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• Use FIRSTNONBLANK and LASTNONBLANK instead of MIN and MAX #dax

  You are probably used to think to FIRSTNONBLANK and LASTNONBLANK as DAX functions related to time-intelligence calculations (usually for semi-additive measures ). However, these functions have a syntax and a behavior that can be useful in other scenarios. Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2015 10:35 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• New DAX Courses from SQLBI and conference updates #dax #powerpivot #tabular

  In the last two years, I and Alberto Ferrari delivered many courses about Power Pivot, SSAS Tabular, and DAX. We had DAX content in many of the courses, and this created some overlapping and the lack of a clear guidance for studying DAX, regardless of Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2015 12:49 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: Conference, PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• Customize period comparison in DAX #powerpivot #dax #powerbi

  I have seen many different types of custom calendars implemented in Power Pivot, Tabular, and DAX. I also wrote several articles ( week based calendars and time patterns ). However, there is a scenario that is hard to manage with the classical approaches, Read More... Posted Thursday, February 05, 2015 10:32 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 6 Comments Filed under: PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular, Power BI

• Dynamic ABC Classification in DAX #powerpivot #dax #ssas #tabular

  Less than one year ago I published a pattern about ABC Classification in DAX. Such a pattern was static, so an item (e.g. customer, product) is classified statically when you process a Power Pivot or Tabular model, so filters and slicers querying data Read More... Posted Thursday, January 22, 2015 12:26 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• DAX Patterns 2015 book available now #daxpatterns #dax

  In 2014 we published several articles in the DAX Patterns web site. We’ll continue to publish new patterns in 2015 (the first one later this month!), but in the meantime we created a first printed version of the patterns available: DAX Patterns 2015 . Read More... Posted Thursday, January 08, 2015 10:53 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 9 Comments Filed under: PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• DAX Studio 2.0 finally available! #dax #ssas #tabular #powerpivot

  Darren Gosbell announced on his blog that DAX Studio 2.0 is available. This new release has a completely new user interface, a renewed architecture and also work as a standalone executable without Excel. Yes, you read it right. You can use DAX Studio Read More... Posted Monday, December 08, 2014 8:24 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 2 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX

• Power Query now connects to Analysis Services #ssas #mdx #dax

  The last update of Power Query finally supports Analysis Services Multidimensional and Tabular. I waited this version for a very long time, but now it's finally here! Chris Webb already wrote an interesting blog post with several useful link and informations. Read More... Posted Wednesday, November 26, 2014 10:20 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 3 Comments Filed under: SSAS, MDX, DAX, Tabular, Power Query

• What are useful tools and resources for DAX developers? #dax #powerpivot #tabular

  At the last PASS Summit I received an interesting question: is there a list of all the useful (I would say necessary…) tools for DAX developers? My answer was… “no, but this is an interesting topic for a blog post”. In the meantime, I thought that a page Read More... Posted Thursday, November 20, 2014 10:30 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 2 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• Don’t use SUMMARIZE to sum your data–or just be careful #dax #ssas #powerpivot

  During the last PASS Summit I and Alberto Ferrari had long discussions at SQL Clinic with some of the developers of our loved tools. Sometime you really have to dig in the internals of certain feature to understand why there are some “unexpected” behaviors Read More... Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2014 9:22 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX

• The state of Multidimensional and Tabular adoption

  SQL Server Analysis Services is a product that does not have its own product code, being sold as part of SQL Server. I think that also Microsoft does not know (and cannot know) the exact number of users. For this reason, it’s also more difficult to analyze Read More... Posted Thursday, October 23, 2014 9:24 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 14 Comments Filed under: MDX, DAX, Tabular

• A strange behavior of AutoExist for MDX on Tabular models #powerpivot #ssas #tabular

  Alberto Ferrari wrote an interesting article about a strange behavior of AutoExist in normalized data models . I always say that a star schema is the best practice in Power Pivot and Tabular data modeling. The issue described by Alberto is another good Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2014 10:01 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 2 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• Advanced DAX Workshops in the upcoming months –#dax #tabular #powerpivot

  The adoption of DAX is slowly growing and we can see that from comments to article, blog posts, web site traffic (including DAX Formatter usage). For this reason, the demand for more advanced training about DAX is also increasing. We had great feedback Read More... Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2014 10:48 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 8 Comments Filed under: SSAS, DAX, Tabular

• Simulate the SQL WHERE condition in DAX–#dax #powerpivot #ssas

  I recently wrote a short article about filtering data in DAX. In the last month I’ve seen a growing number of people with a SQL background going to Tabular, without having a previous experience of MDX. In my opinion, learning DAX is easier if you try Read More... Posted Monday, September 29, 2014 10:34 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 0 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX, Tabular

• Possible SWITCH Optimization in DAX – #powerpivot #dax #tabular

  In one of the Advanced DAX Workshop I taught this year, I had an interesting discussion about how to optimize a SWITCH statement (which could be frequently used checking a slicer, like in the Parameter Table pattern ). Let’s start with the problem. What Read More... Posted Monday, August 18, 2014 1:54 PM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 13 Comments Filed under: SSAS, PowerPivot, DAX, Excel 2013

• DIVIDE vs division operator in #dax

  Alberto Ferrari wrote an interesting article about DIVIDE performance in DAX. This new function has been introduced in SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 SP1, so it is available also in Excel 2013 (which still doesn’t have other features/fixes introduced Read More... Posted Thursday, July 24, 2014 8:22 AM by Marco Russo (SQLBI) | 1 Comments Filed under: SSAS, Analysis Services, PowerPivot, DAX, Excel 2013