Learn to Write Dax: A Practical Guide to Learning Power Pivot for Excel and Power Bi

For anyone learning to write DAX, learning about DAX functions and writing DAX formulas is just not enough. You need to understand what is happening under the hood in every context and what results you can expect from the DAX formula. For this you require in-depth understanding of the DAX concepts like Filter Propagation, Evaluation ontexts, Time Intelligence, etc. This is what you can get from this book and with all the hands-on practice examples it will be a smooth ride. The second edition of this book is available, with the title - Supercharge Excel.

I am a trainer and a budding consultant in this technology. My challenge is to write complex DAX formulas for various business patterns as part of my consulting. So I have bought this book after I bought all the big titles on this topic PowerPivot. I tried to learn DAX by reading titles by big names in the domain like Rob, Marco, Alberto etc and by searching in Youtube, by sitting alone practicing losing sleep. After a year I could conquer everything except the DAX Patterns which are very important to be able to solve a client requirement. I tried to read Marco&Alberto's all titles on PowerPivot, but after some chapters it was like an upright mountain in terms of difficulty in understanding the concepts. So I bought this book may be to reach Mt. Everest from a different route. But what I felt was this route is very easy to trek but it will not reach my goal i.e. Learning to write complex DAX patterns.Though the author tried to swim in the low tide with out touching DAX patterns, he explains things in a more lucid manner and he made you to practice DAX formulas. That's what I like about this book. It gives a good start and make you feel comfortable after some time.For anybody who is serious to learn DAX in an in-depth manner this is not the book. But for anybody who is a beginner struggling to learn DAX, yes you can buy this. Probably you can go for Marco&Alberto's books for in depth topics.I suggest any serious DAX learner should try to read first DAX Formulas for PowerPivot: A Simple Guide to the Excel Revolution on PowerPivot and this so that you can reach a level where you have a feeling of you learnt something, then you go for Marco&Alberto's The Definitive Guide to DAX: Business intelligence with Microsoft Excel, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Power BI (Business Skills) , Microsoft Excel 2013 - Building Data Models with PowerPivot (Business Skills).Almost every guy write a book on DAX will definitely be a fan of the two Italians who are leading in this technology. They are really unbeatable talented. Study any book of them you will definitely reach the Mt. Everest in DAX. Good luck