Expert Data Modeling with Power BI: Enrich and optimize your data models to get the best out of Power BI for reporting and business needs

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI

Second Edition

Enrich and optimize your data models to get the best out of Power BI for reporting and business needs

Soheil Bakhshi

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI

Second Edition

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First published: May 2021

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I dedicate this book to my lovely wife, Elica Mehr, and our precious daughter, Avina. Without their unconditional support, none of this would have been possible. I also owe this success to my parents, who always believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams.

Foreword

I am delighted to introduce the new edition of this book by Soheil, an MVP and Power BI expert. This book is a comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to learn Power BI through practical exercises. It covers a wide range of topics, from data modeling and visualization to advanced features and best practices. Whether a beginner or an expert, you will find something useful and interesting in this book. Power BI is the leading platform and tool for enterprise and self-service BI. It is powerful, flexible, and easy to use. This new edition has been updated to reflect the latest changes and developments in Power BI. Some chapters have been completely revamped, and three new chapters have been added to cover new topics. You will learn how to deal with some data warehousing concepts in Power BI, such as SCDs and degenerate dimensions, how to use dataflows to create reusable curated data, and how to leverage DirectQuery to Power BI Datasets and Analysis Services in Composite Models. You will also discover new options, features, and DAX functions that can enhance your data analysis and reporting. This book is designed to help you learn by example. Every concept is explained using clear and concise examples that you can follow along. You will also find tips and tricks to save you time and effort. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to master Power BI and gain valuable insights from their data.

Christian Wade

Principal Program Manager, Microsoft

Contributors

About the author

Soheil Bakhshi is the founder of Data Vizioner, a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, an expert in data analytics, an author, a blogger, and a speaker. He is the author of Expert Data Modeling with Power BI and the Power BI for Intermediates e-book. Soheil has over 20 years of experience in data analysis and is a thought leader in the industry, working as a consultant, trainer, and solution architect for various clients across different industries. He is passionate about data and analytics and enjoys learning new technologies and techniques to deliver innovative solutions.

About the reviewers

Ana María Bisbé York is a BI consultant and trainer with more than 25 years of industry experience, from developing desktop solutions in FoxPro to data analysis and BI consulting and training. She has a degree in Economic Cybernetics from Moscow’s State University of Management in the former USSR, and a Master’s degree in BI from the University of Alcala, Spain. She is currently an independent consultant specializing in the data world on Microsoft technologies, including modeling and data analysis with SQL Server BI, Excel BI, Azure ML, R, and Power BI.

Ana is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and Microsoft Partner in Power BI, as well as a LinkedIn Learning trainer and author of Curso Power BI (Spanish) with ANAYA. She is often a speaker, organizer, or attendee at various technical events and forums.

She was awarded the Teckfluencer award by Globant Award Spain in 2022.

I am grateful to all the people who have contributed to my professional and personal training.

Thank you to my family for their patience and support.

Ahmed Oyelowo is a Microsoft-certified Power BI data analyst associate and Microsoft-certified Azure enterprise data analyst who has developed cutting-edge BI and data analysis solutions for various corporate clients. Having started his career in banking, Ahmed moved on to consulting, where he gained data analysis and training experience. He has over 6 years of experience in delivering data analysis training and solutions and is currently a managing partner and the lead trainer and consultant at Foresight BI & Analytics Global Solutions.

Ahmed is a 3-time recipient of the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award under the Data Platform category for his technical contributions to Power BI communities. He is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer and has taught various data analysis and Power BI courses—his Power BI course on Udemy has been taken by over 80,000 students in less than 3 years, and has been tagged as a Best Seller by Udemy on several occasions.

My sincere appreciation to my Creator for the gift of all required to complete this review. I must also thank my dearest wife, Kafayat Oyelowo, and my lovely daughter, Yusraa Oyelowo, for their support and understanding while I was spending time away reviewing the best Power BI book for Power BI developers.

Finally, to the author, Soheil Bakshi (MVP), and Packt Publishing for the opportunity to review (I say again) the best Power BI book for Power BI developers.

Anil Maharjan is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP. He has a BE in Computer Engineering and Data Science Specialization from Coursera, Johns Hopkins University and over 12 years of development and implementation experience in the healthcare data analytics and telecommunication industries as a BI developer, database consultant, senior BI engineer, and senior data engineer.

