Basics of Power BI Modeling

Basics of Power BI Modeling
Author: Reza Rad
Publisher: RADACAD Systems Limited
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2020-09-11
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

I have been dealing with many Power BI challenges in my professional life as a Power BI consultant and a trainer. Challenges normally come as calculation or DAX questions, or sometimes as a performance question. However, after digging deeper into the problem, soon, it will be revealed that the problem is related to a more fundamental challenge; data modeling.If you have a Power BI implementation with many calculation-related or performance-related issues, I strongly suggest looking into your data model because that is where most of the problems start.A good data model is a great base, which upon that, you can build up many stories of calculations and analysis. A bad data model causes problems on every level that you add upon it, and might sometime cause the whole solution to collapse.Fortunately, data modeling is not rocket science. I explained the basic principles of the data modeling with examples in this book. Use this book as the learning path towards a better data model. Most of the tips mentioned in this book are product-agnostic (such as star-schema, dimension, and fact tables). However, this book is particularly designed and developed for a Power BI product user.This book is for you if you are building a Power BI solution. If your task is only visualizing the existing data, this book might not be needed for you. However, What I have seen in many cases, is that the requirement starts with just visualize the data, and then more data tables appear, and you get into the tunnel of data modeling without knowing the principles of it. This book is a guide for you through that tunnel.

Introducing Microsoft Power BI

Introducing Microsoft Power BI
Author: Alberto Ferrari
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2016-07-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1509302751

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Introducing Microsoft Power BI enables you to evaluate when and how to use Power BI. Get inspired to improve business processes in your company by leveraging the available analytical and collaborative features of this environment. Be sure to watch for the publication of Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo's upcoming retail book, Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel (ISBN 9781509302765). Go to the book's page at the Microsoft Press Store here for more details:http://aka.ms/analyzingdata/details. Learn more about Power BI at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/.

Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel

Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel
Author: Alberto Ferrari
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2017-04-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1509302816

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

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI
Author: Soheil Bakhshi
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 612
Release: 2021-06-11
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1800203179

Manage and work with business data effectively by learning data modeling techniques and leveraging the latest features of Power BI Key Features Understand data modeling techniques to get the best out of data using Power BI Define the relationships between data to extract valuable insights Solve a wide variety of business challenges by building optimal data models Book DescriptionThis book is a comprehensive guide to understanding the ins and outs of data modeling and how to create data models using Power BI confidently. You'll learn how to connect data from multiple sources, understand data, define and manage relationships between data, and shape data models to gain deep and detailed insights about your organization. In this book, you'll explore how to use data modeling and navigation techniques to define relationships and create a data model before defining new metrics and performing custom calculations using modeling features. As you advance through the chapters, the book will demonstrate how to create full-fledged data models, enabling you to create efficient data models and simpler DAX code with new data modeling features. With the help of examples, you'll discover how you can solve business challenges by building optimal data models and changing your existing data models to meet evolving business requirements. Finally, you'll learn how to use some new and advanced modeling features to enhance your data models to carry out a wide variety of complex tasks. By the end of this Power BI book, you'll have gained the skills you need to structure data coming from multiple sources in different ways to create optimized data models that support reporting and data analytics.What you will learn Implement virtual tables and time intelligence functionalities in DAX to build a powerful model Identify Dimension and Fact tables and implement them in Power Query Editor Deal with advanced data preparation scenarios while building Star Schema Explore best practices for data preparation and modeling Discover different hierarchies and their common pitfalls Understand complex data models and how to decrease the level of model complexity with different approaches Learn advanced data modeling techniques such as aggregations, incremental refresh, and RLS/OLS Who this book is for This MS Power BI book is for BI users, data analysts, and analysis developers who want to become well-versed with data modeling techniques to make the most of Power BI. You’ll need a solid grasp on basic use cases and functionalities of Power BI and Star Schema functionality before you can dive in.

