Book Overview: Power BI DAX Simplified

Posted on by Reza Rad
Power BI DAX Simplified

A few weeks ago, my new book was published and is now available. As the Amazon web page for the book won’t allow me to put some more details about what it is, I thought it better to share some more information about it here. This book is available in all possible Amazon markets as Kindle and paperback editions.

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Who this book is for?

DAX is the language of analysis and calculation in Power BI. You can create reports and dashboards in Power BI without writing DAX expressions. However, soon, you will realize that your analysis is limited if you don’t use DAX. You may have sales data by each date. You can visualize it, but if you want to get the sales for the rolling 12 months and then compare it with the previous period to see the growth, you get immense help from DAX expressions and calculations.

So, I would say every Power BI developer needs to learn DAX. You may not need to learn it down in the deep 500 level. However, learning the basics and some useful functions is an essential skill for a Power BI Developer.

Why DAX Simplified?

DAX is considered to be the complex part of Power BI to learn. That is why I tried to simplify it using many practical examples and real-world use-case scenarios. Most of the chapters are based on demos with the demo files, the concept explained in a simple-to-understand method.

What is the prerequisite?

There is no prerequisite for reading this book. You don’t need to know about concepts of programming or coding to learn DAX using this book. However, you need to be familiar with Power BI, which you can gain from reading a simple blog article like this.

This book starts with the very basics of the syntax of DAX expressions and concepts such as; measure vs calculated columns, or M vs DAX. Then it will guide you through different types of functions such as tabular vs scalar, relationship functions, aggregation functions, and iterators. the usage of calculate, time intelligence functions, table manipulation functions, and many more examples.

What is included in the book? Table of Contents

  • Part 1: Fundamentals 
    • Chapter 1: Basics of DAX Expression in Power BI
    • Chapter 2: M or DAX? That is the Question! 
    • Chapter 3: Scenarios of Using Calculated Tables in Power BI
    • Chapter 4: Measure vs. Calculated Column: The Mysterious Question? Not! 
    • Chapter 5: Power BI DAX Back to Basics: Scalar Vs. Tabular Functions 
    • Chapter 6: DAX Variables: Better Readability, Consistency, and Performance in Power BI Calculations 
    • Chapter 7: Caution When Using Variables in DAX and Power BI
  • Part 2: Aggregation and Iterators 
    • Chapter 8: SUM vs. SUMX; What is the difference between the two DAX Functions in Power BI? 
    • Chapter 9: Calculate Totals in Power BI: Using Iterators in DAX  
    • Chapter 10: Showing Ranking in a Visual in Power BI using RANKX DAX function  
    • Chapter 11: Generating Row Number in Power BI Visualization Using DAX  
  • Part 3: Filter  
    • Chapter 12: FILTER Function in DAX and Power BI: Apply Custom Filter to Calculations 
    • Chapter 13: Now You See Me! Use cases of the ALL DAX Function in Power BI
    • Chapter 14: How to Use the ALL in a DAX Expression in Power BI
    • Chapter 15: Removing the Total Value for a Column in the Table Visual of Power BI Using ISFILTERED  
    • Chapter 16: Find The Data Value using LookupValue DAX Function in Power BI; Simple and Useful 
    • Chapter 17: The IF and Filter are Different! Be Careful (DAX) 
    • Chapter 18: Overwrite Interaction of Power BI with DAX  
  • Part 4: Relationship Functions 
    • Chapter 19: Get a field value from a related table in Power BI: DAX RELATED Function Explained  
    • Chapter 20: Power BI DAX RelatedTable Function: Get the subtable related to the current row   
    • Chapter 21: UseRelationship or Role-Playing Dimension; Dealing with Inactive Relationships in Power BI
    • Chapter 22: DAX CrossFilter Function in Power BI: Write the Formula both-directional, but keep the relationship single-directional 
  • Part 5: Logical Functions 
    • Chapter 23: Write Conditional Statement Using SWITCH in DAX and Power BI
    • Chapter 24: Stop DAX Cumulative Total Calculation in Power BI
    • Chapter 25: DAX and Conditional Formatting Better Together: Find The Biggest and Smallest Numbers in the Column  
  • Part 6: Time Intelligence 
    • Chapter 26: Power BI Date Dimension; Default or Custom? Is It Confusing? 
    • Chapter 27: Creating Calendar Table in Power BI using DAX Functions 
    • Chapter 28: All in One: Script to Create Calendar Table or Date Dimension using DAX in Power BI
    • Chapter 29: Day of Year and Day of Quarter – DAX calculations for Power BI
    • Chapter 30: Get the Day of the Week Name and Number in Power BI Using DAX  
    • Chapter 31: Some Methods for Calculating Quarter in DAX for Power BI
    • Chapter 32: Basics of Time Intelligence in DAX for Power BI; Year to Date, Quarter to Date, Month to Date 
    • Chapter 33: Month over Month Calculation in Power BI using DAX  
    • Chapter 34: DatesInPeriod vs. DatesBetween; DAX Time Intelligence for Power BI
    • Chapter 35: DateAdd vs ParallelPeriod vs SamePeriodLastYear; DAX Time Intelligence Question  
    • Chapter 36: Same Period Last Year to Date DAX Calculation in Power BI
    • Chapter 37: Week to Date Calculation in Power BI with DAX  
    • Chapter 38: Calculate Duration in Days Hours Minutes and Seconds Dynamically in Power BI using DAX  
    • Chapter 39: Previous Dynamic Period DAX Calculation  
  • Part 7: Table manipulation functions 
    • Chapter 40: Creating a Table in Power BI Using DAX Table Constructor 
    • Chapter 41: Using DataTable DAX Function for Creating Structured Table in Power BI
    • Chapter 42: Some Simple Ways to Debug Your DAX Measure Code in Power BI: Debugging Virtual Tables 
    • Chapter 43: How to use AddColumns function in DAX and Power BI
    • Chapter 44: Create a subset of the table in Power BI and add calculations using SELECTCOLUMNS DAX Function  
    • Chapter 45: TOPN DAX Function: How it works in Power BI? Comparison against the top group 
    • Chapter 46: Building a Virtual Relationship in Power BI – Basics of TREATAS DAX Function  
    • Chapter 47: Creating Relationship Based on Multiple Fields in Power BI Using TREATAS DAX Function  
    • Chapter 48: Age Banding in Power BI Using TREATAS DAX Function – Relationship Based on Between  
    • Chapter 49: Aggregated Table in Power BI with Extra Options – Summarize Function in DAX  
    • Chapter 50: Aggregated Table in Power BI – Using GroupBy Function in DAX  
    • Chapter 51: Combining Tables in Power BI: Union, Except, and Intersect in DAX  
    • Chapter 52: Creating a List of Numbers or Dates in Power BI using GenerateSeries Function in DAX 
    • Chapter 53: Create a Table with A to Z Character Values in Power BI Using DAX
  • Part 8: Text functions
    • Chapter 54: Substring in DAX: How to get Part of String Field in Power BI Using DAX Expression
    • Chapter 55: Find a Text Term in a Field in Power BI Using DAX Functions 
    • Chapter 56: Search in Power BI Table Visual Using a Slicer For Contains Character Criteria 
    • Chapter 57: Search for All the Texts in Power BI Table Visual with the First Three Characters Selected in the Slicer 
  • Part 9: Parameter Table 
    • Chapter 58: Power BI What If Parameter for Getting the Sales of X months ago: Use Case Scenario 
    • Chapter 59: Dynamically change the format of values in Power BI
  • Part 10: Parent-Child Functions 
    • Chapter 60: Parsing Organizational Hierarchy or Chart of Accounts in Power BI with Parent-child Functions in DAX