He is a frequent blogger and speaker at local SQL Server user groups and Power BI user groups, in addition to speaking at SQL Saturday, Data and BI Summit 2018 (Dublin), Microsoft Ignite 2019 (Singapore), Power Platform Summit 2019 (Australia), and other SQL and Power BI events. He is also the user group leader of the Nepal Power BI user group, and was a program committee member for PASS Summit 2014 and DATA and BI Summit 2018 (Dublin) and a committee track leader for Power Platform Summit 2019 (Australia).

Anil is the author of the popular Power BI MVP Book, and blogs at anilmaharjanonbi.wordpress.com.

I am extremely grateful to my parents and family for their love, prayers, and care, and their sacrifices to educate and prepare me for my future. I am very much thankful to my wife and daughter for their love, understanding, and support. Special thanks to my wife Deepa for suggesting I review this book, and for her love and support.

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Contents

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

Get in touch

Section I: Data Modeling in Power BI

Introduction to Data Modeling in Power BI

Understanding the Power BI layers

The data preparation layer (Power Query)

The data model layer

The Data view

The Model view

The data visualization layer

The Report view

How data flows in Power BI

What data modeling means in Power BI

Semantic model

Building an efficient data model in Power BI

Star schema (dimensional modeling) and snowflaking

Transactional modeling versus star schema modeling

Snowflaking

Understanding denormalization

Power BI licensing considerations

Maximum size of an individual dataset

Incremental data load

Hybrid tables

Calculation groups

Shared datasets

Power BI Dataflows

Power BI Datamarts

The iterative data modeling approach

Conducting discovery workshops

Data preparation based on the business logic

Data modeling

Testing the logic

Demonstrating the business logic in basic data visualizations

Thinking like a professional data modeler

Summary

Data Analysis eXpressions and Data Modeling

Understanding virtual tables

Creating calculated tables

Visually displaying the results of virtual tables

Creating calculated tables in Power BI Desktop

Using DAX Studio

Understanding relationships in virtual tables

Time intelligence and data modeling

Detecting valid dates in the date dimension

Period-over-period calculations

Implementing dynamic measure selection with Fields Parameters

Generating the Date dimension with DAX

Marking a Date table as a date table

Creating a time dimension with DAX

Summary

Section II: Data Preparation in Query Editor

Data Preparation in Power Query Editor

Introducing the Power Query M formula language in Power BI

Power Query is CaSe-SeNsItIvE

Queries

Expressions

Values

Primitive values

Structured values

Types

Primitive types

Custom types

Introduction to Power Query Editor

Queries pane

Tables

Custom functions

Query parameters

Constant values

Groups

Query Settings pane

Query Properties

Applied Steps

Data View pane

Status bar

Advanced Editor

Introduction to Power Query features for data modelers

Column quality

Column distribution

Column profile

Understanding query parameters

Understanding custom functions

Recursive functions

Summary

Getting Data from Various Sources

Getting data from common data sources

Folders

CSV/Text/TSV

Excel

Excel file stored in local drive

Excel file stored in SharePoint Online

Power BI datasets

Power BI dataflows

Power BI Datamarts

SQL Server

SQL Server Analysis Services and Azure Analysis Services

SSAS multidimensional/tabular

AAS

OData feed

Dataverse

Understanding data source certification

Bronze

Silver

Gold/Platinum

Working with connection modes

Data Import

Applications

Limitations

DirectQuery

Applications

Limitations

Connect Live

Applications

Limitations

Working with storage modes

Understanding dataset storage modes

Summary

Common Data Preparation Steps

Data type conversion

Splitting a column by delimiter

Merging columns

Adding a custom column

Adding a column from examples

Duplicating a column

Filtering rows

Working with Group By

Appending queries

Merging queries

Duplicating and referencing queries

Replacing values

Extracting numbers from text

Dealing with Date, DateTime, and DateTimeZone

Pivoting tables

Summary

Star Schema Preparation in Power Query Editor

Identifying dimensions and facts

Understanding business requirements

Number of tables in the data source

The linkages between existing tables

Finding the lowest required grain of Date and Time

Defining dimensions and facts

Determining the potential dimensions

Determining the potential facts

Creating Dimension tables

Geography

Sales order

Product

Currency

Customer

Sales Demographic

Date

Time

Creating Date and Time dimensions – Power Query versus DAX

Creating fact tables

Summary

Data Preparation Common Best Practices

Consider loading a proportion of data

Appreciate case sensitivity in Power Query

Be mindful of query folding and its impact on data refresh

Understanding query folding

DirectQuery and Dual storage modes and query folding

Data sources and query folding

Indications for query folding

Query folding best practices

Using SQL statements

Push the data preparation to the source system when possible

Disabling View Native Query does not necessarily mean a transformation step is not folded

