Power BI Accelerator Participants,
For those of you working through the Power BI Accelerator problems, I wanted to provide a bit of background and supplemental materials regarding the Date table that will be used in each week’s problem set. The Date table we are standardizing on for this initiative is the Extended Date Table, developed by Enterprise DNA Expert @Melissa. This may seem a bit of an odd choice given the power and sophistication of this date table versus simpler ones typically used in beginner courses. Sort of like showing up to your first driving school class and seeing that this is the car you will be driving:
So, given that why did we choose to go with the more complex table right off the bat?:
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Best Practice - we believe this is hands-down the best date table out there. For this initiative, the techniques and approaches we’ll be teaching will conform to EDNA’s Best Practices, as beautifully compiled and explained by EDNA Expert @Greg in the series you can find here and on YouTube.
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Flexible -if you want to transform this sportscar into a simple family minivan, you can easily do so by going in to Power Query and unchecking the columns you don’t need. Here for example, if we have no need to analyze our data on a weekly basis, we can remove all those columns from the date table. And later if you change your mind, you can easily add these back in by rechecking those columns.
- Simpler (Down the Road) - as we get into more complex calculations, such as time intelligence, the Extended Date Table will make life much easier due to some incredibly powerful features it contains, including date offsets.
If you’re having challenges working with the Extended Date Table, I recommend the following resources:
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Melissa’s introductory video on creating and using the table
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A Cheat Sheet that I’ve developed to accompany the Extended Date Table, listing all the fields, their types, examples, and information on which fields are used to sort which other fields. This sheet is free, and available to members and nonmembers.
If you have any other questions about the Extended Date Table, feel free to post them on the forum.
– Brian