI) and the Microsoft certification exam prep.
The curriculum, the training with real datasets, and the expert instruction will help you outpace your competition and stand out, even when you’re hired. These tracks are designed for you to enter the industry and advance in it.
Get free, instant access to all Power BI and Data Engineering courses from June 2nd – June 8th, and if the full certification track is right for you, get a 50% discount on the Microsoft certification exam, too!
This article was produced by the Class Central Report team in partnership with DataCamp.
The post Master Power BI For Free And Take The Microsoft Certification Exam At 50% Off On DataCamp appeared first on The Report by Class Central.