Organize queries in the Power Query Editor

Follow data type conversion best practices

Data type conversion can affect data modeling

Avoid having columns with any data type

Include the data type conversion in the step when possible

Consider having only one data type conversion step

Optimize query size

Remove unnecessary columns and rows

Summarization (Group by)

Disabling query load

Use query parameters

Parameterizing connections

Restricting the row counts in development for large tables

Define key columns in queries

Use naming conventions

Summary

Section III: Data Modeling

Data Modeling Components

Data modeling in Power BI Desktop

Understanding tables

Table properties

Featured tables

Calculated tables

Understanding fields

Data types

Custom formatting

Columns

Calculated columns

Grouping and binning columns

Column properties

Hierarchies

Measures

Implicit measures

Explicit measures

Textual measures

Using relationships

Primary keys/foreign keys

Handling composite keys

Relationship cardinalities

One-to-one relationships

One to many relationships

Many to many relationships

Filter propagation behavior

Bidirectional relationships

Summary

Star Schema and Data Modeling Common Best Practices

Dealing with many-to-many relationships

Many-to-many relationships using a bridge table

Hiding the bridge table

Avoiding bidirectional relationships

Dealing with inactive relationships

Reachability via multiple filter paths

Multiple direct relationships between two tables

Using configuration tables

Segmentation

Dynamic color coding with measures

Avoiding calculated columns when possible

Organizing the model

Hiding insignificant model objects

Hiding unused fields and tables

Hiding key columns

Hiding implicit measures

Hiding columns used in hierarchies when possible

Creating measure tables

Using folders

Creating a folder in multiple tables in one go

Placing a measure in various folders

Creating subfolders

Reducing model size by disabling auto date/time

Summary

Section IV: Advanced Data Modeling

Advanced Data Modeling Techniques

Using aggregations

Implementing aggregations for non-DirectQuery data sources

Implementing aggregation at the Date level

Implementing aggregation at the Year and Month level

Using Agg Awareness

Creating an aggregation table

Loading tables in DirectQuery mode

Creating relationships

Setting the aggregation table and its related dimensions’ storage mode

Managing aggregation

Testing the aggregation

Implementing multiple aggregations

Important notes about aggregations

Incremental refresh and hybrid tables

Configuring incremental refresh policy and hybrid table in Power BI Desktop

Testing the incremental refresh

Important notes about incremental refresh and hybrid tables

Parent-Child hierarchies

Identify the depth of the hierarchy

Creating hierarchy levels

Implementing roleplaying dimensions

Using calculation groups

Requirements

Terminology

Implementing calculation groups to handle time intelligence

Testing calculation groups

Fixing the format string issue

DAX functions for calculation groups

Summary

Row-Level and Object-Level Security

What RLS and OLS mean in data modeling

Terminology

Roles

Rules

Enhanced row-level security editor

Validating roles

Assigning members to roles in the Power BI Service

Assigning members to roles in Power BI Report Server

RLS implementation flow

Common RLS implementation approaches

Static RLS implementation

Dynamic RLS implementation

Restricting unauthorized users from accessing data

Managers can access their team members’ data in parent-child hierarchies

Getting the user’s login data from another source

Introduction to OLS

OLS implementation flow

OLS implementation

Validating roles

Assigning members and validating roles in the Power BI Service

RLS and OLS implementation in a single model

Considerations in using RLS and OLS

Summary

Dealing with More Advanced Data Warehousing Concepts in Power BI

Dealing with SCDs

SCD type zero (SCD 0)

SCD type 1 (SCD 1)

SCD type 2 (SCD 2)

Dealing with degenerate dimensions

Summary

Introduction to Dataflows

Introduction to Dataflows

Scenarios for using Dataflows

Dataflow terminology

Create Dataflows

Create new entities

Create linked tables from other Dataflows

Create computed entities

Configure incremental data refresh in Dataflows

Export/import Dataflows

Export Dataflows

Import Dataflows

No-code/low-code experience

Query plans in Dataflows

Summary

DirectQuery Connections to Power BI Datasets and Analysis Services in Composite Models

Introduction to composite models

Enabling DirectQuery for live connections

Allow DirectQuery connections to Power BI datasets in the Power BI service

New terminologies

Chaining

Chain length

RLS in composite models with DirectQuery to Power BI datasets

Setting dataset permissions for contributors (report writers)

Summary

New Options, Features, and DAX Functions

Field parameters

Introduction to Power BI Datamarts

What is a Datamart?

