Microsoft Certified Solution Associate: Business Intelligence Reporting

There are technologies which change the landscape and yet at times you can't find a good certification for them. One such technology that immediately comes to mind is BizTalk, but that's been the case for so long that the tech community has learnt to live with it.

In the case of PowerBI however, it was truly a pain that one could only do a course here and there but no official certification exams from Microsoft themselves. At one point the only option was the PowerBI course which is part of the ten module long Microsoft Professional Data Science Programme.

The good news is that there is now a separate certification focusing solely on Business Intelligence reporting: Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate BI Reporting. The certification focuses on proving your skills in this area using two tools: PowerBI and Excel.

To get this certification you will have to write two exams:

Exam 70-778: Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power BI (beta)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-778.aspx

Core skills tested:

• Connecting to data sources
• Performing data transformations
• Modeling and visualizing data by using Microsoft Power BI Desktop
• Configuring dashboards by using the Power BI service
• Connectivity to Microsoft SQL Azure
• Connectivity to SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
• Implementing data analysis in Microsoft Excel.

Exam 70-779: Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Microsoft Excel

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-779.aspx

Core skills tested:

• to consume, transform, model, and visualize data in Excel
• configure and manipulate data in PowerPivot, PivotTables, and PivotCharts

Study Materials:

• The PowerBI portal itself has great resources for learning: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/guided-learning/
• One good course on PowerBI is https://www.edx.org/course/analyzing-visualizing-data-power-bi-microsoft-dat207x-7, which you can take for free and optionally later pay for if you wish to receive a certificate. You can use the same material during studies for the certification exam.
• Similarly the same programme also offers a course on data analysis using Excel https://www.edx.org/course/analyzing-visualizing-data-excel-microsoft-dat206x-7#

For exam question formats visit this link:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-exams.aspx

After completion of your MCSA, you can write one more exam to become Certified Solution Expert.

Author: Edmore Munedzimwe

Disclaimer: I am currently working for Microsoft as an Applications Development Consultant, however the opinions expressed in this article are independent and solely my own.