I was an Excel specialist, accountant - analyst turned Excel consultant / trainer and now spend most of my time in Power BI - but Excel still offers strong solutions
Learn Power Query in Excel ( absolute super power- the world’s greatest washing machine for dirty data ), and this same feature is how you get data into power bi
Power Pivot in Excel ( the data model ) is the same concept as Power BI data model but not as good - it allows you to perform millions of INDEX MATCH type functions with a single drag and drop connection between 2 or more tables
Start here:
3 Essential Excel skills for the data analyst
https://youtu.be/I1XeDS-GLbg
Power Query
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHDyf8d156UFChHzgQIO2cdaNqOS8KX3
Then here:
Power BI
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHDyf8d156VDobBIk13o4mZLk19DbV81
Also make sure you learn the new Dynamic Array capability of Excel - sounds scary but it’s not and it’s a game changer ( seriously )
Learning Dynamic Array formulas in Excel by building Wordle
https://youtu.be/AKyrGJ9CuYk
Dynamic Array Challenge
https://youtu.be/FIcxyLqzWcE?si=TfDrNTcm0KjJuQho