Some details

There are 10 parts, 60 chapters, and about 500 pages in this book if you get the paperback. I hope it helps you to learn DAX in your journey towards Power BI.

I will do my best to update this book with even more editions and content in the future.

Available in both Kindle (ebook) and Paperback format

I managed to get my author paperback copy just this week. You can order the Kindle edition or paperback, whatever works best for you.

Kindle format

Paperback

Power BI DAX Simplified

Bestseller new release

I was humbled and honored to see the book is in the best-seller categories of the new release under amazon’s Business Intelligence books. Thanks to you all who made that happen.

Check out other books too

I have written over 10 books, mostly on Power BI Subjects, and some of them are available for free. The screenshot below is only a few of those. Check out the complete list of books by Leila and me here:

Your feedback is most welcome

If you read the book and like it or don’t like it, I love to hear from you. Your feedback would make the next edition of this book and other books better. I thank you for that.

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Reza Rad
Trainer, Consultant, Mentor
Reza Rad is a Microsoft Regional Director, an Author, Trainer, Speaker and Consultant. He has a BSc in Computer engineering; he has more than 20 years’ experience in data analysis, BI, databases, programming, and development mostly on Microsoft technologies. He is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP for 12 continuous years (from 2011 till now) for his dedication in Microsoft BI. Reza is an active blogger and co-founder of RADACAD. Reza is also co-founder and co-organizer of Difinity conference in New Zealand, Power BI Summit, and Data Insight Summit.
Reza is author of more than 14 books on Microsoft Business Intelligence, most of these books are published under Power BI category. Among these are books such as Power BI DAX Simplified, Pro Power BI Architecture, Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star, Power Query books series, Row-Level Security in Power BI and etc.
He is an International Speaker in Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Business Applications Summit, Data Insight Summit, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday and SQL user groups. And He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Reza’s passion is to help you find the best data solution, he is Data enthusiast.
His articles on different aspects of technologies, especially on MS BI, can be found on his blog: https://radacad.com/blog.

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