What is Power BI Datamarts?

Demystifying Power BI Datamart misunderstandings

The Datamart Editor

Create a simple Power BI Datamart

Load the data into the Datamart

Build the data model in Datamarts

Analyze Datamarts in the Datamart Editor

Analyze Datamarts in SQL client tools

RLS in Datamarts

New DAX functions

NETWORKDAYS()

EVALUATEANDLOG()

Window functions

PARTITIONBY()

ORDERBY()

INDEX()

OFFSET()

WINDOW()

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Index

Preface

Nowadays, information is easily accessible via the Internet. A quick search of What is Power BI? results in millions of websites and articles about the topic. Here is a condensed definition of Power BI:

Power BI is the data platform subset of a larger Software as a Service (SaaS) platform called Power Platform, offered by Microsoft.

To better understand the preceding definition, we need to know what data platform and SaaS applications are.

A data platform is a comprehensive software framework designed to store, manage, integrate, analyze, and visualize large volumes of data from various sources in a secure, reliable, and scalable manner, enabling organizations to gain insights, make data-driven decisions, and improve their operations and customer experiences. Power BI has all the characteristics of a data platform.

A SaaS application is a subscription-based software solution fully hosted in the cloud that organizations rent and use via the Internet. Power BI is a SaaS application that is subscription-based and fully hosted in Microsoft’s cloud system. It offers various subscription plans, each with its own features, limitations, and toolsets.

It is critical to understand that the core of a data platform is the data itself. Spending time and money on a data platform is worth nothing without paying attention to how the data is stored, prepared, and modeled for analysis. The Power BI platform provides the required tools for that, and we need to have the knowledge to effectively and efficiently use those tools to establish the foundations of our data platform successfully.

This book will guide you to understand the ins and outs of data modeling and the required data preparations. This book teaches you how to connect to multiple data sources, understand the data and its interrelationships, and reshape it to create efficient data models. You will also learn about data exploration and navigation techniques to identify new metrics and perform custom calculations using various data modeling techniques. As you advance through the chapters, the book will demonstrate how to create full-fledged data models, enabling you to develop efficient and performant DAX code with new data modeling features. The book uses various real-world scenarios to ensure you learn practical techniques to solve business challenges by building optimal data models and being flexible in changing existing ones to meet evolving business requirements.

Finally, you’ll learn how to use some new and advanced modeling features to enhance your data models to carry out a wide variety of complex tasks. By the end of this book, you will have gained the skills to structure data from multiple sources in different ways and create optimized data models that support reporting and data analytics requirements.

Who this book is for

If you are a Power BI user who wants to learn how to design and build effective data models for your reports and dashboards, this book is for you. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, you will find practical and useful tips and techniques to improve your data modeling skills and solve common challenges. You will also learn how to apply best practices and optimize your data model performance. This book is suitable for anyone who works with data and wants to leverage the power of Power BI to create insightful and interactive data visualizations. This book is also ideal for data analysts, business analysts, and BI professionals who have a basic understanding of Power BI and want to learn advanced data modeling techniques to design scalable and optimized data models for their business needs. Additionally, the book may also be beneficial to database developers and data engineers who want to learn how to integrate Power BI into their data architecture and create efficient data models for their organization.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to Data Modeling in Power BI, briefly describes different functionalities of Power BI and why data modeling is important. This chapter also reveals some important notes to be considered around Power BI licensing, which could potentially affect your data model. This chapter introduces an iterative data modeling approach, which guarantees an agile Power BI implementation.

Chapter 2, Data Analysis eXpressions and Data Modeling, does not discuss DAX in detail, as in Part 3 and 4 of this book DAX is heavily used to solve different data modeling challenges. Therefore, we’ll only focus on the DAX functionalities that are harder to understand and are very relevant to data modeling. This chapter starts with a quick introduction to DAX, then we jump straight into virtual tables and time intelligence functionalities and their applications in real-world scenarios.

