Welcome to the FP20 Analytics December 2025 Challenge!

About the FP20 Analytics ZoomCharts Data Challenge

🏆 Main Prize: $300 Amazon Gift Card

Want to build professional Power BI reports and grow your portfolio?

This challenge helps you level up with expert feedback, hands-on workshops, webinars with MVPs, and visibility in our public results showcase. It’s a great way to learn, gain recognition, and connect with a supportive data community.

The challenge is hosted in partnership with FP20 Analytics - a LinkedIn community that brings together 20k+ passionate data professionals and helps new analysts improve their craft. It’s a welcoming space where you can practice, learn, and share your work with others. Learn more about the FP20 Analytics challenge on their website.

Benefits of joining FP20 Analytics ZoomCharts Challenge

Live Workshops & 1:1 Mentoring

Learn directly from experienced Power BI professionals. Enjoy practical workshops on report-building techniques and book a one-on-one mentoring session to receive tailored advice on your submission.

Personalized Feedback

Every participant receives detailed, constructive feedback on their report. It’s a valuable opportunity to improve your skills with real insights from seasoned analysts.

Free ZoomCharts Custom Visuals License

All participants receive a ZoomCharts Developer License, giving you full access to the Drill Down PRO visuals library.

Free Report Downloads

Each challenge participant with a validated report will receive 5 free downloads from the Power BI Report Gallery.

Prizes 🏆

• The best report using ZoomCharts visuals will receive a $300 Amazon Gift Card.
• Being selected in the Top 5 will grant you +10 free downloads from the Power BI Report Gallery.

The winners will be announced during a special live webinar on January 9: "Reviewing the Top 5 Power BI Reports for Christmas Retail and Marketing".

Guest Judge of the Challenge

Erik Svensen, Innovation Lead & Microsoft MVP

Webinars

Learn more about ZoomCharts visuals & gain a knowledge advantage in the contest by joining the upcoming webinars! You'll also get the chance to your ask questions and get expert answers in the Q&A section.

Upcoming webinars

Designing Interactive Christmas Retail Reports with Power BI

16th December, 2025

08:00 AM - EST

Join this hands-on Power BI workshop to explore the Christmas Retail Sales & Marketing dataset and learn how to build interactive, insight-driven reports using Power BI.

Learn more

Reviewing the Top 5 Power BI Reports for Christmas Retail and Marketing

9th January, 2026

08:00 AM - EST

Discover the best visualization, storytelling, and interactivity practices as our experts walk through the top Power BI reports built on the Christmas Retail data.

Learn more

How to Participate in the FP20 Analytics & ZoomCharts Challenge

1. Register for the Challenge

• Register using the form above on this page.

• Download the dataset using the Get the Dataset button on the left side of the page.

• Read the challenge brief in the The Brief section to understand the data and requirements.

• Activate your free Drill Down Visuals Developer License for Power BI. (watch the setup video or follow the step-by-step instructions).

2. Build Your Report in Power BI

• Add your ZoomCharts license to Power BI Desktop.

• Add ZoomCharts visuals from the Power BI visuals library or Microsoft Marketplace.

• Build your report using the challenge dataset.
  Your report must include at least two ZoomCharts Drill Down Visuals on the same page.

• Recommended report format:

  • Up to 3 pages (including any drill-through pages)

  • Canvas size: 16:9 (default) or 1920 × 1080 (Full HD)

3. Improve Your Report and Learn New Skills

• Join the challenge workshop to learn how to use ZoomCharts visuals effectively.

• If you need help, book a free 1-on-1 consultation with the ZoomCharts team.

• Look at previous challenge submissions for ideas and inspiration.

4. Submit Your Challenge Entry

• Log in to your account on this page and upload your report in .pbix format for validation.

If your report does not meet all requirements:
You will receive an email explaining what needs to be fixed.
You can update your report and submit it again.

Validation timeline:

• Your report will be reviewed within 1–2 business days.

• Once validated, you will receive a Publish to Web link that you can use in your portfolio or share online.

• You will also receive personalized feedback within 1–2 business days to help you improve your report before the deadline.

Note:
You may resubmit your entry as many times as needed before the challenge deadline.

