Purple Dashboards: My Power BI Debut

I downloaded Power BI thinking it would humble me. It did. Then it amazed me.

After my first experience with Excel, I walked into the next chapter of my Dataleum journey feeling a little more confident. Then Power BI showed up and reminded me that there’s always more to learn and honestly? I’m here for it.

It started with installation. I downloaded the latest version of Power BI from the Microsoft Store, got it set up, and walked into class ready to be schooled. And schooled I was.

Here’s the thing about Power BI , it looks intimidating, but once you start navigating it, you realise it’s designed to make your life easier. Not simpler, but smarter. A few things that genuinely impressed me:

Automatic data transformation. Power BI does a lot of the heavy lifting for you during data prep, which means less time cleaning and more time actually analysing.

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions). I won’t pretend I’ve mastered it yet, but getting introduced to DAX felt like being handed a new language. A powerful one.

Multiple views. Report view, Table view, Model view; each one serves a different purpose and gives you a different lens on your data. Switching between them starts to feel natural after a while.

Relationships. This was probably my favourite part. Linking tables and defining relationships between datasets is something Excel can do, but Power BI makes it feel elegant. Visual, intuitive, and dare I say, CHIC.

The Project: Gender Pay Analysis

For this analysis, I explored a dataset to investigate the reason behind a discrepancy in salary pay. After examining the interactions between variables in the dataset, the data pointed clearly in one direction — the disparity was largely gender-based.

It’s the kind of finding that makes you pause. Not because it’s surprising (unfortunately), but because seeing it laid out so clearly in the data makes it impossible to ignore.

As for the visuals, I went with shades of purple. Not because I’m royalty (though honestly, no comment), but because colour in data storytelling matters, and purple felt bold, clean, and a little unexpected.

Power BI has genuinely changed how I think about data visualisation. The combination of its relationship modelling, DAX capabilities, and design flexibility makes it a tool I’m excited to keep exploring.

It’s been a jolly ride and I can’t wait to do more and share the journey with you all.

Till then…