In last article we laid a decent groundwork to ensure, that today we can deep dive into the topic of Power BI related certifications. Without further ado, let’s start quickly with a list of certifications we will cover today:
- Power BI Data Analyst Associate
- Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate
- Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
- Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate
- Power Platform Solution Architect Expert
First certification on the list is the most important one, as it is an entry level to Power BI Developer position. Next two allow you to look at your role from a broader perspective of an enterprise grade Data Analyst / Engineer. Last two help you position Power BI as a part of Power Platform, great materials if you are planning a career of a consultant, or you simply want to step up your Power BI game.
Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300)
Without any doubt, this is the one and only must have for Power BI Developer. Citizen Developers probably could work without it, but if you want to build your career around Power BI, make sure to acquire related knowledge as soon as possible. Sometimes I come across opinions, that once you gained that certification you are already at your peak. Nothing more wrong, this is just the beginning of your journey, and proves only that you could apply for a Junior Power BI Developer role, without being excessively questioned during the interview. There are 5 learning paths provided as a prep materials, estimated for about 21 hours of learning. It requires a lot of experience with the tool, so, be prepared for very detailed questions. Learning path will help you understand:
- Your role as a Data Analyst
- Data preparation options
- Data modelling concepts
- How to analyze the data in your model
- How to prepare interactive reports
- How to manage your content and workspaces
As you can see, these are the absolute essentials for Power BI Developer, as even the last section focuses only on “governing” your own content.
Also, to emphasize what was mentioned already in previous article. When I say that this certification is “must have”, I mean the knowledge required to be certified. Certification itself is a nice addition your resume, but this is most important the gain the knowledge. I met a lot of certified external consultants, who tried very hard to prove with their daily work, that they “cheated on the exam”. Consulting companies have very good offers with Microsoft, they often get certification options for free, as they are promoting the technology to other customers. They also have access to practice tests, so they can prepare for the exam much quicker, and pass it without having the actual experience with the tool. Not to mention that these days there are platforms with questions dumps for any certification you could imagine. Taking into consideration, that as of last year you may use Microsoft Learn portal during the exam, certification loses its prestige. To conclude, having the knowledge is much more important.
Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate (DP-500)
This may not be that relevant to you anymore, as it is going to be retired by the end of April 2024. Still, I believe it might be interesting to go though, especially that replacement (next certification on our list), is still in beta version. In this case, the name of the exam is a bit more descriptive, than the name of certificate. Exam name is the following: Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI. This name at least tells us, that it is Power BI related. I managed to take the exam in December, and I can tell you that vast majority of questions is Power BI related. So, what is different or interesting? This course is focused on more advanced concepts of Power BI, or rather delivering your content while thinking a bit outside of your *.pbix file. Meaning, you will learn how to create your content in a way, that benefits your organization by optimizing your reports, implementing lifecycle management and source control, using more advanced visualization techniques, building complex tabular models, etc. Another big area is introduction of Synapse Analytics, which is now part of Microsoft Fabric. It is a huge topic on its own, but don’t worry too much, as we are still in the Data Analyst land. Even though there are python or SQL related questions in exam, they are related to querying and visualizing the data, and they rather aim to prove that you have seen some code already with your own eyes. Last important addition here is Microsoft Purview, a data governance / catalog tool. I am pretty sure that you will appreciate this course because of this particular addition. As we did for PL-300 exam, let’s try to list the most important areas within this course:
- Understand modern analytics architecture
- Govern the data with Microsoft Purview
- Microsoft Purview integration with Power BI and Synapse Analytics
- Data exploration in Azure Synapse Analytics
- Understand Power BI model frameworks and strategies for scalability
- Design and build Tabular models
- Reports optimization
- Implement advanced visualization techniques
- Create paginated reports
- Manage analytics environment
- Manage analytics development lifecycle
As you can see, it is a wide range of topics. For sure it is worth to take the part related to Microsoft Pureview, as it is not covered in DP-600 exam (Fabric exam that is replacement for DP-500). Also, Azure Synapse Analytics is still a thing, you may be even using it in your company, so, if you have some time, it could be an interesting lecture. Course consists of 8 learning paths (5 Power BI related), 30 modules (18 Power BI related), and estimated for less than 21 hours of learning (14,5 hours Power BI related).
Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (DP-600)
Can’t say much about this one yet, as it is still on my list for this year. I mentioned it before, but it’s worth to emphasize that exam is still in beta. It means that if you take it today, you will not get your certificate before it reaches General Availability state. The only thing we could do today is to evaluate the content and compare it with DP-500. For sure we don’t get the Microsoft Pureview here, and we do get a small part of Microsoft Fabric (which is good that exam is not overloaded with more Fabric topics). But even here it doesn’t seem finalized yet. There are 6 learning paths only (3 for Power BI), 26 modules (12 for Power BI). Modules related to Power BI are almost the same as we saw in DP-500, but they focus only on backend. We miss here the learning path about advanced visualization techniques and environment management. Therefore, from Power BI point of view, DP-500 materials are more comprehensive. Therefore, my recommendation would be to be learn from DP-500 everything about Power BI + Microsoft Purview, and from DP-600 additional part related to Fabric. This way you will gain a powerful combination of Enterprise grade Data Analyst / Engineering skills. On top of mentioned Power BI learning paths, in DP-600 we will learn also:
- How to ingest the data into Microsoft Fabric
- Implement a Lakehouse
- Implement a Data Warehouse
These are very important topic, and part of Microsoft Fabric that will allow your data to live outside isolated semantic model. Highly recommend all Fabric related materials, but this course focused on part that is the most important for Power BI Developer.
