The Definitive Guide to DAX Business Intelligence with Microsoft Excel, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Power BI

by Ferrari, Alberto; Russo, Marco

• ISBN13: 9780735698352
• ISBN10: 073569835X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-10-13
• Publisher: Microsoft Press

Summary

This comprehensive and authoritative guide will teach you the DAX language for business intelligence, data modeling, and analytics. Leading Microsoft BI consultants Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari help you master everything from table functions through advanced code and model optimization. You’ll learn exactly what happens under the hood when you run a DAX expression, how DAX behaves differently from other languages, and how to use this knowledge to write fast, robust code. If you want to leverage all of DAX’s remarkable power and flexibility, this no-compromise “deep dive” is exactly what you need.
 
Perform powerful data analysis with DAX for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Excel, and Power BI

• Master core DAX concepts, including calculated columns, measures, and error handling
• Understand evaluation contexts and the CALCULATE and CALCULATETABLE functions
• Perform time-based calculations: YTD, MTD, previous year, working days, and more
• Work with expanded tables, complex functions, and elaborate DAX expressions
• Perform calculations over hierarchies, including parent/child hierarchies
• Use DAX to express diverse and unusual relationships
• Measure DAX query performance with SQL Server Profiler and DAX Studio

Author Biography

Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari cofounded sqlbi.com, where they regularly publish articles about Microsoft PowerPivot, DAX, Power BI, and SQL Server Analysis Services. They also speak regularly at major international conferences, such as TechEd, Ignite, PASS Summit, and SQLBits. Both consult and mentor on business intelligence (BI) and Microsoft BI technologies, having worked with them since 1999. Their books include Microsoft Excel 2013 Building Data Models with PowerPivot, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model, and Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What is DAX?
3. Introducing DAX
4. Using Basic Table Functions
5. Understanding Evaluation Contexts
6. Creating a Parameter Table
7. DAX Examples
8. Time Intelligence Calculations
9. Statistical Functions
10. Advanced Table Functions
11. Advanced Evaluation Context
12. Handling Hierarchies
13. Advanced Relationship Handling
14. The VertiPaq Engine
15. Optimizing Data Models
16. Analyzing DAX Query Plans
17. Optimizing DAX