Business Intelligence Fundamentals
Understand what a BI tool does that a spreadsheet cannot, and split any table into dimensions and measures so your charts show the right totals.
Free · Beginner · No sign-up to start
Free business intelligence training
Learn business intelligence from zero: what BI is, dimensions vs measures and your first Tableau Public chart. Free beginner lessons and a BI glossary.
For analysts, managers, operations and finance staff who report numbers and want to stop rebuilding the same spreadsheet every week.
Business intelligence (BI) is how a company turns the numbers it already has (sales, orders, support tickets, ad spend) into charts and dashboards that people use to make decisions. If you have ever been asked "how did we do last month, by region?" and spent a morning in spreadsheets to answer it, BI is the skill that turns that morning into a refresh button.
- 3free lessons
- 2courses
- 32minutes of lessons
- 11glossary terms
- 3questions answered
- 1learning paths
Start here · Free course
Business Intelligence Fundamentals
Understand what a BI tool does that a spreadsheet cannot, and split any table into dimensions and measures so your charts show the right totals.
Business intelligence courses
Short series of lessons in order, from the basics to doing the real thing in a free tool.
Tableau Public for Beginners
Build your first chart, filter and dashboard in the free Tableau Public, publish it and keep it current every week.
Every lesson
Each lesson opens with a real business problem, works through it with real numbers and ends with a quick quiz.
What Is Business Intelligence? A Beginner’s Guide
What business intelligence is, what a BI tool does that a spreadsheet can’t, and a worked example: 1,200 order rows into one weekly sales dashboard.
Dimensions vs Measures in Tableau, With Examples
Dimensions vs measures with a sales table: which columns slice data, which get added up, why Tableau shows blue and green pills, and wrong-total…
Tableau Public Tutorial: Your First Chart and Dashboard
A beginner Tableau Public tutorial: connect a CSV, build a revenue-by-region bar chart, add a filter and put it on a dashboard. Free tool, sample…
Learning paths for a real goal
Short, ordered sets of lessons for one job or one goal.
Build a Weekly Sales Dashboard
Replace the Monday spreadsheet routine with a dashboard: learn what BI changes, get the totals right, then build and publish the dashboard in…
The glossary and your questions, answered
Plain-English definitions with worked examples, and straight answers to the questions people search for most.
Glossary: 11 terms
- Aggregation
Aggregation is combining many rows into a single number for each group, using a function such as SUM, AVG, MEDIAN…
- Business intelligence (BI)
Business intelligence (BI) is the set of tools and habits a company uses to turn its everyday data (orders, invoices…
- Calculated field
A calculated field is a new field you create in a BI tool by writing a formula from existing fields, such as Profit =…
- Dashboard
A dashboard is a single screen that shows a handful of related charts and numbers, with shared filters, so someone can…
Questions: 3 answered
- Is Tableau free?
Yes, for learning: Tableau has free editions, but each has a catch. What Tableau Public, Desktop Public…
- Should I learn Tableau or Power BI first?
Learn the BI tool your employer, or the one you want, uses. If none, Tableau on a Mac or Power BI on…
- What does a BI analyst do?
A BI analyst turns business questions into trusted numbers and dashboards. What the job involves day to day…
Do the repetitive parts with AI
Stepthrough started as free AI training. The AI at work lessons show how to hand the repetitive parts of business intelligence work to AI tools, step by step, and the AI glossary explains the AI words in plain English.
Frequently asked questions
Is the business intelligence course really free?
Yes. All 3 lessons, the 11-term glossary and the answered questions are free, with no sign-up and no credit card.
Do I need any experience?
No. Analysts, managers, operations and finance staff who report numbers and want to stop rebuilding the same spreadsheet every week. Every lesson starts with a real business problem and works through it step by step.
How long does it take?
About 32 minutes for all 3 lessons. Each one is short enough to finish in one sitting and ends with a quick quiz.
Can AI help with business intelligence?
Often, for the repetitive parts. Stepthrough's free AI lessons at https://learn.ynteractive.com/ai show how to hand that work to AI tools, step by step.
Ready? Lesson 1 takes about 8 minutes
What Is Business Intelligence? A Beginner’s Guide. No account, no credit card.
Start learning free