Alberto Ferrari – författare

Seasoned Experts Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo Help You Master DAX for Superior Business Intelligence Solutions

The Definitive Guide to DAX is an authoritative resource for mastering the DAX language, which is pivotal for creating measures for semantic models in Microsoft Power BI, Fabric, Analysis Services, and Excel. With years of experience since the inception of Power Pivot, the authors offer a comprehensive reference that navigates through the unique and complex concepts of DAX, making it an essential tool for BI professionals. This third edition updates you with the latest features and provides a framework for writing efficient DAX code, enhancing your ability to customize calculations in data models. You will gain the skills necessary to understand and apply advanced DAX concepts, structure code in user-defined functions, and leverage new calendars for time intelligence calculations.

By reading this book, you will:

About This Book

Your guide to quickly turn data into results.

Transform your skills, data, and business—and create your own BI solutions using software you already know and love: Microsoft Excel. Two business intelligence (BI) experts take you inside PowerPivot functionality for Excel 2013, with a focus on real world scenarios, problem-solving, and data modeling. You'll learn how to quickly turn mass quantities of data into meaningful information and on-the-job results—no programming required!

Authors’ note on using Microsoft Excel 2016: This book’s content was written against Excel 2013, but it is useful and valid for users of Excel 2016 too. Excel 2016 introduces several new DAX functions and an improved editor for DAX without changing any existing behavior. In other words, all of the concepts and examples explained in this book continue to work with Excel 2016.

Renowned DAX experts Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo teach you how to design data models for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

How can you use Excel and Power BI to gain real insights into your information? As you examine your data, how do you write a formula that provides the numbers you need? The answers to both of these questions lie with the data model. This book introduces the basic techniques for shaping data models in Excel and Power BI. It’s meant for readers who are new to data modeling as well as for experienced data modelers looking for tips from the experts. If you want to use Power BI or Excel to analyze data, the many real-world examples in this book will help you look at your reports in a different way—like experienced data modelers do. As you’ll soon see, with the right data model, the correct answer is always a simple one!

By reading this book, you will:

• Gain an understanding of the basics of data modeling, including tables, relationships, and keys

• Familiarize yourself with star schemas, snowflakes, and common modeling techniques

• Learn the importance of granularity

• Discover how to use multiple fact tables, like sales and purchases, in a complex data model

• Manage calendar-related calculations by using date tables

• Track historical attributes, like previous addresses of customers or manager assignments

• Use snapshots to compute quantity on hand

• Work with multiple currencies in the most efficient way

• Analyze events that have durations, including overlapping durations

• Learn what data model you need to answer your specific business questions

About This Book

• For Excel and Power BI users who want to exploit the full power of their favorite tools

• For BI professionals seeking new ideas for modeling data

With SQL Server Analysis Services 2016, Microsoft has dramatically upgraded its Tabular approach to business intelligence data modeling, making Tabular the easiest and best solution for most new projects. In this book, two world-renowned experts in Microsoft data modeling and analysis cover all you need to know to create complete BI solutions with these powerful new tools.

Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari walk you step-by-step through creating powerful data models, and then illuminate advanced features such as optimization, deployment, and scalability.

Tabular Modeling in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services will be indispensable for everyone moving to Analysis Services Tabular, regardless of their previous experience with tabular-style models or with Microsoft's older Analysis Services offerings. It will also be an essential follow-up for every reader of the authors' highly-praised Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model.

A pattern is a general, reusable solution to a frequent or common challenge. This book is the second edition of the most comprehensive collection of ready-to-use solutions in DAX, that you can use in Microsoft Power BI, Analysis Services Tabular, and Power Pivot for Excel.

The book includes the following patterns: Time-related calculations, Standard time-related calculations, Month-related calculations, Week-related calculations, Custom time-related calculations, Comparing different time periods, Semi-additive calculations, Cumulative total, Parameter table, Static segmentation, Dynamic segmentation, ABC classification, New and returning customers, Related distinct count, Events in progress, Ranking, Hierarchies, Parent-child hierarchies, Like-for-like comparison, Transition matrix, Survey, Basket analysis, Currency conversion, Budget.

This book is the state of the art of optimizing DAX expressions in Power BI and Analysis Services semantic models. Learn how to locate performance bottlenecks, read the query plan and performance metrics, rewrite the slower part of an expression, and measure the performance improvements.

Prerequisites: proficiency in DAX and SQL (for DirectQuery), understanding of the Tabular engine used by semantic models, and familiarity with DAX Studio.