Chapter 3, Data Preparation in Power Query Editor, quickly explains the components of Power Query and their application. It expresses the importance of creating query parameters and user-defined functions along with real-world use cases and scenarios to demonstrate how powerful they are in building much more flexible and maintainable models.

Chapter 4, Getting Data from Various Sources, explains how to get data from different data sources that are more commonly used in Power BI. Then, the importance of data source certification is explained, which helps you set your expectations on the type of data you’re going to deal with. This is especially helpful in estimating data modeling efforts. Different connection modes are also explained in this chapter.

Chapter 5, Common Data Preparation Steps, explains common data preparation steps along with real-world hands-on scenarios. A combination of what you have learned so far in this book and the steps discussed in this chapter gives you a strong foundation to go on to the next chapters and build your data models more efficiently.

By learning these functionalities, you can deal with a lot of different scenarios to implement different data models.

Chapter 6, Star Schema Preparation in Power Query Editor, explains how to prepare your queries based on the star schema data modeling approach with real-life scenarios. The Power Query M language will be heavily used in this chapter, so you will learn how to deal with real-world challenges along the way. As you have already learned common data preparation steps in the previous chapter, the majority of Power Query scenarios explained in this chapter will be easier to implement. You’ll also learn how to build dimension tables and fact tables, and how to denormalize your queries when needed.

Chapter 7, Data Preparation Common Best Practices, explains common best practices in data preparation. Following these practices will help you build more efficient data models that are easier to maintain and more flexible to make changes to. By following these practices, you can also avoid common mistakes, which can make your life much easier.

Chapter 8, Data Modeling Components, explains data modeling components from a Power BI perspective, along with real file examples. In this chapter, we heavily use DAX when applicable, so having a basic understanding of DAX is essential. We also have a complete star schema model in Power BI. The concept of config tables is covered, which unlocks a lot of possibilities for handling more complex business logic in the data model. The chapter ends with data modeling naming conventions.

Chapter 9, Star Schema and Data Modeling Common Best Practices, explains common data modeling best practices to help you make better decisions while building your data model to prevent facing some known issues down the road. For instance, dealing with data type issues in key columns that are used in relationships is somewhat time-consuming to identify, but it’s very easy to prevent. So, knowing data modeling best practices helps you save a lot of maintenance time and consequently saves you money.

Chapter 10, Advanced Data Modeling Techniques, explains special modeling techniques that solve special business requirements. A good data modeler is one who is always open to new challenges. You may face some of the advanced business requirements discussed in this chapter or you may face something different but similar. The message we want to send in this chapter is to think freely when dealing with new business challenges and try to be innovative to get the best results.

Chapter 11, Row-Level and Object-Level Security, explains how to implement Row-Level Security (RLS) and Object-Level Security (OLS) in a Power BI data model. Dealing with RLS and OLS can be complex, and knowing how to deal with different situations requires deep knowledge of data modeling and filter propagation concepts. Our aim in this chapter is to transfer that knowledge to you so you can design and implement high-performing and low-maintenance data models.

Chapter 12, Dealing with More Advanced Data Warehousing Concepts in Power BI, explains two concepts coming from data warehousing, Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCDs) and degenerate dimensions. This chapter also demonstrates when and how we can implement these concepts in a Power BI data model.

Chapter 13, Introduction to Dataflows, briefly introduces Dataflows, another available feature in Power BI. This chapter is designed to cover the basics and help you to build robust building blocks for your learning journey. This chapter also explains how to export/import Dataflows, and how the no-code/low-code experience and query plan work in Dataflows.

Chapter 14, DirectQuery Connections to Power BI Datasets and Analysis Services in Composite Models, introduces new terminologies related to composite models and discusses how to resolve more complex scenarios with fewer issues. This chapter also covers RLS challenges in composite models with DirectQuery connections to either a Power BI dataset or Azure Analysis Services and explains the challenges around setting dataset permissions for contributors after RLS is created.

Chapter 15, New Options, Features, and DAX Functions, introduces field parameters, Power BI Datamarts, and some new DAX functions. One of the main features is Field Parameters, which allow developers to create dynamic reports where users can switch between different fields using a slicer. Additionally, the chapter introduces Power BI Datamarts, a subject-oriented subset of a data warehouse focusing on a particular business unit, department, subject area, or business functionality. This chapter also explains how RLS Power BI Datamarts are implemented. The chapter also highlights new DAX functions, including

NETWORKDAYS()

and

EVALUATEANDLOG()

, and window functions such as

INDEX()

,

OFFSET()

, and

WINDOW()

.

