I started using SQL Search (a free product from RedGate) several weeks ago, while it was still in beta. Now that the product has been released and is freely downloadable, I can say it has being really useful since the first beta. My common need is to  Read more

Denny Lee described how to open a trace file in PowerPivot for Excel . It is something that is very important because the SSAS engine which runs PowerPivot runs inside the Excel process and doesn’t have an external connection (thus, also SQL Profiler  Read more

PowerPivot for Excel is an Add-In which uses a local version of Analysis Services (SSAS) to process data and make calculation to respond to user queries made using Excel 2010. The SSAS engine is loaded in-memory in the process of Excel. Especially with  Read more

The calculation for ABC analysis can be made in PowerPivot using calculated columns. In this way each row can have an attribute with the appropriate ABC class. The ABC calculation has to be made considering a particular grouping and sort order. For example,  Read more

Following the full disclosure of Grant Fritchey and Andy Leonard , here are my evaluations of PASS 2009 Summit evaluations (in both sessions I was on stage together with Alberto Ferrari). To make the post more readable, I anticipate the comments. The  Read more

I know, the title is provocative. It's intentional. I'd like to get feedback about my opinion. My point is simple (but not so short!). PowerPivot (which, you know, I like) and self-service BI are the new buzzwords for BI in Redmond. However, there are  Read more

The CALCULATE function in DAX is the magic key for many calculations we can do in DAX. However, it is not pretty intuitive how it works and I spent a lot of time trying to understand how it can be used. First of all, this is the syntax. CALCULATE( <expression>,  Read more

Even if the site still is not updated, the Microsoft BI Conference 2010 will be joined with TechEd 2010 in New Orleans, LA. The conference will start on June 7, 2010, with a pre-conference day on June 6 (there are still no updates about BI Conference  Read more

UPDATE: PowerPivot for Excel 2010 in SQL Server 2012 and Excel 2013 support the DISTINCTCOUNT aggregation in DAX. This blog post is relevant only if you use PowerPivot for Excel 2010 in SQL Server 2008 R2. A PivotTable based on PowerPivot data doesn’t  Read more

I just read what I think is the best analogy for PowerPivot so far – these are the words of Amir Netz in a discussion: A good analogy is the relationship between mainsteam media (newspapers and TV) and internet blogs. In the old days (7 years back...),  Read more