Book Image

Data Modeling with Microsoft Excel

By : Bernard Obeng Boateng
5 (1)
Book Image

Data Modeling with Microsoft Excel

5 (1)
By: Bernard Obeng Boateng

Overview of this book

Microsoft Excel's BI solutions have evolved, offering users more flexibility and control over analyzing data directly in Excel. Features like PivotTables, Data Model, Power Query, and Power Pivot empower Excel users to efficiently get, transform, model, aggregate, and visualize data. Data Modeling with Microsoft Excel offers a practical way to demystify the use and application of these tools using real-world examples and simple illustrations. This book will introduce you to the world of data modeling in Excel, as well as definitions and best practices in data structuring for both normalized and denormalized data. The next set of chapters will take you through the useful features of Data Model and Power Pivot, helping you get to grips with the types of schemas (snowflake and star) and create relationships within multiple tables. You’ll also understand how to create powerful and flexible measures using DAX and Cube functions. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to apply the acquired knowledge in real-world scenarios and build an interactive dashboard that will help you make important decisions.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Part 1: Overview and Introduction to Data Modeling in Microsoft Excel
6
Part 2: Creating Insightful Calculations from your Data Model using DAX and Cube Functions
9
Part 3: Putting it all together with a Dashboard

Preparing Your Data for the Data Model – Cleaning and Transforming Your Data Using Power Query

Having understood the best practices for data structuring in our earlier chapters, we will take a look at how to prepare our data for data modeling using Power Query—Microsoft Excel’s data cleaning and transformation tool.

In this chapter, you will understand the architecture of the Power Query editor and data types and how to use the Transform and Add Column tabs to correct any issues with the sample sales data. You will also learn how to append and merge data from our sample sales data.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • Understanding queries and connections
  • An overview of the Power Query editor
  • Getting your data type right
  • Add Column or Transform?
  • Merging and appending data using Power Query