Business Intelligence Fundamentals
Updated · By Robert Breen
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.
Who it’s for: Anyone who reports numbers from spreadsheets and has been asked to "build a dashboard".
The lessons, in order
- 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. About 8 minutes.
- 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 traps. About 9 minutes.
Terms you’ll learn
AggregationBusiness intelligence (BI)Calculated fieldDashboardData sourceData warehouseDimensionFilterMeasure
Questions this course answers
- Is Tableau free?: Yes, for learning: Tableau has free editions, but each has a catch. What Tableau Public, Desktop Public Edition and Free Edition can and…
- 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 Windows. The core ideas transfer…
- What does a BI analyst do?: A BI analyst turns business questions into trusted numbers and dashboards. What the job involves day to day, the skills it needs and how…