Microsoft DP-600 prep: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate

This course covers the  content required for the DP-600 “Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate” certification exam.

It is as per the DP-600 requirements as of 22 July 2024, with some updates as of 15 November 2024.

This course is also useful for the following Microsoft Applied Skills:

• APL-3008 “Implement a Real-Time Intelligence solution with Microsoft Fabric”
• APL-3009 “Implement a lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric”
• APL-3010 “Implement a data warehouse in Microsoft Fabric”

Please note: This course is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft.

It comes in four parts:

1. Part 1 – Power BI knowledge you will have gained if you have already studied for the PL-300 exam,
2. Part 2 – additional Power BI knowledge (not part of the PL-300 exam),
3. Part 3 – Fabric lakehouses and data warehouses using SQL, and
4. Part 4 – eventhouses using KQL.

Part 1 of this course is for you if you have not studied for Microsoft’s PL-300 exam. If you have, then please join me in Section 1, and then skip to Part 2 (Section 9). In Part 1, we’ll look at:

• Installing and creating a report in Power BI Desktop and uploading it to Power BI Service,
• Creating calculated columns and measures using DAX, and
• Other PL-300 exam topics needed for the DP-600 exam.

In Part 2 of this course, we’ll start with Power BI. We’ll look at:

• Developing our design of semantic models, including calculation groups/items and field parameters.
• Expanding our DAX knowledge, with DAX variables and windowing functions.
• Using external apps, such as Tableau Editor 2 and DAX Studio,
• Implementing many-to-many relationships, implementing dynamic strings, and using the Optimize menu.
• The analytics development lifecycle, focusing on version control and deployment solutions,
• Other Analytics topics, such as creating aggregation tables and using the XMLA endpoint.

In Part 3 of this course, we’ll query and manipulate data in Fabric lakehouses and data warehouses using SQL.

• After a brief look around Fabric, we’ll start by ingesting data by using data pipelines and dataflows.
• We’ll then create a lakehouse and Data Warehouse and use the SQL Analytics Endpoint to manipulate the data in SQL. We’ll learn the 6 principle clauses in the SQL Select statement: SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING and ORDER BY.

In Part 4 of this course, we’ll look at the Eventhouses and KQL:

• We’ll create an eventhouse, see sample KQL queries, and how you can convert SQL queries to KQL.
• We’ll select, filter and aggregate data using KQL.
• We’ll expand our KQL queries using string, number, datetime and timespan functions.
• Finally, we’ll transform data using KQL, merging and joining data, and identify and resolve duplicate and missing data.

No prior knowledge is assumed. We will start from the beginning for all languages and items, although any prior knowledge of DAX, SQL or KQL is useful.

Once you have completed the course, you will have a good knowledge of maintaining a data analytics solution, preparing data, and implementing and managing semantic models. And with some practice, you could even go for the official Microsoft certification DP-600 – wouldn’t the “Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate” certification look good on your CV or resume?

I hope to see you in the course – why not have a look at what you could learn?