We are still in the early days of DAX and even if I have been using it since 2 years ago, there is still a lot to learn on that. One of the topics that historically interests me (and many of the readers here, probably) is the many-to-many relationships between dimensions in a dimensional data model. When I and Alberto wrote the The Many to Many ...

One week ago Microsoft SQL Server 2012 finally debuted with a virtual launch event and you can find many intro sessions there (20 minutes each). There is a lot of new content available if you want to learn more about SQL 2012 and in this blog post I’d like to provide a few link to sessions, documents, bits and courses that are available now or ...

In the PowerPivot book and in the PowerPivot Workshop I mentioned the difference between implicit and explicit measures. The use of implicit measures might be confusing because at the end they are automatically created and maintained by the user interface of PowerPivot, but in reality the “real engine” doesn’t know the difference between ...

If you have 30 seconds available, please vote the following items on Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/679618/import-attribute-key-from-ssas-in-powerpivot When you import data coming from an Analysis Services cube in PowerPivot, you cannot import the attribute key value. Only the attribute name is included in the ...

As Chris announced in his blog, some of the sessions from the SQLBits 8 in Brighton are already available (for free!). Yesterday I watched more than half of my BISM Introduction session just to check that no NDA was broken. And, believe it or not, the session had to be really “balanced” in order to not disclose anything of the news announced at ...

During TechEd 2011, Microsoft announced an important update to its BI roadmap. The reason why this is important is related to the previous announcement, which I discussed in November 2010 by including links to several sources and comments. At PASS Summit 2010 the announcement regarding the next version of SQL Server, codenamed ''Denali'', ...