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

An overview of the Power Query editor

We will use our sales data case study to understand the various components of the Power Query editor.

The files we are going to use are in a folder that can be accessed using this link: https://tinyurl.com/DMEFINEX

Use this link to download a zipped file that contains one folder and five Excel worksheets as shown here:

Figure 3.3 – The list of files in a zipped file

Figure 3.3 – The list of files in a zipped file

Extract the files to get access to the files.

When you open the folder, you should see a folder named Main Transaction that contains six files. These files are sales records from 2015 to 2020 for our sales organization, Finex Ventures.

There are five other files outside the folder, which contain information on the following:

  • Customers
  • Locations
  • Products
  • Stores
  • Product returns

As we covered in an earlier chapter, this is normalized data. This data structure separates the main activities of the business from...