Worked Example A00 — A Complete Submission, Narrated

What this is. A full assignment done in front of you — task, checklist, every step, and what the grader sees at each check. It is ungraded and it exists for one reason: every assignment in this course is graded against a published checklist, and the fastest way to learn how that contract works is to watch one submission satisfy it, check by check. Read this before starting Assignment A01.

The task (A01's sibling)

Same file, same skills, different page: load l01_retail_2025.csv and build a one-page report organized around categories — a revenue card, a bar of revenue by category, the monthly line, and a Region slicer. Apply the Iris theme, name the page Overview, save as A00_LastFirst.pbix. (A01 asks for the same page organized around regions — so you can follow every move here and still have to think there.)

The checklist we're about to satisfy

#	Check
1	Data loaded from `l01_retail_2025.csv`, one table, 50,539 rows
2	Card visual with `Revenue`; unfiltered total $20,663,252.72
3	Bar chart: `Revenue` by `Category`, sorted descending
4	Line chart: `Revenue` by `OrderDate` at month level
5	Slicer on `Region`; all visuals respond
6	Iris theme applied · page renamed Overview · file named correctly

Check 1 — load, then verify the load

Get data → Text/CSV → l01_retail_2025.csv → Load (not Transform Data — this file is already clean; the cleaning workshop starts in Lesson 2). Before touching a visual, open Table view and look at the bottom edge: 50,539 rows. That number is check 1, and it is also your first habit: the grader verifies the row count because a truncated import — a file opened mid-download, a wrong file with a similar name — poisons every number after it while looking perfectly healthy on the canvas.

What the grader sees One table named l01_retail_2025, 50,539 rows, seven columns with correct types. A submission with 50,538 rows fails this check — and the student who checked Table view knew before submitting.

Check 2 — the card, and why its value is specified

Blank canvas → check Revenue in the Data pane → Power BI makes a column chart → switch it to Card. It reads $20.66M; hover shows the full $20,663,252.72. The checklist names that exact value because the card is the page's anchor: if it is wrong, nothing downstream can be right. The two ways students fail this check are both invisible on the canvas: a slicer selection left active at save time (the grader checks the unfiltered value), or a partial load from check 1.

Check 3 — the bar, sorted like you mean it

Empty canvas click first — otherwise the next field lands on the card — then check Revenue and Category. Sort descending (⋯ menu → Sort axis → Sort descending). The bars read: Furniture $7,592,351, Outdoor $5,553,569, Kitchen & Dining $3,232,624, Lighting $2,672,221, Decor $1,612,488. Two categories carry more than half the company. The sort is its own check because an unsorted bar makes the reader do the ranking themselves — and the grader can see the sort state in the file.

Check 4 — the line, expanded to months

Empty canvas, Revenue + OrderDate, switch to line chart. Power BI shows one lonely point (the year), because dates arrive as a Year → Quarter → Month → Day hierarchy. Click the forked expand arrow twice: twelve points appear, and the year has a shape — the February trough of $1,142,332, the climb to May's $2,089,552 peak, December at $2,066,122 falling just short. The grader checks the month level specifically; a year-level line is the single most common A01 miss, and it is a one-click fix that changes the entire story the page tells.

Check 5 — the slicer, tested the way it's graded

Empty canvas, check Region, switch to Slicer. Now test it like the grader will: click Online — the card drops to $9,218,459, every bar shortens, the line reshapes. Click each region once, then clear the selection. If any visual sits still, it is not on the page it appears to be on — drag it fully onto the canvas and test again. Then confirm the card is back to $20.66M, because a saved slicer selection is how check 2 dies.

Check 6 — the finish that separates submissions from files

View ribbon → Themes dropdown → Browse for themes → iris-theme.json: every visual recolors at once. Double-click the page tab, type Overview. Save as A00_LastFirst.pbix — your last name, then first. Close Desktop. Reopen the file. Everything still there? Now it is a submission. Thirty seconds of paranoia, zero surprises.

What just happened, contract-wise

Notice what the checklist never mentioned: where the visuals sit, what size they are, whether the card goes top-left. The grader does not judge layout — arrange the page however reads best. What it cannot forgive is a right-looking chart with the wrong field, an unsorted bar, a year-level line, a dead slicer. Every one of those is checkable, so every one of those is checked. That is the deal for the whole course: the checklist is the contract — satisfy it exactly, and spend your creativity on the parts it leaves free.

Now do A01 Same dataset, same shape, organized by region instead of category — with its own checklist and its own specified values. You have seen how the game is played; A01 is where you play it.