[Free ebook]The Definitive Guide to DAX: Business intelligence for Microsoft Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Excel (Business Skills)-Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari

 
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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 

From the Author

When we (Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari) decided it was time to update the first edition of "The Definitive Guide to DAX", we thought it would be an easy job: after all, not many things have changed in the DAX language and the theoretical core of the book was still very good. We believed the focus would mainly be on updating the screenshots from Excel to Power BI, adding a few touch-ups here and there, and we would be done. How wrong we were!

As soon as we started updating the first chapter, we quickly discovered that we wanted to rewrite pretty much everything. We felt so not only in the first chapter, but at every page of the book. Therefore, this is not really a 2nd edition; it is a brand-new book.

The reason is not that the language or the tools have changed so drastically. The reason is that over these last few years we - as authors and teachers - have evolved a lot, hopefully for the better. We have taught DAX to thousands of users and developers all around the world, we have worked hard with our students, always striving for the best way to explain complex topics. Eventually, we did find different ways of describing the language we love.

We increased the number of examples, showing practical uses of the functionalities after teaching the theoretical foundation of DAX. We tried to use a simpler style, without compromising on precision. We fought with the editor to increase the page count, as this was needed to cover all the topics we wanted to share. Nevertheless, we did not change the leitmotif of the book: we assume no previous knowledge of DAX on the reader's part, even though this is not a book for the casual DAX developer. This is a book for people who really want to learn the language and gain a deep understanding of the power and complexity of DAX.

Yes, if you want to leverage the real power of DAX, you need to be prepared for a long journey with us... Reading the book from cover to cover, and then reading it again, searching for the many details that - at first sight - are not obvious.

About the Author

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

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