PivotTables in Excel are the main tool to navigate in data models created with Power Pivot. This module describes the features available in both Excel 2010 and Excel 2013. The goal is to create a solid background on what is a PivotTable, how it works and what are its limitations. In the following lectures, you learn how to overcome those limitations.

Excel 2013 greatly enhanced PivotTables with the introduction of the Data Model and a deeper integration with Power Pivot. In this lecture, you learn what the data model is, how to activate it, and how to start using Power Pivot.

In this lecture, you learn how to load data in the Power Pivot window, how to create basic relationships, and how to use the Power Pivot user interface to complete basic operations.

Calculated columns are a simple and very effective way of enriching the expressiveness of your model, by adding basic row-by-row calculations to your tables. In this lecture, you learn the basics of calculated columns: how to create and use them.

You can turn any Excel table into a Data Model table by using Linked Tables, which are a great way to enrich your model with data you prepare in Excel.

Calculated fields add advanced calculations to the data model. They compute values over totals instead of computing values row-by-row, making it possible to compute percentages, distinct counts and other non-trivial calculations.

Once you complete a report, you might want to share it with other people. Power BI transforms any Excel workbook containing Power Pivot data into an interactive web-based report, so that authorized people using a web browser can see and navigate it.

This lecture provides you a deeper analysis of the difference between loading data from Excel tables and loading data from data sources. You learn why it is important loading data directly into the model and what are the basic tools to use.

A relational database accessible by using SQL queries is probably the most common data source. Here you learn the basic techniques to load data from SQL Server tables, how to connect to a relational database and load the content from available tables and views, without writing SQL queries.

Even if you are not familiar with the SQL language, you can use the SQL Wizard to create custom queries that populate your data model. You just have to be aware of a few details about relationships, which you learn in this lecture.

This lecture shows a few advices about importing data from Microsoft Access.

If you have data stored in Analysis Services databases (also known as “Cubes”), you can import that data in Power Pivot, too. This lecture shows how to overcome a few limitations existing in importing data from SQL Server Analysis Services.

You have already seen Linked Tables in a previous lecture. Now you can see more details about how they work and how to get the most out of this feature.

If you have data stored in other Excel workbooks, you can import them in a Power Pivot data model. This lecture explains how to do that and how to avoid the most common mistakes.

This lecture described the Text File Data Source, which imports data stored in text and CSV files.

This lecture shows how to load data from any program by using the copy and paste feature, using the Windows clipboard.

You can populate a data model by loading data from Reporting Services reports in a fast and efficient way, without having to worry about the removal of formatting and graphics.

You can load data published on certain web sites (e.g. SharePoint) in Power Pivot using the data feeds. This module shows you how to import OData data feeds supported by Power Pivot.

You can load data from the Azure Marketplace, where you can find data collected and sold (or provided for free) by other companies.

In this lecture, you learn the techniques to load data from SharePoint lists, reports stored in SharePoint, and Power Pivot workbooks already published in SharePoint.

In this lecture, you learn how to modify the data connection automatically created by Power Pivot in order to enable automatic refresh on open, to activate periodic data updates, and to disable the automatic refresh on connection that you want to update only manually.

Working with Power Pivot you will become a data modeler. This lecture provides the basic information about what is a data model and why modeling is important in Power Pivot.

What does it mean to normalize or de-normalize a model? Knowing when to denormalize is a very important skill, which is useful creating data models for Power Pivot.

In modern data warehouses, the shape of data is usually a star schema. In this lecture, we introduce the concept of star schemas and explain why it is important to shape data in this way, maximizing the usability of the data model.

You learn that denormalization is important, but what happens if you denormalize too much? At that point, the data model is no longer easy to use. This module introduces the concept of over denormalization and simple techniques to solve the issue, if present.

DAX is the programming language of Power Pivot. This module provides the basic information to understand what a DAX expression is and how to start writing your DAX code.

