Analytics Engineering with Microsoft Fabric and Power BI

Chapter 12. Enhance Semantic Models with DAX

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This will be the 12th chapter of the final book. Please note that the GitHub repo will be made active later on.

If you’d like to be actively involved in reviewing and commenting on this draft, please reach out to the editor at [e-mail].

Data Analysis Expressions was introduced by Microsoft alongside Power Pivot for Excel 2010. It later became the calculation language behind Power BI semantic models and Analysis Services tabular models. Over time, DAX has evolved into a core skill for analytics engineers.

DAX can look intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of how it works, the pieces start to fall into place. You may have heard the phrase “DAX is simple but not easy,” which is popular among DAX professionals. DAX is a powerful language that takes time and practice to master, and there are entire books devoted to this topic.

In this book, we are focusing only on the parts of DAX that we have encountered as analytics engineers. DAX is a huge topic, and one chapter can only scratch the surface. The goal here is to give you a solid starting point so you can keep learning with confidence. If you want to go deeper, we recommend The Definitive Guide to DAX, 3rd ed. (Microsoft ...