Practice — Mild · First Report

Skills focus. Loading a CSV · card and bar chart visuals · slicers · checking your work against known figures.

Ungraded. In-class or self-paced. A full solution is provided — build first, peek second.

Scenario

You are the newest analyst at Lantern & Pine and your onboarding buddy wants proof you can drive Power BI before Monday's team meeting. The task mirrors the lesson closely — on purpose. Muscle memory is the goal today; judgment is Hot's job.

Tasks

Open a new Power BI Desktop file and load l01_retail_2025.csv (Get data → Text/CSV → Load). In the preview, confirm OrderDate shows a date type and Revenue a number type before clicking Load.
Add a card showing total Revenue. Check: it reads $20.66M. Hover it — the tooltip shows the full $20,663,252.72.
Add a bar chart of Revenue by Category. Check: Furniture leads; Decor trails.
Add a slicer on Region. Click Southwest. Check: the card drops to about $1.76M — the company's quietest region.
Clear the slicer (the eraser icon in its corner). Check: the card returns to $20.66M. If it does not, something is still filtered — find it before moving on.

Hint — my bar chart came out as a column chart

Power BI guessed a visual type when you checked the fields. With the visual selected, click the bar chart icon (horizontal bars) in the Visualizations pane. Types are always changeable after the fact — nothing is locked in by the first guess.

Hint — my card shows a huge weird number instead of $20.66M

Check which field is on the card. If Quantity or OrderID landed there, remove it and drag Revenue in. The card sums whatever numeric field it is given — it does not know which one you meant.

Reflection

Which step slowed you down most? That is the one to repeat tomorrow.
The card recalculated the instant you clicked the slicer. What is that behavior called?