Best products from r/PowerBI

My journey started back in ~2012 and since then I've read every blog post from all SME's on the topic/related topics, so it's difficult to answer your last question but I'll try: becoming comfortable in this space, I would guess, is about a 60/40 split between: (1) physically using these tools to gain a competent understanding of how they work; and (2) following industry articles/studying to expand your knowledge and keep up with the fast changing pace of this technology.

Regarding your first question - if I were to master "Power BI" all over again, then I would do two things:

1. Master Power Query. There is no "ultimate" resource for Power Query unfortunately, i.e., there's no SME that says, "this is how it should be done!". The best way to master it is to use Power Query inside Excel as much as humanly possible (assuming you use Excel a lot - most people do). So start automating everything! I would also read articles from the greats like Imke Feldman & Chris Web. There are a few others that aren't as advanced, but they're good for beginners, e.g., Ken Puls . Why is this ranked before DAX? Well, Power Query's language (M) is much more versatile than DAX. You will see it propagate throughout the Microsoft landscape in the coming years. DAX will continue to remain within Power BI, Excel and SSAS.
   
2. Master DAX. There are two people who reign supreme in this area: Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari. They both run SQLBI. They set the industry best practice, bar none. Buy their book, aka what I call the DAX Bible. All other SME's on the planet (excluding some lessor-known Marco-level SME's like Jeffrey Wang) refer to these two gurus.

I deliver DIAD training all over the US. I’m also a Power BI MVP. My fellow mentors are on the road all the time, helping others on their data journey. Business intelligence is so much more than reporting and if all you are doing is moving a spreadsheet to a webpage, you are missing the value.

The DIAD has a very specific purpose to introduce people to Power BI and show off the features. In my opinion, it doesn’t replace the need for training or for our Managed Community of Practice services.

Let me outline the journey and why trying to get all of this via YouTube might not be the most efficient way to learn.

To use an analogy, the DIAD teaches you the parts of the boat. Our training classes teach you how to sail the boat. Our Managed Community of Practice service helps you to become a master sailor. Our Executive Seminars help your captains learn about the sea and to determine what benefits they get from “going to sea.” Our Conversation-Centric training helps you learn how to read the charts and determine your destination.

We released a book recently from our CCD classroom training materials, called “What Does Your Data Say?” It’s designed to help people think about what questions to answer.
https://www.amazon.com/What-Does-Your-Data-Conversation-Centric-ebook/dp/B07VFRMXSL

We’ve partnered with ManyWorlds.com to help companies go farther and turn data into learning and then into action. Learning faster than others is the only true competitive advantage. Their book describing the Data to Learning to Action process is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-Data-Learning-Action-Performance-ebook/dp/B07CBMKMM5

Just knowing where to click is the beginning, not the journey. As you can see, there’s a lot of stuff to learn to be truly effective.

I’ll be conducting a DIAD in Dallas, TX on Sept 30. If you are interested in attending, shoot me a line via our contact form at https://marqueeinsights.com I’d love to meet more of the folks on this sub.

I’ll be discussing some of the “how to sail” aspects in the DIAD and we can do a AMA dinner afterward.

Hope this helps.

I regularly work with both, out internal reports are on report server and our client reports are on the cloud service. There really isn't any training, but I'm not convinced that you need any training for report development differences.

If you are in a position to manage resources or in an admin role, there is a good bit to learn.

There is a pretty good book on power bi architecture [link|https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484240146/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_hkLEDbCTCNS41] that is a good starting place- but for the most part it's stuff you can easily Google and learn as you go.

Good luck and we are all here to help if you ever get stuck

Agree completely the Purple Book is the Bible! And yes, wait for the 2nd edition at this point as it's very close. They also just released version 2 of their Mastering DAX video class on SQLBI as well which I'm looking forward to going back over.

DAX patterns is amazing as well, but maybe easier to access via web and I'm sure that will be seeing a new edition soon.

I cant' stress enough how useful the Analyzing Data/Orange Book was for me personally. It was more of a high-level overview of best practices for constructing data models which was crucial for me coming from unrelated backgrounds.

u/psykobunnyto, it sounds like you're looking to Power BI to offload operational reporting from your CRM. Lots of folks are doing that now, whereas traditionally BI folks have stuck to ad hoc or historical analysis. I've been doing LOTS of operational reporting. As Russo and Ferrari say in the latest edition of their Definitive Guide to DAX, development in DAX requires a solid grasp of theory. Googling or redditing answers will not be enough.

CRMs and other transactional databases are designed for logging transactions. Power BI needs to be optimized for reporting instead. So, when creating a reporting model for a CRM, don't recreate the relationships from the source. Instead, find your transactions, which are your fact tables. The lookup tables are then your dimensions. In this case, both User and Account are dimensions. The fact tables would be transaction tables, tables with dates and amounts on them. In CRMs, these are typically Sales tables and Service Calls tables.

CRM Data Model

The creator, owner, and specialist for the account may or may not be the same person who handles an individual transaction. What I would do is de-normalize your Account dimension (de-normalize here means to duplicate the user name in the Account dimension). Power BI dimensions are typically short and fat, with relatively few records and many columns. This enables transaction tables to stay tall and thin and perform quickly. You could bring in the names using Power Query or calc columns.

Creator Name = ^(// calculated column)LOOKUPVALUE (Users[Name],Users[User Id],Account[Creator])

Using the account table, then, you can view all transactions by creator, owner, specialist, or the user who actually handles the transaction. If you want the Account Creator, put the Account[Creator Name] on rows. If you are looking at transactional info, then put Users[Name] on rows.

For Power BI data modeling theory, I recommend two options.

• For those with a SQL background, I recommend Russo and Ferrari and SQLBI.com.
  
• For those with an Excel background, I recommend PowerPivotPro.com and Collie/Singh's book, The Excel User's Guide to DAX.

One of the best resources I found for visualization design was a book named Good Charts. Rather than just giving visual examples to choose from, it goes into visual design theory and explains why some work better than others.


Good Charts

amazon has some great books on this. You can also search YouTube for dimensional modeling. Follow William McKnight for great info on this too.

Practice, practice, practice. The more DAX you wrote the more you will know...and the more you will know you don't know ;).

By the way, the book you need to read is The Definitive Guide to DAX, if you learn from this book you will know "everything". Another good source is sqlbi.com, you can find useful articles about the language.

You should consider reading this book. Its a great primer on Dimensional Modeling

https://smile.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Definitive-Dimensional/dp/1118530802/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1549073081&sr=8-1&keywords=kimball+dimensional+modeling

Try our book? It's primarily about DAX and people have seemed to really like it over the years. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615470395/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bgT7CbMKF1V50

This is the one I got.

https://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-Visualizing-Using-Microsoft-70-778/dp/1509307028

Which one of these are you talking about?

https://www.amazon.com/Information-Dashboard-Design-Effective-Communication/dp/0596100167
https://www.amazon.com/Information-Dashboard-Design-At-Glance/dp/1938377001

I found this useful>Big Book of Dashboard Design

Is the paperback version scripted in Gold Leaf by Monks?....Paperback £198.94 ($248.60)