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• LASTDATE vs. MAX? CALCULATETABLE vs. FILTER? It depends! #dax #powerpivot #tabular

  A few days ago I published the article FILTER vs CALCULATETABLE: optimization using cardinality estimation , where I try to explain why the sentence “CALCULATETABLE is better than FILTER” is not always true. In reality, CALCULATETABLE internally might Read More... Posted Thursday, March 06, 2014 12:11 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: Analysis Services, DAX, PowerPivot, SSAS, Tabular

• Implement Parameters using Slicers in #powerpivot #dax #tabular

  Apparently you cannot pass an argument to a DAX measure. In reality, you can interact with a slicer that has the only purpose of representing a parameter used by a DAX formula. You just create a table in the Power Pivot or Tabular data model, without Read More... Posted Thursday, February 27, 2014 2:52 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, SSAS, Tabular

• How to pass a #DAX query to DAX Formatter

  In its first two months, DAX Formatter served 3,500 requests and I see the daily trend slowly raising. If you have observed carefully the first articles published on DAX Patterns, you might have seen that you can click the link”Code beautified with DAX Read More... Posted Monday, February 24, 2014 2:06 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 9 Comments Filed under: DAX

• Distinct Count calculation on dimension attribute in #dax #powerpivot #tabular

  Creating Distinct Count calculations in DAX is pretty easy when the target of the operation is a column in the “fact table” of a star schema. When you want to apply the DISTINCTCOUNT function to a dimension attribute (such as Customer Country, Product Read More... Posted Friday, February 21, 2014 7:43 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, SSAS, Tabular

• The Cumulative Total #dax pattern

  The first pattern published on www.daxpatterns.com is the Cumulative Total . Another common name of this calculation is Running Total, but the reason why we named the pattern in this way is that we identify all those scenarios in which you want to obtain Read More... Posted Thursday, February 20, 2014 3:29 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, Tabular

• DAX Patterns website official launch! #dax #powerpivot #tabular

  I’m very proud to announce the official launch of the DAX Patterns website! http://www.daxpatterns.com I and Alberto Ferrari worked on this idea for a really long time. Many business scenarios can be solved in Power Pivot using always the same models, Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 18, 2014 2:30 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 5 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, Tabular

• Distinct Count in DAX Query Plans #dax #tabular

  In the last months I and Alberto Ferrari worked on many consulting engagements about designing Tabular models or optimizing existing ones. One of the strength of the Tabular model compared to Multidimensional is the performance of distinct count measures. Read More... Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2014 4:25 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, Distinct, Tabular

• Using Added Columns in #DAX Queries

  I had an issue in a query that reminded me a few details naming columns created by ADDCOLUMNS. When you specify a simple name in ADDCOLUMNS, you can use it later, for example in a SUMMARIZE or in a FILTER expression, such as in the following example (see Read More... Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2014 4:08 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, Excel 2013, PowerPivot, Tabular

• Training for DAX, Tabular and Power Pivot in 2014 #powerpivot #dax

  I hadn’t time in the last two months for new blog posts, but with some good reasons! I’ve been busy putting DAX Formatter online and writing some other stuffs that I will be happy to share very soon, aside from daily engagements with customers, of course. Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2014 5:55 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, SSAS, Tabular

• Format your #dax code with DAX Formatter

  When you write a DAX formula that is not trivial, you end up having a complex expression that is not really readable. I think that the same problem affect in part all Excel users, but in Excel you can easily split a formula in many steps, using different Read More... Posted Friday, December 13, 2013 12:44 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 5 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, SSAS, Tabular

• Videos about #DAX on Project Botticelli

  More than one year ago, I and Alberto started recording videos for Project Botticelli, and now we have a set of videos about DAX that you can watch online. There are a few videos free, and others are available in the monthly subscription. If you are interested, Read More... Posted Wednesday, December 11, 2013 2:46 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: Data Mining, DAX, Excel, MDX

• Difference between LASTDATE and MAX for semi-additive measures in #DAX

  I recently wrote an article on SQLBI about the semi-additive measures in DAX . I included the formulas common calculations and there is an interesting point that worth a longer digression: the difference between LASTDATE and MAX (which is similar to FIRSTDATE Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 3:22 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 2 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, Tabular

• Using USERELATIONSHIP function in Measures and Calculated Columns #dax #powerpivot #ssas

  You can use the USERELATIONSHIP function in DAX to apply a non-active relationship in a particular DAX calculation. This approach is usually simple in a measure (just use USERELATIOSHIP in one of the filter arguments of CALCULATE) but as soon as you try Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 01, 2013 2:25 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 4 Comments Filed under: Analysis Services, DAX, SSAS, Tabular

• Handling Wrong or Missing Dates in Tabular and #powerpivot #dax

  Recently I received a request from a reader related to the handling of missing or invalid dates in Tabular (but the same can be applied to Power Pivot). In the Analysis Services Tabular book , we wrote that you can insert a special row in the Date table Read More... Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:36 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: Analysis Services, DAX, PowerPivot, Tabular

• Calculating First and Second Year of Sales by Customer in #dax #powerpivot #ssas #tabular

  I recently wrote an article that describes how to calculate a measure (such a sales, but it could be anything else) considering for each customer its first 12 months, then months 13-24 and so on. In practice, for every customer you have a different range Read More... Posted Monday, September 09, 2013 3:33 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: DAX, PowerPivot, Tabular