Reddit reviews Definitive Guide to DAX, The: Business intelligence with Microsoft Excel, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Power BI (Business Skills)

Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User's Guide to DAX, Power Query, Power BI and Power Pivot in Excel 2010-2016.

The Definitive Guide to Dax aka the Purple Book.

Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel aka the Orange Book.

And lastly, one I don't actually have as yet, but am itching to get:

Beginning DAX with Power BI: The SQL Pro's Guide to Better Business Intelligence

• The only two books you'll ever need:
  
  

1. The Definitive Guide to DAX
   
2. Tabular Modeling in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (Developer Reference) 2nd Edition
   
   

• It's not easy to convert tabular model conventions into SQL. Correct, all joins are LEFT but knowing this won't help you very much.
  
• Bi-directional cross filtering should not be thought of as a type of join. It tells the Vertipaq engine that filters can propagate both ways, i.e., filtering the many side will propagate the filter to the one side. Avoid them if possible because they can cause ambiguity. If required, they can be baked into the measure instead of the model. With the exception the M2M bridge tables and a few other niche scenarios, you shouldn't be using them.
  
• 600 measures and 30 tables? This is a large model. You have your work cut out for you. Honestly, I don't know why such a large model would be given to someone with limited experience; this is a very poor decision on behalf of management. Given the volume of measures, I advise you:
  
  

1. install Tabular Editor for bulk model management; and
   
2. install DAX Studio for model optimization and analyses.
   
   

• Post back here for more help and I can assist with specific questions. You'll find more experts on r/powerbi however.

First, thank you for the taking the time to respond to my question - I really appreciate it. Second, congratulations on receiving the MCSA: BI Reporting badge!

The reason I am struggling to prepare for this exam is because there is no real comprehensive prep course like there is for the CPA exam. There's no "Becker for MCSA: BI Reporting". Can you share how you went about preparing for these exams? I feel like I have learned a lot from edX but not enough to pass the exam and I cannot find any additional practice questions/tests to study - anywhere. Do you have any insight on this?

Yes, the edX Excel course was very good and has significantly improved my Excel skills. However I am still unsure what to expect as far as test questions are concerned. Are they similar to the ones on the edX course?

As far as DAX and M, I assume DAX will be more heavily tested on the Power BI exam then the Excel one. Would you say that's correct? At the moment, my DAX skills are limited because I haven't been able to sit down and really run through it yet - but I will do so. I am waiting for my DAX book to come in the mail. M doesn't seem that difficult but nonetheless I have to run through it.

Again, thank you for your insight - I really appreciate it!

If you want to learn a lot about PowerPivot and (don't mind reading) I'd recommend anything written by Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo. They write on PowerPivot / SSAS / Power BI for the Microsoft Press. One of their books was recommended by Michael Alexander who's a Microsoft MVP (I think for Access, but he also knows Excel very, very well.) Take a look at a few of the books below:

https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-DAX-intelligence-Microsoft/dp/073569835X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Building-Models-PowerPivot-Business/dp/0735676348/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I only read a bit of their 2013 book, but it's very comprehensive and of high quality.

I also want to discuss a few other things mentioned here in the comments: PowerPivotPro by Rob Collie and SQLBi. Rob Collie is a former Microsoft engineer on Excel, is an expert on it, and still talks to many engineers on the Excel team. And SQL Bi is run by Marco Russo, who I mentioned above.

Practice, practice, practice. The more DAX you wrote the more you will know...and the more you will know you don't know ;).

By the way, the book you need to read is The Definitive Guide to DAX, if you learn from this book you will know "everything". Another good source is sqlbi.com, you can find useful articles about the language.