The Definitive Guide to DAX

The Definitive Guide to DAX
Author: Alberto Ferrari
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Total Pages: 1515
Release: 2015-10-14
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0735698376

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

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide
Author: Devin Knight
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2018-07-30
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1789130921

Bring your data to life with Power BI Key Features Get to grips with the fundamentals of Microsoft Power BI and its Business Intelligence capabilities Build accurate analytical models, reports and dashboards Get faster and more intuitive insights from your data using Microsoft Power BI Book DescriptionMicrosoft Power BI is a cloud-based service that helps you easily visualize and share insights using your organization's data.This book will get you started with business intelligence using the Power BI toolset, covering essential concepts such as installation,designing effective data models, as well as building basic dashboards and visualizations to make your data come to life You will learn how to get your data the way you want – connecting to data sources sources and how to clean your data with the Power BI Query Editor. You will next learn how to properly design your data model to make your data easier to work with.. You will next learn how to properly design your data model to navigate table relationships and build DAX formulas to make your data easier to work with. Visualizing your data is another key element of this book, and you will learn how to follow proper data visualization styles and enhanced digital storytelling techniques. By the end of this book, you will understand how to administer your organization's Power BI environment so deployment can be made seamless, data refreshes can run properly, and security can be fully implementedWhat you will learn Connect to data sources using both import and DirectQuery options Use the Query Editor to apply data transformations and data cleansing processes, including learning how to write M and R scripts Design optimized data models by designing relationships and DAX calculations Leverage built-in and custom visuals to design effective reports Use the Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service to implement Row Level Security on your model Administer a Power BI cloud tenant for your organization Deploy your Power BI Desktop files into the Power BI Report Server Who this book is for This book is for aspiring Business Intelligence professionals who want to get up and running with Microsoft Power BI. If you have a basic understanding of BI concepts and want to learn how to apply them using Microsoft Power BI, this book is for you.

Beginning Microsoft Power BI

Beginning Microsoft Power BI
Author: Dan Clark
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2020-02-21
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1484256204

Analyze company data quickly and easily using Microsoft’s powerful data tools. Learn to build scalable and robust data models, clean and combine different data sources effectively, and create compelling and professional visuals. Beginning Power BI is a hands-on, activity-based guide that takes you through the process of analyzing your data using the tools that that encompass the core of Microsoft’s self-service BI offering. Starting with Power Query, you will learn how to get data from a variety of sources, and see just how easy it is to clean and shape the data prior to importing it into a data model. Using Power BI tabular and the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), you will learn to create robust scalable data models which will serve as the foundation of your data analysis. From there you will enter the world of compelling interactive visualizations to analyze and gain insight into your data. You will wrap up your Power BI journey by learning how to package and share your reports and dashboards with your colleagues. Author Dan Clark takes you through each topic using step-by-step activities and plenty of screen shots to help familiarize you with the tools. This third edition covers the new and evolving features in the Power BI platform and new chapters on data flows and composite models. This book is your hands-on guide to quick, reliable, and valuable data insight. What You Will Learn Simplify data discovery, association, and cleansingBuild solid analytical data models Create robust interactive data presentations Combine analytical and geographic data in map-based visualizations Publish and share dashboards and reports Who This Book Is For Business analysts, database administrators, developers, and other professionals looking to better understand and communicate with data

Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel

Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel
Author: Reza Rad
Publisher: RADACAD Systems Limited
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2021-08-27
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

Any data analytics solution requires data population and preparation. With the rise of data analytics solutions these years, the need for this data preparation becomes even more essential. Power BI is a helpful data analytics tool that is used worldwide by many users. As a Power BI (or Microsoft BI) developer, it is essential to learn how to prepare the data in the right shape and format needed. You need to learn how to clean the data and build it in a structure that can be modeled easily and used high performant for visualization. Data preparation and transformation is the backend work. If you consider building a BI system as going to a restaurant and ordering food. The visualization is the food you see on the table nicely presented. The quality, the taste, and everything else come from the hard work in the kitchen. The part that you don’t see or the backend in the world of Power BI is Power Query. You may already be familiar with other data preparation and transformation technologies, such as T-SQL, SSIS, Azure Data Factory, Informatica, etc. Power Query is a data transformation engine capable of preparing the data in the format you need. The good news is that to learn Power Query; you don’t need to know programming. Power Query is for citizen data engineers. However, this doesn’t mean that Power Query is not capable of performing advanced transformation. Power Query exists in many Microsoft tools and services such as Power BI, Excel, Dataflows, Power Automate, Azure Data Factory, etc. Through the years, this engine became more powerful. These days, we can say this is essential learning for anyone who wants to do data analysis with Microsoft technology to learn Power Query and master it. We have been working with Power Query since the very early release of that in 2013, named Data Explorer, and wrote blog articles and published videos about it. The number of articles we published under this subject easily exceeds hundreds. Through those articles, some of the fundamentals and key learnings of Power Query are explained. We thought it is good to compile some of them in a book series. A good analytics solution combines a good data model, good data preparation, and good analytics and calculations. Reza has written another book about the Basics of modeling in Power BI and a book on Power BI DAX Simplified. This book is covering the data preparation and transformations aspects of it. This book series is for you if you are building a Power BI solution. Even if you are just visualizing the data, preparation and transformations are an essential part of analytics. You do need to have the cleaned and prepared data ready before visualizing it. This book is compiled into a series of two books, which will be followed by a third book later; Getting started with Power Query in Power BI and Excel (already available to be purchased separately) Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel (This book) Power Query dataflows (will be published later) This book deeps dive into real-world challenges of data transformation. It starts with combining data sources and continues with aggregations and fuzzy operations. The book covers advanced usage of Power Query in scenarios such as error handling and exception reports, custom functions and parameters, advanced analytics, and some helpful table and list functions. The book continues with some performance tuning tips and it also explains the Power Query formula language (M) and the structure of it and how to use it in practical solutions. Although this book is written for Power BI and all the examples are presented using the Power BI. However, the examples can be easily applied to Excel, Dataflows, and other tools and services using Power Query.

