Microsoft Power BI DAX 2026: Data Analysis Masterclass

Learn what DAX, the data analysis expressions language, does for Power BI: build advanced data models with dynamic calculations, year-over-year comparisons, rankings, and comprehensive reports.

Learn the rules and structure of DAX syntax, including naming, function calls, arguments, and data types, to write error-free measures like total revenue using SUMX.

Master the difference between calculated columns and measures in Power BI, and learn when row context or filter context governs evaluation for dynamic visuals.

Import nine data sheets from an Excel workbook into Power BI Desktop, transform data types, promote headers, and load to build a complete star schema for DAX measures.

Explore how dex measures run as query templates, not fixed cells, and how the three-layer engine—dex expression, evaluation engine, and vertipack—determines results by context.

Discover VertiPax's speed through columnar storage, directory encoding, and run length encoding, and apply three rules: keep cardinality low, use a star schema, and remove unnecessary calculated columns.

Understand how DAX variables function as named containers inside measures, enabling single calculations reused multiple times for faster, cleaner, and more readable Power BI data analysis.

Discover how DAX variables in Power BI Desktop create cleaner, faster measures by rewriting profit margin and revenue calculations, and learn the rule that a variable is evaluated once.

Master DAX error handling in Power BI by using IFERROR to substitute values for failing expressions and ISBLANK to handle empty results, preventing blank card visuals and silent errors.

Explains building DAX measures in Power BI with IFERROR and ISBLANK to handle division by zero and blank periods, featuring the average inventory value per unit.

Explore the five DAX rounding functions—round, round up, round down, ceiling, and floor—and learn when to apply decimal-based versus significance-based rounding for accurate finance, pricing, inventory, and packaging.

Discover how median and median x tame outliers, replacing averages with the middle value, using median on a column and median x for per row calculations of revenue and margins.

Explore percentile analysis in Power BI DAX with percentile.inc and percentile.exe, distinguishing inclusive and exclusive thresholds (P75, P90) across 15,000 transactions to define top quartiles and KPIs.

Explore CONCATENATE and CONCATENATEX in Power BI DAX, showing how to join two text values in calculated columns and how to collapse a table into a string with a delimiter.

Learn to extract text in Power BI with left, right, and mid, using 1-based indexing to pull SKU prefixes, item numbers, and category codes in Power BI Desktop.

Convert numbers or dates to text with format for display. Convert text back to numbers with value for calculations; format yields text, value yields numbers in DAX.

Master text functions in Power BI DAX through eight tasks in the Nexa Retail Global assignment, combining, extracting, cleaning, and formatting data from three ERP systems.

Create date and time values using today, now, and date functions in Power BI DAX. Build dates from year, month, and day, and understand automatic rollovers and volatile recalculation.

Extract year, month, and day from a date using Power BI DAX year, month, and day functions; create calculated columns for grouping, filtering, and period analysis to enable date navigation.

Explore EOMONTH and EDATE to manage month boundaries in Power BI, including last-day calculations for reporting periods and deadlines, the first-day-next-month trick, and exact-date scheduling for recurring events.

Practice date and time functions in Power BI DAX through eight tasks, using today and now for dates, and build date tables with year, month, weeknum, networkdays, and datedif.

Apply a complete DAX conditional logic and filter context toolkit, using IF, SWITCH, IFERROR, ISBLANK, HASONEVALUE, ISFILTERED, and ISINSCOPE to build a region-to-country matrix with revenue bands and KPI cards.

Master six core DAX functions—sum, average, min, max, count, and distinct count—in Power BI, using the sales transactions table under the current filter context.