Practical Excel & Power BI Learning Resources

When connecting data in Power BI, you may come across terms like Import, DirectQuery, Dual, Hybrid, Direct Lake, and Live Connection. At first, they can sound like six different ways of doing the same thing. But they actually solve different problems. Some determine how Power BI stores or accesses data. Some combine multiple storage behaviors. And Live Connection is slightly different again—it describes how a report connects to an existing semantic model. So how do you know w

Creating a comprehensive calendar table is crucial for time-based analysis in Power BI. Here are 15 essential DAX functions to enhance your calendar table: ShortDay ShortDay = FORMAT('Calendar'[Date], "ddd") Displays the day of the week as a short abbreviation (e.g., Mon, Tue). DayOfMonth DayOfMonth = DAY('Calendar'[Date]) Extracts the day of the month (1-31) from the date. StartOfWeek_Mon StartOfWeek_Mon = 'Calendar'[Date] - WEEKDAY('Calendar'[Date], 2) + 1 Returns the da

Calendar table is pretty useful as it can link different data sources to produce a consolidated reports or dashboards. For example, in the image below, the calendar table is linked to both transaction data and return data; therefore, both transaction and return for certain product for particular period can be seen in a visual for comparison. Creating dynamic calendar table where the calendar can be automatically updated based on the date information in the raw data source whe