Power BI Roadmap · Topic 12 · Projects & Portfolio

Power BI Portfolio Lab

Certificates open doors, but real-world projects get you hired. Recruiters want proof you can turn a messy business question into a clean model and a decision-ready report. Explore three portfolio-grade projects below — drag the 3D dashboard, flip to the star schema, and track your own hireability checklist. (Inspired by @gudanglifehack’s Power BI roadmap.)

Drag to orbit · scroll / pinch to zoom

View: Dashboard

Star schema view

Project brief

Key DAX measures

Portfolio checklist — is this project hireable?

Check items as you build.0% hireable

Anatomy of a hireable project

Business question first. One sentence a manager cares about: “Which regions are dragging margin and why?” Not “a dashboard about sales”.
Get & clean data with Power Query. Import, remove errors, unpivot, set data types, document each applied step so the refresh is reproducible.
Model as a star schema. One fact table of events (sales, exits, GL postings) plus dimension tables (Date, Product, Customer…) joined 1-to-many.
Write explicit DAX measures. Named, reusable measures instead of implicit sums — they survive filter context and are easy to audit.
Tell a story, not a chart dump. Lead the report page with the answer: KPI cards up top, drivers beneath, one insight per visual.

DAX you should be able to explain

-- Year-to-date with a proper Date dimension Total Sales YTD = TOTALYTD(SUM(Sales[Amount]), 'Date'[Date]) -- Year-over-year growth, divide-by-zero safe Sales YoY % = DIVIDE( [Total Sales] - CALCULATE([Total Sales], DATEADD('Date'[Date], -1, YEAR)), CALCULATE([Total Sales], DATEADD('Date'[Date], -1, YEAR)) )

Time intelligence like TOTALYTD and DATEADD only behaves when a dedicated, contiguous Date table is marked as the date table — one more reason the model matters.

Why star schemas beat flat tables

Simpler DAX. Filters live on small dimensions; measures on the fact stay short. No tangled bidirectional workarounds.
Better performance. VertiPaq compresses narrow fact tables of keys and numbers far better than one wide flat table full of repeated text.
Correct filter propagation. 1-to-many relationships flow filters from dimension to fact predictably, so slicers, drill-downs and time intelligence just work.

Toggle the Star schema view above to see the model behind the current dashboard.

Presenting projects to recruiters

Make it public. Publish to the Power BI Service (or publish-to-web for demo data) and pin the link plus a GitHub README with screenshots at the top of your CV and LinkedIn.
Explain your decisions. Why a star schema? Why that measure? Interviewers probe the reasoning more than the visuals.
Quantify the insight. “Found that 3 regions caused 78% of attrition cost” lands harder than “built an HR dashboard”. End every README with the business answer.