Excel Power Pivot & Power Query FD (For Dummies)

I'm still in the process of going through this book as it is a learning tool and I definitely want to absorb all that I'm reading. The book is informative and I very much appreciate the bit of history that explains why the power pivot and power query features were brought directly to the users. I'm so happy that I purchased this book because it is a definite must for anyone whose interest in Excel extends beyond the standard usage and who simply wants to know more about this massively powerful program that just doesn't quit in terms of all that it can do.

easy to understand

All good. As are most books in this series. Light as expected.

In page 120 the book says "This calculation simply can't be completed using calculated columns."But of course that It can be calculated and it is simpler than with measures.=[UnitCost]*(if(related(InvoiceHeader[Year])=2007,1,0)-if(related(InvoiceHeader[Year])=2006,1,0))It is unfortunate that the book does not have an email address where we can communicate errors to the author. Thanks to Amazon to provide an alternative to do it.

Great

Fairly informative. It could have covered a little more material.

I am able to lookup all the reference information I need quickly. I don't need to become and expert just get the job done and this book meets my needs.

This book looks at just a few functions of Power Pivot and Power Query and doesn't go into any depth on any of them. This may be appropriate for a book called "For Dummies"; just don't go into it expecting a deep understanding. Also, it seemed like the book spent far more time on Power Query and didn't address the incredible power available in Power Pivot.

The 'data model' is a major new feature of Excel. In Excel 2010 it was a separate downloadable add-on. In Excel 2013 it was a built-in add-on and in Excel 2016 it's just there. Since Excel 2007 Excel has been able to accept 1024k rows and 16k columns of data in the spreadsheet grid. However, if you fill most of that with data it will run very, very slowly. If you try to join two tables with VLOOKUP it's very slow. The data model gives you a proper database you can read the data into. There's no row limit, you're limited by your RAM. You can create tables and join them instantly and do pivot tables almost instantly. Power Query (now renamed Get and Transform in Excel 2016) reads the data into the data model from a wide variety of data sources and transform it dramatically on the way in. PowerPivot does the super-fast pivot tables. It's all explained clearly in this book, which I would recommend.

Not for newbies or possibly intermediate users. Power Pivot and Power Query has totally changed my work flow for getting large data sets in and knocking them into useful information. I'd like to to have seen more on the DAX and M code but this a great starter with these Excel tools.

En general me gustan los libros para dummies porque explican temas que pueden ser muy complejos, desde la base, en este caso el autor ha logrado su objetivo, y hace que esta herramienta tan productiva sea muy fácil de entender, se trata de lo que ahora se llama Business Intelligence aprovechando la enorme potencia de Excel.

It's good book but should have covered in more details.

Claro y directo. Muy bueno para empezar.