5. Finalize Your Participation to Compete for the ZoomCharts Grand Prize

To be eligible for prizes, complete these steps:

1. Post the final version of your report (PDF) on your LinkedIn profile.

2. Use this caption:
   "I am participating in FP20 Analytics ZoomCharts Challenge 33"

3. Include a short summary of your key insights and the Publish to Web link (if you have one).

4. Use the hashtags #FP20Analytics and #builtwithzoomcharts and tag @Federico Pastor and @ZoomCharts.

5. Obligatory! Share your report also in the FP20 Analytics LinkedIn Community group.

6. Follow ZoomCharts on LinkedIn.

7. Rate ZoomCharts visuals at Microsoft Marketplace.

6. Attend the Live Closing Webinar

• The ZoomCharts team reviews and analyzes the Top 5 challenge submissions during live webinar.

• You will learn best practices, visualization tips, and new Power BI skills.

• The winner of the best report receives a $300 Amazon gift card from ZoomCharts.

Technical requirements

• Build your report using Power BI
• The recommended number of pages in the report is up to 3 pages, including drill-through pages.
• Canvas size is 16:9 (Default Power BI size) or Full HD size = w:1920 - h:1080 
• The report should contain at least 2 ZoomCharts Drill Down visuals within a single page. See a practical guide for using Drill Down PRO visuals.

The Brief

Christmas Retail Sales and Marketing Analysis

In this challenge, you will take on the role of a data analyst exploring a complete festive season retail dataset. The company operates sales across Web, Stores, and Marketplaces and runs a series of Christmas and holiday marketing campaigns from Black Friday through New Year. 

The dataset captures everything that happens during this period: promotions, customer orders, deliveries, inventory levels, and returns. Your mission is to uncover insights that help improve holiday campaign performance, customer experience, and operational efficiency.

Use Case and Main Goal

The holiday season is busy, competitive, and full of rapid decision making. This dataset gives you a chance to understand how different parts of the business worked during this peak time. By analyzing it, you will: 

• Evaluate which holiday campaigns created the most profitable sales uplift. 

• Explore delivery performance to see which carriers and shipping methods met their promised dates. 

• Understand what caused returns and how they affected overall revenue. 

• Support future planning by highlighting what worked well and what should be improved for next year.

Your Mission

Use Power BI and ZoomCharts visuals to:

• Build data models connecting data tables.
• Create performance metrics and KPIs.
• Design a complete Power BI report.

Questions to Explore (Optional)

Here are some ideas to inspire your analysis. You can explore these or follow your own curiosity: 

• Which holiday promotions performed best in terms of budget execution and overall profit, not just sales volume? 

• What are the main reasons for returns. 

• How much $ are we losing from disposed products (include all associated costs) 

• Where did late deliveries peak during the season and which carriers have the highest delayed shipment rate 

• Which warehouses have highest delivery delays 

• Which products generate the highest profit margins in each category? 

✨ Note: These questions are only starting points. You are encouraged to explore the data in your own way and share any interesting or unexpected findings. Your insights can help highlight how search behavior, advertising, and website performance shape the customer experience during the holiday season.

Judging criteria

Business users use reports to make data-driven decisions. That’s why reports are called effective if they enable users to drill down and filter data quickly and intuitively to find answers to any question they might have, and analyse data in all possible directions and dimensions.

Each report is evaluated based on three main criteria: intuitiveness, insightfulness, and interactivity. These factors ensure that the reports are not only accurate and functional, but also meet the target audience's needs and are ready to be presented to the end-users. 

1. Intuitive: How clear and easy it is to understand the report at a glance? (max 15 points)
   • Is the report visually appealing?
   • Choice of charts and visual elements
   • Does the report tell a story?
   • Is it not overwhelming to the user?
   • Choice of tooltips, titles, and legends
     
     
2. Interactive: How engaging and seamless is the report exploration and interaction with data? (max 15 points)
   • Clear navigation that allows user to explore the report
   • Use of slicers and other interactive elements
   • Smooth cross-chart integration
   • Is report optimized for touch devices?
   • Are tutorials and guiding elements helpful to the user?
     
     
3. Insightful: How accurate, complete, and meaningful is the data in driving decisions? (max 15 points)
   • Depth of analysis
   • Data cleaning and preparation
   • Does data show up accurately in the report?
   • Is report optimized for quicker loading time?
   • Does the report provide deeper exploration of data (drill-down)?

Dataset

My license

1:1 mentoring sessions

You can book a personal session with Senior Product Expert at ZoomCharts, Aivis Pavlovs, to gain practical knowledge about Drill Down Visuals and how they can be used to enhance data storytelling in a report.