By Stuart Box

Power BI Resources 21st February 2017

Top Five Reasons to Persuade Your Boss to Implement Power BI

We love Power BI, and have run many courses in it. The cloud-based data analytics tool speaks to our inner data geek. I can manipulate large amounts of data, and produce informative and compelling dashboards and reports, then share them with my colleagues, easily quickly and without having to be a programmer or “Power User”. Our course attendees love Power BI too, but some of them have said that they need to convince their Boss to implement it. So, if… Read More

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By Stuart Box

Power BI Resources 6th July 2016

Power BI Resources

We're doing a lot of training in Microsoft's Power BI, from PowerPivot in Excel to the new Power BI service. To help our trainees, and anyone else that finds it useful, I've collated a number of resources we use to learn and teach Power BI, I hope you find them useful. Books Applied Microsoft Power BI - bring your data to life by Teo Lachev and Edward Price Teo pulls of a difficult job in writing about a service that… Read More

By Stuart Box

Power BI Resources 11th February 2016

PowerPivot “Publish to Web” Test

Microsoft have (at last) enabled a "publish to web" feature in Power BI. The feature is in "preview" at present, and - ominously - they warn that they may charge for this facility in future. But for the moment, publish to web is free. So what does it look like ? Well here is a Report from my Power BI service. Read More

By Alison Box

PowerPivot 18th May 2015

Why the Excel Vlookup Function is “So Last Year, Darling” – Part 2

In my last blog, I showed you how easy it was to use Power Pivot to produce a Pivot table that pulled in data across two tables, Drinks and Categories (without using a Vlookup).  Well, we’re going to carry on ditching the Vlookup by looking at Power Pivot’s equivalent function, called “Related” Remember in our fictitious wine bar (in down town Billingshurst) we were able to find out that we stock most drinks that are from the “Wines” category;- But… Read More

By Alison Box

Power BI Resources PowerPivot 10th February 2015

Why the Excel Vlookup Function is “So Last Year”

If you don’t want to suffer from premature ageing, the most important thing is to move with the times and not get set in your ways.  This might be a traumatic thought for Excel users who have been so attached to the Vlookup Function for the past 20 years that giving it up might be like losing a beloved relative. Why is the Vlookup Function “so last year”?  Well, one of the best new features in Excel 2013 is the… Read More

By Stuart Box

Power BI Resources 2nd February 2015

Power BI preview

Last week Microsoft made several important announcements about Power BI, you can read the whole thing on the Microsoft Official Blog I've taken a look at what this means for those of us in the UK working with Power BI. It's always interesting working with the latest version of Microsoft's new tools, but sometimes you have to tread a little carefully. First Things First - A Price Cut Probably the most important thing for those contemplating Power BI, or those already using… Read More

By Stuart Box

Power BI Resources 14th January 2015

Excel Power Pivot – Just how big is BIG?

As I started working with Power Pivot and Power BI I was aware that it allowed large amounts of data to be manipulated by Excel, but just how large? and how does it do that ? Just how big was the "Big Data" being talked about. I spent a little while digging to find the answers. I was confused, how could Excel handle "Millions of rows"? Did the Excel Rows and Columns limits increase to new limits or was there… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Office 2013 Office 365 Power BI Resources 2nd January 2015

Microsoft Power BI for Office 365, this is not your Father’s Spreadsheet

Microsoft Power BI for Office 365 is a fusion of tools designed to provide data analysis, visualisation, ad-hoc query and sharing of Excel data and spreadsheets. It brings together the "Power Tools" for Excel, Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map, with cloud-based online facilities which allow you to view, store, share and query the dashboards you create with Excel and the Power tools. It is not simply an add-on to Excel, but a radical enhancement of the… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Power BI Resources PowerPivot 20th June 2013

PowerPivot 6 – The Joy of Sets

Time Intelligence Functions One of the most powerful features of PowerPivot is the ability to analysis your data across time periods.  To use the Time Intelligence functions, you must have a table in the PowerPivot window that comprises all the dates from the date range of your data.  For example, my wine sales range is between 1st September 2010 and the current date.  Therefore, I’ve created a Date Table that lists all the dates between these two dates.  I’ve also… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Power BI Resources PowerPivot 10th June 2013

PowerPivot 5 – Measure for Measure

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” ― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure Creating Measures A Measure is a formula that is created specifically for use in the Values area of a PivotTable (or PivotChart), very similar to Calculated Fields in a normal Excel Pivot Table.  However, in PowerPivot a Measure uses DAX functions.  The Values area of a Pivot Table will always require some kind of aggregation and… Read More