Implement Time Intelligence using DAX It is common for business users to want to aggregate metrics—for example, revenue—across time, such as year-to-date revenue for a certain date, or prior-year revenue for the comparable period. Fortunately, DAX has a family of functions, referred to as Time Intelligence, that facilitate such calculations. All Time Intelligence functions require […]
Replace implicit measures with explicit measures It is sometimes possible to replace some numeric columns with measures, which can reduce the size of the data model. In our Wide World Importers example, there are several columns that could be replaced with measures. For example, the Total Chiller Items and Total Dry Items columns in the […]
Use quick measures A measure in Power BI is a dynamic evaluation of a DAX query that will change in response to interactions with other visuals, enabling quick, meaningful exploration of your data. Creating efficient measures will be one of the smartest things you can do to build insightful reports. If you’re new to DAX […]
Skill 2.4: Optimize model performance Sometimes after you create the first version of your data model, you may realize that it doesn’t perform well enough. Because of the way Power BI stores data, it may mean that your data model isn’t performing as efficiently as it can. In this section, we review the skills necessary […]
Remove unnecessary columns Columns in a data model usually serve at least one of two purposes: they could be used to support visuals or calculations, or both. It’s preferable to not load columns that aren’t used for any purpose, especially if they’ve got a high number of distinct values. Some data warehouses include primary keys […]