To get the most out of this book

You will need to download and install the latest version of Power BI Desktop. All expressions have been tested in the March 2023 release of Power BI Desktop and should work in the later versions released on later dates. Power BI Desktop is a free application that lets you connect to various data sources, transform and model data, create visualizations, and share your work by publishing to the Power BI service. You can get Power BI Desktop in two ways:

As a Windows app from the Microsoft Store

As an executable desktop application downloadable directly from the Power BI website

In addition to Power BI Desktop, you will need to install and use DAX Studio, Tabular Editor, SQL Server Management Studio SSMS, and DAX Debug Output. All of these applications are free of charge. Here are the minimum requirements for the required applications to work properly:

Power BI Desktop:

Hardware: A Personal Computer (PC) with at least a 1-Gigahertz (GHz) 64-bit (x64) processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 1 GB of available disk space. At least 1440x900 or 1600x900 (16:9) resolution is required. Lower resolutions such as 1024x768 or 1280x800 aren’t supported because some controls (such as closing the startup screens) display beyond those resolutions. For optimal performance, having 8 GB of RAM and a 64-bit processor is recommended.

Software: Install the latest version of Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store or the Power BI website on a Windows machine with Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 or later. You need to have .NET Framework 4.6.2 or higher and the Microsoft Edge browser (Internet Explorer is no longer supported). Power BI Desktop automatically installs WebView2. It is recommended to use a client version of Windows, such as Windows 10, instead of Windows Server. Power BI Desktop doesn’t support Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.

Security: You need to have a valid Power BI account to sign in to Power BI Desktop and publish reports. You also need to have permission to access the data sources and services that you want to use in your reports.

The following are download links for Power BI Desktop:

Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store: https://aka.ms/pbidesktopstore

Power BI Desktop from the web: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494

You can sign up for a Power BI Service as an individual. Read more here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-self-service-signup-for-power-bi?WT.mc_id=DP-MVP-5003466.

Since January 31, 2021, Power BI Desktop is no longer supported on Windows 7.

Tabular Editor:

Tabular Editor is a powerful tool to create and manage tabular models in Microsoft Analysis Services and Power BI. The vendor, Kapacity, currently offers the tool in two flavours, Tabular Editor 2.x, which is the free version, and Tabular Editor 3.x, which is the commercial paid version. In this book, we use the free version. The following are the minimum requirements for running Tabular Editor:

Hardware: A Windows PC with at least 4 GB of RAM and 100 MB of free disk space.

Software: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (recommended), Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019 or newer, and .NET Framework 4.6 or later. Microsoft Analysis Services client libraries (installed by default with SQL Server Management Studio or Visual Studio) are also required.

Security: Administrator rights on the PC where Tabular Editor is installed or run. Read and write permissions on the tabular model that you want to edit are also required.

You can download Tabular Editor 2.x from here: https://github.com/TabularEditor/TabularEditor/releases/.

DAX Studio:

DAX Studio is a free, powerful tool from SQLBI for analyzing and optimizing DAX queries. It can connect to various data sources, such as Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Models, Azure Analysis Services, and Power Pivot. To use DAX Studio effectively, you need to meet some hardware, software, and security requirements as follows:

Hardware: A Windows PC with a minimum of 4 GB of RAM and 100 MB of disk space.

Software: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (recommended), .NET Framework 4.7.1 or later, and Office primary interop assemblies are required. Office 2016 and later should have this enabled by default.

Security: DAX Studio requires administrator privileges to install and update unless its portable version is used. It also requires access to the data sources that you want to connect to.

You can download DAX Studio from here: https://daxstudio.org/downloads/.

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS):

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool for developing, managing, and administrating SQL Server databases and servers. You can use SSMS to create and modify database objects, run queries and scripts, monitor performance and activity, configure security and backup options, and more. SSMS is a free and downloadable offering from Microsoft that works with any edition of SQL Server. SSMS can also be used to run DAX queries when connected to an instance of SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) Tabular Models, Azure Analysis Services (AAS), or a premium Power BI dataset via XMLA endpoints. The following are the prerequisites to run SSMS efficiently throughout this book:

Hardware: A Windows PC with at least a 1.8 GHz or faster x86 (Intel, AMD) processor (dual-core or better recommended), 2 GB of RAM is required (4 GB of RAM recommended), and 2.5 GB is the minimum if run on a Virtual Machine (VM). It also requires a minimum of 2 GB of available space (up to 10 GB).

