PL-300 study guide
PL-300 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate credential (exam PL-300) validates that you can model, visualize, and analyze data with Microsoft Power BI in line with business and technical requirements. It is an intermediate-level, data-analytics certification aimed at data analysts who deliver actionable insights, build easy-to-comprehend visualizations, and enable others to do self-service analytics. Candidates are expected to work with business stakeholders to gather requirements and to collaborate with analytics engineers and data engineers to identify and acquire data. The exam is assessed across four areas: prepare the data, model the data, visualize and analyze the data, and manage and secure Power BI. The PL-300 study guide has 4 sections and about 1,487 words.
01Prepare the Data
Every question in this domain asks you to pick the right tool at the right layer. Get Data chooses the connector and the storage mode (Import, DirectQuery, Dual); Power Query Editor performs all shaping; the data model stores the result.
395 words, about 2 min02Model the Data
Most marks in this domain come from schema design. Fact tables hold foreign keys, numbers and the grain (one row per order line); dimension tables hold the descriptive attributes users filter and group by.
372 words, about 2 min03Visualize and Analyze the Data
Bar and column charts compare categories, line charts show trend over time, scatter shows correlation between two measures, cards and KPIs show a single value, matrices give a cross-tab with drill-down, slicers act as filter controls. Questions often reward the boring correct answer over the showy one: many categories belong in a bar chart, not a pie; time belongs on an X axis, not a category axis.
372 words, about 2 min04Manage and Secure Power BI
Workspace roles escalate: Admin manages access and the workspace; Member can publish, update app content and add lower-privilege users; Contributor creates and edits content; Viewer only reads. Apps bundle workspace content for consumers, and audiences let you expose different subsets to different groups.
348 words, about 2 min