To conclude, if you’d ask me, what is the next step after PL-300, my answer is to learn everything related to DP-500 (maybe without Azure Synapse) + DP-600. Once you have it, you will become a really valuable asset to your company.
I plan to take this exam still this year. When it’s done, I will definitely share my thoughts on preparations, exam, and outcome.
What about Power Platform?
Despite the fact that my main focus today is Power BI + Microsoft Fabric, there is also another reason why I don’t treat the Power Platform certifications as the core part of this article. Microsoft Fabric is basically built on top of Power BI Service SaaS offering, they share the same resources, licensing model, security, etc. Therefore, Power BI in my opinion is much more a part of Fabric, than it ever was a part of Power Platform. But it doesn’t mean that Power Platform is not important. This is simply a matter of choice, which direction you want to go with your Power BI Skills. If you categorize yourself as a Data person, Fabric will be much more important to you. If working with data is one of the things that you are good at, and you want to specialize more in Business Applications, then definitely Power Platform is the right path for you.
- Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate (PL-200) – Interesting course, as in opposite to the ones mentioned so far, it is not split to different learning paths. You will just see the list of 41 modules, estimated for over 40 hours of learning! How many modules are Power BI related? Only one… and it covers very basic understanding of the tool. This proves only how big Power Platform really is. There is about 14 modules related to Dataverse. It sounds about right, as Dataverse is probably more important for Power Platform, than OneLake is for Fabric. At least, there is much more functionalities related to Dataverse, and let’s not forget, that this is also the foundation of Dynamics 365 applications. Other than that, we will find here a lot of information about Power Apps, Power Automate, surprisingly a lot about Power Pages. Decision to put Power BI aside is probably good one, considering that there is a lot of Power BI dedicated resources. What is interesting though, is the fact that there is nothing about Power Virtual Agents, or as it now called – Copilots. Yes, Microsoft renamed Power Virtual Agents into Copilots, for whatever reason. This certificate is first on my list for this year. As promised for DP-600, I will be happy to share my thoughts after the exam.
- Power Platform Solution Architect Expert (PL-600) – In first article I went through 3 Fundamental level certificates. In this article, I described 4 Associate level certificates. This one is the only Expert level certificate, that is related in any way to Power BI. You probably already know from previous article, that Expert level certificate requires taking another exam before you take expert level exam. In this case, you must first obtain PL-200 or PL-400. In my opinion, PL-600 is a natural extension of PL-200. If you spent fair amount of time getting your Functional Consultant certificate, you are already in good position to start preparing for Solution Architect level. PL-400, despite being very interesting course, is much more technical. Has a lot of the common modules as PL-200, but its secondary focus is on API and code approach towards components creation for Power Apps. However, taking either one allows you to take PL-600 exam. There are 3 learning paths related, with 20 modules. Only one of these modules is Power BI related and few units within other modules. However, you will find there very important aspects for entire Power Platform, like security, ALM, integrations, AI solutions (including Copilots studio), testing, release planning and Dynamics 365. It is estimated for around 18 hours of learning. But let’s be honest, it is probably a lot more than that. In certification on that level, we may expect a lot of very detailed questions, that require not only a very good knowledge of broader documentation, but also unquestionable experience with Power Platform tools. As i don’t like the shortcuts in learning, there is no way I will try taking this exam sooner than next year. Two years from now sound more reasonable, therefore, I will not be able to share my experience with this exam any time soon.
- Mandatory learning:
- Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900)
- Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300)
- Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (DP-600 + recommended DP-500 without Azure Synapse)
- Recommended learning:
- Power Platform Fundamentals (PL-900)
- Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
- Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate (PL-200)
Conclusion
Microsoft learning offer is pretty intimidating. Considering that learning is available 100% for free, the only blocker you might have is the time required to really master these topics. There are platforms that allow you to take shortcuts, by providing exam question dumps. If you spent a lot of time learning, and you are simply stressed with the exam, taking these questions might help you go through the exam. However, if your approach is to learn these questions by hard in one week, and approach the exam, I already commented it before: it’s better to have a knowledge without a certificate, than to have a certificate without the knowledge. So, your choice. Please also note, that answers to these questions are provided by people who took the exam, and they never scored 1000 points. Meaning, they must have made some mistakes. Without relevant knowledge, you may not be able to spot the mistakes, and there is a lot of them. I found out about such platform before I took DP-500 in December. I used free version, so you can’t see full set of questions available there, but I found a lot of mistakes there. So, be mindful about it, if you decide to use it, take it with a grain of salt.
Certificates are just an addition; they can be meaningful or completely worthless and it is up to you decide. Always learn for yourself and have fun with it.