Microsoft Power BI For Dummies

Microsoft Power BI For Dummies
Author: Jack A. Hyman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1119824877

Reveal the insights behind your company’s data with Microsoft Power BI Microsoft Power BI allows intuitive access to data that can power intelligent business decisions and insightful strategies. The question is, do you have the Power BI skills to make your organization’s numbers spill their secrets? In Microsoft Power BI For Dummies, expert lecturer, consultant, and author Jack Hyman delivers a start-to-finish guide to applying the Power BI platform to your own firm’s data. You’ll discover how to start exploring your data sources, build data models, visualize your results, and create compelling reports that motivate decisive action. Tackle the basics of Microsoft Power BI and, when you’re done with that, move on to advanced functions like accessing data with DAX and app integrations Guide your organization’s direction and decisions with rock-solid conclusions based on real-world data Impress your bosses and confidently lead your direct reports with exciting insights drawn from Power BI’s useful visualization tools It’s one thing for your company to have data at its disposal. It’s another thing entirely to know what to do with it. Microsoft Power BI For Dummies is the straightforward blueprint you need to apply one of the most powerful business intelligence tools on the market to your firm’s existing data.

Mastering Microsoft Power BI

Mastering Microsoft Power BI
Author: Brett Powell
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 632
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1788292286

Design, create and manage robust Power BI solutions to gain meaningful business insights Key Features Master all the dashboarding and reporting features of Microsoft Power BI Combine data from multiple sources, create stunning visualizations and publish your reports across multiple platforms A comprehensive guide with real-world use cases and examples demonstrating how you can get the best out of Microsoft Power BI Book DescriptionThis book is intended for business intelligence professionals responsible for the design and development of Power BI content as well as managers, architects and administrators who oversee Power BI projects and deployments. The chapters flow from the planning of a Power BI project through the development and distribution of content to the administration of Power BI for an organization. BI developers will learn how to create sustainable and impactful Power BI datasets, reports, and dashboards. This includes connecting to data sources, shaping and enhancing source data, and developing an analytical data model. Additionally, top report and dashboard design practices are described using features such as Bookmarks and the Power KPI visual. BI managers will learn how Power BI’s tools work together such as with the On-premises data gateway and how content can be staged and securely distributed via Apps. Additionally, both the Power BI Report Server and Power BI Premium are reviewed. By the end of this book, you will be confident in creating effective charts, tables, reports or dashboards for any kind of data using the tools and techniques in Microsoft Power BI.What you will learn Build efficient data retrieval and transformation processes with the Power Query M Language Design scalable, user-friendly DirectQuery and Import Data Models Develop visually rich, immersive, and interactive reports and dashboards Maintain version control and stage deployments across development, test, and production environments Manage and monitor the Power BI Service and the On-premises data gateway Develop a fully on-premise solution with the Power BI Report Server Scale up a Power BI solution via Power BI Premium capacity and migration to Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services Who this book is for Business Intelligence professionals and existing Power BI users looking to master Power BI for all their data visualization and dashboarding needs will find this book to be useful. While understanding of the basic BI concepts is required, some exposure to Microsoft Power BI will be helpful.