Introduction to DAX for Power BI

2 Days

12 CPD hours

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 step' for experienced Power BI users.

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

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 BI computes DAX calculations, and how to troubleshoot custom code.

MODULE 1: GETTING STARTED WITH DAX

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

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

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()

MODULE 4: PERFORMING MORE ADVANCED CALCULATIONS

• THE DAX ITERATOR FUNCTIONS
• USING TABLE MANIPULATION FUNCTIONS

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

MODULE 6: ENHANCING THE USER EXPERIENCE

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