Start here
Your plan: 4 weeks, about 1 to 1.5 hours a day
| Days | Module | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | Thinking like an analyst | none |
| 3-4 | Spreadsheet basics | Excel or Calc |
| 5-7 | Formulas that answer questions | Excel or Calc |
| 8-9 | Cleaning messy data | Excel or Calc |
| 10-12 | Pivot tables, charts and highlighting | Excel or Calc |
| 13-16 | Power BI: from data to a report | Power BI Desktop (Windows) |
| 17-20 | Python and pandas | Jupyter |
| 21-22 | Your portfolio project and interview prep | all |
You'll use one dataset the whole way: a year of orders at "Bean There", a small (made-up) coffee chain with four branches in Cairo. Doing the same questions in three tools shows you what each one is good at, which is exactly what interviewers ask about.
Get the files
- All files in one zip: coffee_data_files.zip
- One by one: coffee_sales_2025.csv (20,838 orders), coffee_sales_messy.csv (for cleaning practice), branch_targets.csv, coffee_sales_workbook.xlsx (the finished spreadsheet, to compare with yours), coffee_analysis.ipynb (the finished Python notebook).
You can also look at each file inside inPace: they come with the course.
What you need
- A spreadsheet program: Excel, or free LibreOffice Calc or Google Sheets.
- Power BI Desktop (free, Windows only). On a Mac, do that week in Power BI on the web or read along.
- Python with Jupyter: the easiest way is Anaconda, or VS Code with the Python and Jupyter extensions.