Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel (Business Skills)

This is a great book for those who want to understand data modeling. I bought this book hoping for a primer on Power BI, but quickly realized that that was not the book's intent -- the authors make this clear in the introduction. While I was mildly disappointed that it was not Power BI 101 or even DAX 101, I was glad that I learned what data modeling really is -- it is not SQL for Excel or Excel on steroids. As a newbie, I quickly learned that it was very easy to drag a column into a table and get a set of numbers that made no sense at all. One of the most valuable parts of this book is the recognition that nonsense data does happen, why it happens (e.g. weak relationships and bi-directional filtering) and how to build your model and relationships in a way to prevent nonsense data from creeping into your work. These lessons alone make this book worthwhile!

Excellent book filled with practical examples. Some cases illustrated i the boom are hardcore but are real and as an analyst you stumble upon many of the cases showcased in this book. Thanks marco and alberto for creating another valuable reference.

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.

In my earlier preliminary review of this book, I was not able to locate any link in the book to download the Contoso database used for the chapter demos. But after delving deeper into the book, I discovered that it was not necessary to download and install the database. By sparing the reader the trouble of downloading and installing the database, the authors have already done the work of including the database in Power Pivot for each chapter's demos, allowing the reader to jump right in and begin exploring the demos and learning the skill to master Power BI and Power Pivot. The book is a welcome addition to my library of Power Pivot and Power BI books. So it deserves 5 stars.

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.

I just received this book and I was totally amazed by the condition that it was in. I am very very excited to dive deep in this book. Thank you

This book is a must have for anyone transitioning from Excel to Power BI and is taught in a manner that is helpful. I have many other books and this book does set the set standard for Excel users moving to Power BI. Excel will get frustrated with Power BI unless they have a good foundation of Power BI and how to develop models, relationships, calculated columns and measures.

Good book but needed more scenarios and examples

PARFAIT.

Well written and easy to follow examples. Really helpful for understanding why certain methods/ data models are not working and how one can fix issues in their own data models.

It’s obvious that this book covers all the concepts of data Modelling from converting from OLTP to Star schemes, Relationships, Time Dimensions, Multiple fact-tables, data granularity management, SCDs, etc... to name a few... But, the best part is that, this book is dealing with all the concepts in a very practical way and now when somebody tells me about a dashboard or report requirement, the data model is coming to my mind. It has given me the confidence that I am modeling it the right way and following the best practices. After reading this book, I am able to figure out the best method to create various datasets in PowerBI that will give the right amount of analytical power at optimum performance. One should not touch Power BI without reading this book!!!! It will definitely save time. Definitely recommended.

While you can import one table from an Excel file into Power BI and start adding fields into a visual, in most cases your data will be much more complicated. There will be multiple tables, you'll need to transform your data (create new tables, merge existing tables). In most cases you'll need to build a good data model before you can start writing DAX and creating visuals. You'll need to prepare right tables and establish right relationships between the tables. This book is a great introduction into data modeling with Power BI. An incorrect model will be slow, will require overcomplicated DAX measures and will give you wrong numbers at the end of the process - on your report/dashboard. This book will help you to understand what and why can go wrong and how to make things right. You need to understand your future data model while you transforming data in Power Query. You need to make sure your data model (star schema in most cases) is correct before you can start writing DAX. This is not what you can learn by yourself by just using Power BI. You can try all buttons in Power BI, you can try all visual settings and you'll learn a lot about ETL and data visualization in Power BI. But there is no magic 'build a good data model' button. Try and try until you succeed approach won't work well here. Read the book! And be ready that data modeling and DAX are much more complicated subjects than you expected. This is not a book for fast reading from the first to the last page. Keep it on your table for a while while your data models are becoming more and more complicated. Probably there is a better way to explain data modeling so everyone can understand just by reading one book, but if you know such way - you could become a famous author by yourself. And if you're serious about Power BI, then Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo are your gods. They know everything about data modeling and DAX. You'll read other their books, you'll watch their videos and read their articles.

This is a fantastic book if you are already familiar with Power BI and DAX and want to learn more about how to correctly structure data models. However if you are new to Power BI or Power Pivot this is not the book for you as the DAX will scare the pants off you. I understand that the authors only mean to use the DAX to decribe the data modelling principles, but in saying that you still wont get much out of it unless you can understand the DAX. If you are new to DAX I would first recommend Matt Arlington's "Learn to Write DAX" which is the best beginners book for DAX then move to Philip Seamark's "Beginning DAX with Power BI" then finally the "Definitive Guide to DAX". I was disappointed that the database underpinning the various pbix and excel files werent available. I contacted the authors and Marco replied promptly which was great. He informed me that the M/SQL data transformations in the example files were not the focus of the book which I understand, but I think that free access to the demo database would be helpful, especially for the data transformations in Chapter 5 "Tracking Historical Attributes". Having said that, if you are the right audience this book is great and fills a void in the marketplace. The authors are hands down the experts in their field.