Digital Business

Business Data Analytics & Advanced Excel

Clean data, build dashboards, create reports, and visualize business insights using Power BI.

Level: Beginner–Intermediate Beginner: 4 weeks • Intermediate: 8 weeks Contact for pricing

Prerequisites

No prior experience required — open to beginners.

Certificate

Awarded by Rescue Academy on successful completion of the program's assessments and final project.

Learn Online — Live Classes

Register, receive your schedule, and join live instructor-led Business Data Analytics & Advanced Excel classes on Zoom. Assignments, instructor feedback, and a certificate on completion.

Learn In Person

Attend Business Data Analytics & Advanced Excel classes in person in Juba with hands-on labs, instructor mentorship, and a certificate on completion.

What You'll Learn

Structuring and cleaning business data
Business calculations: conditional totals, shares, growth and averages
Excel reports and dashboards with PivotTables and slicers
Power BI: Power Query, star-schema models and DAX measures
Report design for executive and operational audiences
Forecasting basics and honest presentation of uncertainty
Refresh, governance and row-level security for trusted reporting

Program Objectives

Prepare business data that can be trusted
Calculate and describe business figures correctly
Build Excel and Power BI reports that answer managers' questions
Model data and write DAX measures for KPIs
Operate reporting reliably with refresh, governance and security

Who It's For

Office, sales and finance staff who prepare reports
NGO M&E and programme officers
Aspiring data analysts and BI developers

Where You'll Use It

Sales, stock and branch performance reporting
NGO programme and donor reporting
Management dashboards in businesses and public offices

Curriculum

Instructor-led, practical training. Each level is a block of 4, 8 or 12 weeks; every module ends with a practical activity and an assessment, and every level with a project.

Beginner

4 weeks · 52 guided hours · 5 modules Free taster lessons available Level overview

Module 1: Clean Data for Business Analysis 10 h

Understand the analyst's workflow, structure data for analysis and clean real business records reliably. 3 lessons

Module 2: Excel Analysis Functions and Charts 11 h

Calculate business figures correctly with conditional functions and present them with the right charts. 3 lessons

Module 3: Excel Dashboards and Business Reports 10 h

Use PivotTables and slicers to build interactive Excel dashboards, and write reports that lead to action. 3 lessons

Module 4: Getting Started with Power BI 11 h

Build, publish and share a first Power BI report, and understand how Power BI differs from Excel. 3 lessons

Module 5: Business Forecasting Basics 10 h

Forecast sales and demand with simple, honest methods in Excel, and explain their uncertainty. 3 lessons

Level project: Quarterly Business Performance Report

Intermediate

8 weeks · 90 guided hours · 6 modules Level overview

Module 1: Power Query for Analysts 15 h

Connect to several data sources, clean and reshape data and design queries that refresh reliably. 3 lessons

Module 2: Data Modelling in Power BI 16 h

Design star-schema models with relationships and a date table so reports are correct and fast. 3 lessons

Module 3: DAX for Business Measures 16 h

Write DAX measures for business KPIs, understand filter context and compare periods. 3 lessons

Module 4: Designing Power BI Reports 15 h

Design clear, interactive and accessible reports for different audiences. 3 lessons

Module 5: Report Operations and Governance 13 h

Run reports reliably: publish, refresh, secure and govern them so people can trust the numbers. 3 lessons

Module 6: Business Reporting Project 15 h

Deliver the organisation-wide Power BI reporting solution from requirements to governed, published reports. 3 lessons

Level project: Organisation-Wide Reporting Solution in Power BI

Final practical project

Organisation-Wide Reporting Solution in Power BI

A Power BI solution combining several sources into a star-schema model with checked KPI measures, interactive and accessible report pages, and a refresh, security and governance plan.

Deliverables

Power Query pipeline and documented star-schema model
KPI glossary and checked DAX measures
Executive and operational report pages with drill-through
Governance note with refresh plan and row-level security

Assessed on

Every KPI is defined and checked independently
Reports are clear, interactive and accessible
The model follows star-schema principles
Refresh, ownership and access are realistic and documented

Worked Examples

A selection of the visual, practical examples used in this program's lessons — each teaches a different skill.

Free Course: Business Data Analytics Starter

A free introduction to business data work: entering and cleaning data, advanced Excel functions, building a dashboard, a first look at Power BI and simple forecasting. Free, self-study, about 6 hours — no certificate. The full program above is taught live by an instructor, with practical assignments, assessments and a certificate.

Open the free course

Tools & Technologies

Primary Tools

Microsoft Excel — Cleaning, calculating, PivotTables and Excel dashboards at Beginner level Practice: Reliable business calculations and reports
Power BI Desktop — Building data models, measures and reports Practice: Power Query, modelling, DAX and report design
Power BI service — Publishing, sharing and refreshing reports Practice: Workspaces, refresh and access

Supporting Tools

Power Query — Connecting to and preparing data in Excel and Power BI Practice: Repeatable data preparation
OneDrive or SharePoint — Cloud storage for source files that refresh reliably Practice: Organised, accessible data sources

Professional / Industry Tools

On-premises data gateway — Refreshing reports from local files and databases Practice: Planning and troubleshooting refresh
Row-level security — Restricting report data by user Practice: Secure, governed reporting

Career Opportunities

Freelancer or remote worker
Small business owner or e-commerce operator
Project/administrative support role at an NGO or company

Practical Projects

Build an integrated Excel + Power BI reporting dashboard for a real or simulated business
Produce a forecast report projecting next quarter's performance with stated assumptions
Set up a Power Query-connected data source so a monthly dashboard updates with a single refresh click instead of a manual rebuild

Problem-Solving Focus

Problem: Raw business data has inconsistent entries ("Juba" vs "juba " vs "JUBA") that make SUMIFS/COUNTIFS formulas silently undercount

Approach: Standardize and clean the data — removing duplicates, fixing inconsistent text — before running any summary formula, since a formula is only as reliable as the data feeding it.

Problem: A dashboard needs to update every month with new data, but rebuilding it from scratch each time wastes hours

Approach: Use Power Query to connect to the data source so refreshing the dashboard becomes a single click, not a rebuild.

Problem: The same report goes to both frontline staff and executives, but neither group finds it useful — one wants operational detail, the other wants a two-minute summary

Approach: Build separate executive and operational views of the same underlying data, instead of one report trying to serve both audiences equally badly.

Problem: A forecast projects next quarter's sales using a straight trend line, but it ignores a known seasonal slow period

Approach: Use seasonal or scenario-based forecasting instead of a simple linear trend, so the projection reflects real, known patterns in the business rather than a naive average.

Ready to register for Business Data Analytics & Advanced Excel?