Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel

by Alberto Ferrari, Marco Russo

To get the right insights from your data, you need to model it right. From Power BI to Power Pivot for Excel, Microsoft offers extremely powerful and accessible tools for modeling data. Now, for the first time, there's a complete guide to building exceptionally effective models using Microsoft's tools. World-renowned Microsoft data analytics experts Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari introduce all the data modeling theory you'll need, and show how to apply it in the context of Microsoft's current and evolving products. Step by step, you'll learn how to transform simple tables into full analytical models of immense power. You'll master data modeling through a collection of realistic scenarios of increasing sophistication. For each, the authors start with a simple "naive" model that can't provide robust solutions. Next, they guide you to update and improve the model, so it can deliver the knowledge and insights you really need."

Genres: Business

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 19, 2017

Reviews

[Kevin Narvaes · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5
A very good insight and explanation about how data modeling works, and what are some of the best practices when encountaring some specific scenarios. At certain bits it can get exhausting, especially if you are new with DAX and very abstract concepts like granularity and table relationships.

[PP · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found that the title of the book is somewhat misleading; it mainly focuses on data mart design theory rather than step-by-step how to of Power BI and Power Pivot.
The book, though, does a good job in laying foundation of data model design necessary for business analysts, without going too deep on the data warehouse theory.

[Vyacheslav Ilnytskyy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with many valuable examples

In general it is awesome book. The only thing I wish it had is that instead of saying after presenting Dax code "better do in M" to actually make it a reference to M similar to DAX book. Yes, the book will be much larger, but it will be much more valuable in this case.

[Hendrick Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Excellent Intro to Data Modeling Using DAX

I found this book to be an excellent introduction to data modeling using DAX. It doesn’t focus on writing DAX equations, but rather how to setup the relationships between your tables to maximize the performance of your data model when using DAX formulas.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book provided some useful information on Power BI, I didn't finish it. The same example (sales and products) was used throughout the book. If this example wasn't similar to your dataset, then much of the content may not be applicable to your needs.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

great intro and fast ramp up to xfer knowledge from Power Pivot and Power Query for Excel to translate into Power BI reports and dashboards...