Book Image

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI - Second Edition

By : Soheil Bakhshi
4 (1)
Book Image

Expert Data Modeling with Power BI - Second Edition

4 (1)
By: Soheil Bakhshi

Overview of this book

This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding the ins and outs of data modeling and how to create full-fledged data models using Power BI confidently. In this new, fully updated edition, you'll learn how to connect data from multiple sources, understand data, define and manage relationships between data, and shape data models to gain deep and detailed insights about your organization. As you advance through the chapters, the book will demonstrate how to prepare efficient data models in the Power Query Editor and use simpler DAX code with new data modeling features. You'll explore how to use the various data modeling and navigation techniques and perform custom calculations using the modeling features with the help of real-world examples. Finally, you'll learn how to use some new and advanced modeling features to enhance your data models to carry out a wide variety of complex tasks. Additionally, you'll learn valuable best practices and explore common data modeling complications and the solutions to supercharge the process of creating a data model in Power BI and build better-performing data models. By the end of this Power BI book, you'll have gained the skills you need to structure data coming from multiple sources in different ways to create optimized data models that support high-performing reports and data analytics.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Section I: Data Modeling in Power BI
4
Section II: Data Preparation in Query Editor
10
Section III: Data Modeling
13
Section IV: Advanced Data Modeling
20
Other Books You May Enjoy
21
Index

Introduction to composite models

In Chapter 4, Getting Data from Various Sources, we discussed different storage modes for a dataset. The following is a quick refresher on the datasets’ storage modes:

  • Import: For when we keep the data model in Power BI, and the whole data is cached in the memory. In this mode, all tables are in Import storage mode.
  • DirectQuery: For when we create a data model in Power BI, but the data is NOT cached in the memory. In this mode, all tables are in DirectQuery storage mode.
  • Connect Live: A specific type of DirectQuery, connecting to a semantic model, not a relational database (data store). When we use Connect Live, the data model is hosted elsewhere; therefore, we cannot make any changes to the data model. Instead, we can only get data ready from the data model.
  • Composite (Mixed): When a portion of data is cached in the memory while the rest is not. In this mode, some tables are in Import storage mode, and some tables...