It is important to learn when to use calculated columns versus calculated fields. They are useful in different scenario. In this lecture, we highlight the differences between them, and clarify when to choose one or the other.

Your formulas can contain errors, due to bad or unexpected data. In this lecture, you learn how to prevent errors in data that might break your reports.

This lecture shows some examples of most of the categories of DAX functions, which we will use extensively in the following lectures.

In this lecture, you learn the RELATED and the RELATEDTABLE functions. Both are useful to navigate through relationships and evaluate expression over them. We also introduce the concept of table functions, i.e. functions that return tables.

FILTER and ALL are the most commonly used table functions, and you will learn when and how to use them.

CALCULATE is a powerful function, useful in many calculations. This lecture explains the basic functionality of CALCULATE.

Do you want to compute the percentage of a cell in a PivotTable against the visible total, in case a slicer filters data? Then ALLSELECTED is the function for you.

Year-To-Date, Month-To-Date, Comparison of sales in the current period compared with the same period in the previous year. All this is what we refer to as “time intelligence”, which is the topic introduced in this lecture.

Before using Time Intelligence functions, you have to build a good calendar table. This lecture shows how to do that, avoiding common mistakes.

Calculation of working days difference between two dates, calculation of sales per working days: these are just two examples of the kind of calculations explained in this lecture.

If your data models includes more date, such as ship date and order date, you have to adapt the data model, for example by creating more calendar tables. This lecture shows how to do that in the right way.

This lecture provides an in-depth explanation of Year-To-Date, Month-To-Date, comparison of sales with the same period in the previous year, and other similar Time Intelligence calculations.

This lecture introduces a deeper explanation of the features available in Power BI and SharePoint to publish Power Pivot workbooks.

Power Query will quickly become your best friend whenever it is time to load data. It is extremely powerful and easy to use as a data management tool inside Excel.

It is impossible to describe the experience of using Power View. You need to try it by yourself. This lecture shows how to get the best out of Power View and how to shape your data in the correct way, improving the user experience navigating data.

Power Map is a gorgeous tool to create stories about data showing them on maps. You can create great presentations by coloring areas based on data values and by building entire movies about your data.

This lecture explains how to publish your data to the Office 365 platform, sharing reports with colleagues and stakeholders using a simple internet browser.

This lecture shows how to publish your data to SharePoint. This is useful if your company adopted SharePoint as a collaboration tool and installed Power Pivot for SharePoint.

KPI are a powerful feature of Power Pivot, making the interpretation of data quicker and easier. This module introduces the KPI feature, explaining in detail how and when to use it.

Excel and Power Pivot have some hidden gems that might prove extremely useful in specific scenario. This lecture describes how to use sets and custom aggregations, simplifying the creation of complex reports.

If you plan to use Power View to build interactive reports, then you need to learn how to improve your data model design for Power View, which is what you will learn in this lecture.

The DAX language has some important concepts useful to create extremely powerful formulas. This lecture introduce this complex theory, explained in detail in the following lectures.

What is a filter context and how does it change the values computed by your formulas? This lecture introduces this important concept, setting the foundation for further, more complex expressions.

CALCULATE works on the filter context and is the only function in the DAX language that is able to create and/or modify a filter context. In this lecture, we go analyze the CALCULATE behavior in deep, explaining in more detail how it works and why it is so important.

Row context handling is very important whenever you need to perform calculation at the maximum detail level, or when you create calculated columns. This lecture provides a detailed description of the row context and the EARLIER function.

This lecture shows the behavior of filter and row context when your model contains relationships. It is important to understand what happens to other tables when you put a filter on a column.

Context transition is the operation automatically generated by CALCULATE that transforms a row context into a filter context. It is very useful but, at the beginning, hard to understand and master. We introduce this concept in this lecture.

ALLSELECTED is an important function to control calculations using visual totals in a PivotTable. This lecture explains in more details what the ALLSELECTED function does and how it works.