Pages
256
Published
2012
A Simple Guide to the Excel Revolution
Learn to write DAX formulas that turn raw data into business insight, without needing a developer background.
DAX Formulas for PowerPivot bridges the gap between Excel skills and serious data modeling. Rob Collie, a former Microsoft Excel team member, teaches the DAX formula language in plain terms that business analysts can actually use. You will learn how measures, calculated columns, and filter context work together so you can build reports that answer real business questions — all inside Excel or Power BI.
Most Excel users hit a ceiling. Pivot tables are fast, but the moment a stakeholder asks for a year-over-year comparison, a rolling 12-month total, or a ratio that ignores the current filter, a normal pivot table stops cooperating. DAX was built to solve exactly that class of problem, and this book teaches you how to use it.
Rob Collie spent years on the Microsoft Excel team before becoming one of the most widely read voices on Power BI and DAX. He wrote this book for analysts, finance professionals, and business intelligence practitioners who already know Excel and want to do more with their data — not for software developers who need a language reference manual.
The central insight of the book is filter context: understanding when a DAX formula evaluates the full table versus a sliced subset changes how you read and write every formula you ever touch. Collie builds that understanding gradually and concretely, using realistic business scenarios rather than contrived toy examples.
By the time you finish, you will be able to write measures that work correctly across any slicer combination, build time intelligence calculations from scratch, and reason about why a formula returns the wrong number — which is the skill that separates DAX practitioners from people who copy formulas from Stack Overflow and hope for the best.
The book was written against PowerPivot for Excel and the early Power BI data model, but the DAX concepts are the same ones used in modern Power BI Desktop today. The formula language has grown since 2012, but the foundational ideas Collie explains here remain the fastest path to genuine DAX fluency.
Understand the limitations of traditional Excel pivot tables and why Microsoft created the DAX formula language. You will see the class of business questions that DAX was specifically designed to answer.
Learn how PowerPivot and Power BI store data in columnar tables connected by relationships. You will load your first multi-table model and see why the relationship diagram matters before you write a single formula.
Write basic aggregation measures — SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE — and place them in a pivot table. You will learn why a measure is different from a cell formula and why that difference is a feature, not a limitation.
Discover how DAX evaluates formulas row by row when building a calculated column. You will write columns that derive values from other columns in the same table and see where row context ends.
Learn the most important concept in DAX: how the pivot table applies filters before your measure evaluates. You will trace exactly which rows survive into each formula evaluation and use that mental model to predict results.
Master CALCULATE, the function that lets you override the filter context from outside a measure. You will rewrite context to produce ratio-to-total, segment comparisons, and other calculations that standard aggregations cannot deliver.
Use FILTER to produce virtual tables and ALL to remove filters selectively. You will combine these functions with CALCULATE to answer questions that require comparing a subset against a grand total.
Build date-based calculations including year-to-date, same-period-last-year, and rolling averages using DAX's built-in time intelligence functions. You will set up a proper date table and learn why every time intelligence formula depends on it.
Apply the concepts from every earlier chapter to realistic business reporting scenarios. You will also work through a systematic approach to diagnosing why a measure returns a blank or a wrong number.
No. The book is written for Excel power users and business analysts, not developers. If you are comfortable writing VLOOKUP or SUMIFS formulas, you have enough background to follow along.
Yes. The book was published in 2012 and targets PowerPivot for Excel, but DAX's core concepts — filter context, CALCULATE, measures, relationships — are identical in modern Power BI Desktop. Some newer functions introduced after 2012 are not covered, but the foundation the book teaches transfers directly.
The book references example data sets throughout. Check the publisher's site for any companion files associated with your edition.
It is aimed squarely at beginners. Readers who already understand filter context and use CALCULATE regularly will likely find the pace too slow, and would be better served by a more advanced reference.
The print edition is 256 pages. The writing is direct and example-driven, so the page count reflects practical content rather than padded explanation.
No. The focus is entirely on DAX formulas and the data model. Power Query and the M language are separate topics not addressed here.
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