From 0 to DAX

2013

TL; DR

In this course you will be guided in the process of learning the DAX language, through many examples and scenarios that will help you understand what are the important concepts of DAX and how to leverage them in your everyday work.

Session Details

This session will be presented by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari. The DAX language is the foundation of self-service Business Intelligence using the Microsoft stack. It is the language used to query and program both PowerPivot for Excel 2013 and the new SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular model. Learning the basics of DAX is very simple, but mastering it is a different story because it requires a mindset that requires some study, for both BI Professionals and Information Workers.

During this one-day workshop, the authors of the best seller books Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model and Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give your Data Meaning will guide you in the process of learning the DAX language, through many examples and scenarios that will help you understand what are the important concepts of DAX and how to leverage them in the everyday work.

The workshop is useful to many profiles: Information Workers interested in exploiting the many interesting features of PowerPivot for Excel 2013 and BI developers who want to learn the DAX language.

3 things you'll get out of this session

Alberto Ferrari's other proposed sessions for 2026

First Steps in DAX Optimization - 2026

DAX Optimization - Part 1 - 2026

Introducing DAX user-defined functions - 2026

Time Intelligence in Power BI - 2026

Why star schema is your best choice in Power BI - 2026

DAX Optimization - Part 2 - 2026

Alberto Ferrari's previous sessions

Time Intelligence in Power BI

Every Power BI model has dates and the need of calculation over dates to aggregate and compare data, like Year-To-Date, Same-Period-Last-Year, Moving Average, and so on. Quick measures and DAX functions can help, but how do you manage holidays, working days, weeks based fiscal calendars and any non-standard calculation? This session provides you the best practices to correctly shape a data model and to implement time intelligence calculations using both built-in DAX functions and custom DAX calculation for more complex and non-standard requirements.

When you should avoid using bidirectional filters in Power BI

Bidirectional filters are a powerful tool, probably too powerful for most data models. In this quick talk we show the reason why most users should avoid using the feature, unless they understand well the implications.

Why star schema is your best choice in Power BI

In this session Alberto compares different models with a star schema, showing the technical details why a star schema is quite always the best choice.

Using calculation groups in DAX

This session introduces calculation groups, when they should be used and several examples of use cases. You will also learn how calculation groups work internally and what are the limits of this amazing tool.

Should you use bidirectional filters in Tabular?

The quick answer is no, you should not. As with any rule, there are exceptions. When used with care, bidirectional filters are a powerful weapon in the hands of a skilled data modeller.

Understanding relationships in Power BI

Relationships are present in any data model. Multiple relationships between the same tables and bidirectional filters increase the complexity of this topic. In this session, we discover the complexity behind relationships in complex models.

Aggregations in Power BI

We introduce the concept of aggregation, we show several examples of their usage understanding the advantages and the limitations of aggregations, with the goal of building a solid understanding on how and when to use the feature in data models.

DAX Optimization Examples

In this session we analyze some DAX expressions and Tabular models and, through the usage of DAX Studio and some understanding of the VertiPaq model, we will look at how to optimize them.

Optimizing multi-billion row tables in Tabular

In this session we will show you how Tabular performs when you are querying a model with many billions rows, conduct a complete analysis of the model searching for optimization ideas and implement them on the fly, so to look at the effect of using th

Optimizing & Analyzing DAX Query Plans

Alberto will start with a simple query and he will perform on stage all the necessary steps to optimize it, showing you the tools ant the techniques used to identify the bottleneck and to fix the performance issues

Advanced Modeling with Analysis Services Tabular

This session goes beyond the classical star schema modeling, exploring new techniques to model data with Power Pivot and SSAS Tabular. You will see how brute-force power in DAX allows different data models than those used in SSAS Multidimensional

DAX Query Engine Internals

In this session, we will analyze the way DAX solves filtering. Starting from simple queries, we will follow the steps DAX does with the filter context, discovering the internals of the query engine of DAX.

Time Intelligence in DAX

We are going to show how to compute classical time intelligence with the built-in DAX functions. Then, we will show some more complex time intelligence formulas that require to think out of the box, using advanced data modeling techniques.

PowerPivot Advanced Data Modeling

During this session we are going to analyze common business problems that require and advanced usage of DAX functions and data modeling with PowerPivot.

Many-to-Many Relationships in DAX

Deep dive into the handling of many to many relationships in DAX. How to make them work and how to optimize their speed thorugh many patterns and live examples of M2M usage.

Marco Russo's previous sessions

Unleash the full power of evaluation context manipulation, learn about expanded tables, control the data lineage, avoid circular dependencies, and manage relationships at different granularities.

Aggregations in Power BI

Introduce Power BI aggregations with practical examples, evaluate pros and cons, and learn how to use alternative approaches by using DAX to control the aggregation used.

Using ALLEXCEPT or ALL/VALUES?

Learn when to use ALL / VALUES instead of ALLEXCEPT in DAX calculations.

Understanding window functions in DAX

Introduction to DAX window functions and apply semantics through several examples to understand their capabilities and performance.

Power BI Performance Analyzer crash course

Learn how to use Performance Analyzer in Power BI to get a first idea of performance bottlenecks in Power BI reports.

VertiPaq Analyzer crash course

Introduce VertiPaq Analyzer features in DAX Studio and as a library available in other tools.

My Power BI report is slow: what should I do?

Use Performance Analyzer and DAX Studio to find the performance bottleneck in a slow Power BI report.

Time Intelligence in Power BI

Create the right Date table and use DAX time intelligence functions or custom filters to get the desired calculation aggregating and comparing data over time.

VertiPaq Analyzer crash course

Learn how to read the information provided by VertiPaq Analyzer 2.0 and optimize data models in Power BI, Analysis Services, and Power Pivot.

Different types of many-to-many relationships in Power BI

Clarify differences between many-to-many and weak relationships in Power BI

DAX Best Practices

Best bractices in DAX formulas from real world experience.

Power BI Dashboarding

Power BI offers new features for creating dashboards on the cloud. In this session, you will learn how to create data models, display visualizations and synchronize cloud data with on premise data sources.

SSAS Tabular from the Trenches

In this session, we will share some of the hard lessons learned from the first large deployments in Analysis Services Tabular.

Learn ready-to-use DAX patterns improving development speed of Power Pivot solutions. Good also for SSAS Tabular developers.

Power Query in Modern Corporate BI

Explore Power Query features to import data from existing Corporate BI systems.

Modern Data Warehousing Strategy

This session will discuss what a modern strategy for data warehousing can be in this era, considering how the use of technologies like PowerPivot or Analysis Services Tabular affect the way you should model your data.

Create a Data Model in BISM Tabular

In this session you will see how to create a BISM Tabular data model from scratch, providing the required metadata in order to improve user experience navigating the data model by using client tools like Excel PivotTable and Power View.

Analysis Services Advanced Best Practices

This dense hour of presentation will cover design techniques to leverage cube features that also consider possible maintenance of the database structure over time.

BISM Introduction

Introduce the features of BISM (BI Semantic Model), the new engine that will be available in Analysis Services "Denali".

Vertipaq vs OLAP: Change Your Data Modeling Approach

In this session we will introduce the new modeling capabilities of Vertipaq, showing how the same scenarios can be modeled in both Multidimensional (MOLAP) and Tabular (Vertipaq), looking at how to enable your data warehouse to support both.