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

Add Column or Transform?

Before we bring in our sales data, let us go back to our customer data query for one more transformation. This example will help us understand the key differences between performing a task with the Transform and Add Column tabs. In the customers query, we have the names of our customers in two columns. We want to merge these names into one column. Let’s do this from the Add Column tab to see the results we will get.

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Add Column tab.
  2. Select the two columns First Name and Last Name.
  3. Click on Merge Columns in the Add Column tab.
Figure 3.18 – Merging columns under the Add Column tab

Figure 3.18 – Merging columns under the Add Column tab

  1. This brings up a dialog box that requires a separator and a name for our new column.
Figure 3.19 – Selecting a separator in Merge Columns

Figure 3.19 – Selecting a separator in Merge Columns

You can select Space for the separator and Full Name for the new column name.

When you click...