Software: Windows 10 (64-bit) version 1607 (10.0.14393) or later, Windows 11 (64-bit), Windows Server 2016 (64-bit), Windows Server 2019 (64-bit), or Windows Server 2022 (64-bit).

Security: SSMS requires administrator privileges to install.

SSMS is available to download from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver16&WT.mc_id=DP-MVP-5003466.

DAX Debug Output:

DAX Debug Output is a free community tool that allows developers to view the results of DAX expressions run in Power BI Desktop. This can help troubleshoot and optimize complex DAX formulas and measures. This tool is currently in public preview and the developer has not released much information about its system requirements yet. It currently works with the Power BI Desktop August 2022 release or later. DAX Debug Output is available to download from here: https://github.com/pbidax/DAXDebugOutput/releases/tag/v0.1.0-beta.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise that you type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

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Section 1

Data Modeling in Power BI

In this section, we quickly introduce data modeling in Power BI from a general point of view. We assume you know what Power Query is, what DAX is, and that you know the basic concepts of the star schema. In this section, you will learn about virtual tables and time intelligence functionalities in DAX and how you can implement a powerful model with real-world scenarios.

This section comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction to Data Modeling in Power BI

Chapter 2, Data Analysis eXpressions and Data Modeling

1

Introduction to Data Modeling in Power BI

Power BI is not just a reporting tool to build sophisticated reports; it is a platform that supplies a wide range of features from data preparation to data modeling and visualization. It is also a very well-designed ecosystem, giving a variety of users the ability to contribute to their organization’s data analysis journey in many ways, from sharing datasets, reports, and dashboards to using their mobile phones to add some comments to a report, ask questions, and circulate it back to the relevant people. All of this is only possible if we take the correct steps in building our Power BI ecosystem. A very eye-catching and beautiful report is worth nothing if it shows incorrect figures or if the report is too slow to render, so the user does not have the appetite to use it.

One of the most critical aspects of building a good Power BI ecosystem is to get the data right. In real-world scenarios, you usually get data from various data sources. Getting data from the data sources and then preparing it are just the beginning. Then, you need to develop a well-designed data model that guarantees you always represent the correct figures supporting the business logic, leading to well-performing related reports.

In this chapter, we start learning about the different Power BI layers and how data flows between the different layers to be able to fix any potential issues more efficiently. Then, we study one of the essential aspects of Power BI implementation, data modeling. You learn more about the data modeling feature availabilities and limitations under various Power BI licensing plans. Finally, we discuss the iterative data modeling approach and its different phases.

This chapter covers the following main sections:

Power BI Desktop layers

What data modeling means in Power BI

Power BI licensing considerations for data modeling

The iterative data modeling approach

Understanding the Power BI layers

As stated before, Power BI is not just a reporting tool. As this book focuses on data modeling, we will not spend much time explaining the tool itself; instead, we cover some concepts that should be pointed out. When we talk about data modeling in Power BI, we refer to Power BI Desktop as a development tool. You can think of Power BI Desktop like Visual Studio when developing an SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) Tabular model. Power BI Desktop is a free tool offered by Microsoft that can be downloaded from https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/.

This book refers to Power BI Desktop when mentioning Power BI unless stated otherwise.

The following illustration shows a straightforward process we usually go through while building a report in Power BI Desktop:

Figure 1.1: Building a new report process in Power BI

We use different conceptual layers of Power BI to go through the preceding processes. The following image shows where to access these layers in Power BI Desktop:

Figure 1.2: Power BI layers

Let us discuss each point in detail:

The Power Query (data preparation) layer

The Model layer (data model)

The Report layer (data visualization)

The Data tab shown in the preceding image is where we can see the actual data loaded into the data model, so it is not considered a layer in Power BI Desktop.

To follow the following exercises, download the

Microsoft

Contoso

Sales

sample for Power BI Desktop from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=46801.

The data preparation layer (Power Query)

In this layer, we get the data from various data sources, transform and cleanse that data, and make it available for the next layer. This is the first layer that touches the data, so it is an essential part of the data journey in Power BI. In the Power Query layer, we decide which queries load data into the data model and which ones take care of data transformation and data cleansing without loading the data into the data model:

Figure