The Definitive Guide to Dax: Business Intelligence for Microsoft Power Bi, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Excel

Now expanded and updated with modern best practices, this is the most complete guide to Microsoft’s DAX language for business intelligence, data modeling, and analytics. Expert 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, and use this knowledge to write fast, robust code. This edition focuses on examples you can build and run with the free Power BI Desktop, and helps you make the most of the powerful syntax of variables (VAR) in Power BI, Excel, or Analysis Services. Want to leverage all of DAX’s remarkable capabilities? This no-compromise “deep dive” is exactly what you need.

Perform powerful data analysis with DAX for Power BI, SQL Server, and Excel

·         Master core DAX concepts, including calculated columns, measures, and calculation groups

·         Work efficiently with basic and advanced table functions

·         Understand evaluation contexts and the CALCULATE and CALCULATETABLE functions

·         Perform time-based calculations

·         Use calculation groups and calculation items

·         Use syntax of variables (VAR) to write more readable, maintainable code

·         Express diverse and unusual relationships with DAX, including many-to-many relationships and bidirectional filters

·         Master advanced optimization techniques, and improve performance in aggregations

·         Optimize data models to achieve better compression

·         Measure DAX query performance with DAX Studio and learn how to optimize your DAX 

Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari are the founders of sqlbi.com, where they regularly publish articles about Microsoft Power BI, Power Pivot, DAX, and SQL Server Analysis Services. They have worked with DAX since the fi rst beta version of Power Pivot in 2009 and, during these years, sqlbi.com became one of the major sources for DAX articles and tutorials. Their courses, both in-person and online, are the major source of learning for many DAX enthusiasts.

They both provide consultancy and mentoring on business intelligence (BI) using Microsoft technologies. They have written several books and papers about Power BI, DAX, and Analysis Services. They constantly help the community of DAX users providing content for the websites daxpatterns.com, daxformatter.com, and dax.guide.

Marco and Alberto are also regular speakers at major international conferences, including Microsoft Ignite, PASS Summit, and SQLBits. Contact Marco at marco.russo@sqlbi.com, and contact Alberto at alberto.ferrari@sqlbi.com