Introduction to DAX for Power BI

Course Length: 2 Days

Delivered: Virtually

OVERVIEW:

Welcome to Introduction to DAX for Power BI. This two-day instructor-led course is intended for business users who have been using Power BI and want to use DAX to create custom calculations in their data models. In this class, you will be introduced to using Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), which is the expression language that is used to create custom calculations in the Power BI Data model. The course covers some of the theoretical underpinnings of the data model and the DAX language, but the emphasis is on using DAX to solve common business problems. You will learn how to write your own calculated columns, measures, and tables, how to visualize the way Power Biocomputers DAX calculations, and how to troubleshoot custom code.

Software Used During the Class

The software required to do the labs for this class consists entirely of components that would typically be available to any analyst using Power BI Desktop. Windows 10: The class was designed to run on a modern Windows operating system. Power BI Desktop: Power BI Desktop is the primary tool you will use for this class. This courseware was developed and tested with version 2-96 of Power BI Desktop. Microsoft Office: Excel is used in a few places in the class. The version that was used for development was Excel for Microsoft 365, version 16.0.13801. DAX Studio: This class also includes a brief introduction to DAX Studio. The version used for development and testing was version 2.16.2

TARGET AUDIENCE:

This course is intended for business users who have been using Power BI to build analytic solutions and are ready to take advantage of the power and flexibility that DAX provides. Learning DAX is a very common®��next ste> for experienced Power BI users.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At course completion, you should be able to describe DAX syntax, data types, and errors use DAX to create calculated columns, measures, and tables explain how DAX calculations are evaluated, along with the differences between row context and filter context configure and use Time Intelligence to perform common time-based calculations, for example to-date calculations, year-over-year analysis, moving averages, etc. create calculated columns and measures that use data from multiple tables in the data model write measures that handle error conditions gracefully use DAX to enhance the Power BI user experience use DAX Studio to connect to a Power BI data model and execute simple queries.

COURSE CONTENT:

1 - MODULE 1: GETTING STARTED WITH DAX

• INTRODUCTION TODAX
• CREATING OBJECTS WITHDAX
• CONTEXT AND RULES OF EVALUATION
• VARIABLES,COMMENTS,AND TESTING

2 - MODULE 2: PERFORMING BASIC CALCULATIONS

• GETTING STARTED
• IMPLICIT MEASURES
• ADDING QUICK MEASURES
• WORKING WITH DAX DATA TYPES .
• DOING BASIC MATH
• USING LOGIC IN YOUR CALCULATIONS
• USING THE IF() FUNCTION
• NESTED IF()
• USING THE SWITCH() FUNCTION
• ADVANCED SWITCH()
• LOGICAL OPERATORS & FUNCTIONS: ||, OR(), &&, AND(), NOT()
• AGGREGATING AND SUMMARIZING DATA
• THE SUM() FUNCTION

3 - MODULE 3: WORKING WITH CONTEXT IN THE DATA MODEL

• CONTEXT DEFINED
• DATA MODELING BASICS
• INTRODUCTION TO DIMENSIONAL MODELING
• RELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE EVALUATION CONTEXT
• GETTING DATA FROM OTHER TABLES USING RELATED() AND RELATEDTABLE
• LOOKING UP DATA WITHOUT USING RELATIONSHIPS
• MODIFYING THE CONTEXT USING CALCULATE()

4 - MODULE 4: PERFORMING MORE ADVANCED CALCULATIONS

• THE DAX ITERATOR FUNCTIONS
• USING TABLE MANIPULATION FUNCTIONS

5 - MODULE 5: WORKING WITH TIME

• PERFORMING DATE CALCULATIONS
• WORKING WITH DATE TABLES
• GENERATING A DATE TABLE WITH THE CALENDAR() FUNCTION
• DEFINING CUSTOM OPERATING PERIODS
• YTD, QTD, AND MTD CALCULATIONS
• CUSTOM TO-DATE CALCULATIONS
• FINDING YEAR-OVER-YEAR CHANGE
• FINDING MOVING AVERAGES

6 - MODULE 6: ENHANCING THE USER EXPERIENCE

• CONTROLLING VISIBILITYOF YOUR MEASURES
• USING WHAT-IF PARAMETERS
• ADDING BANDING
• USING DAX TO PROVIDE ROW-LEVEL SECURITY