No clue. When I was looking for stuff on dimensional modeling, everything came back to Kimball. So just bought the latest version. I’d imagine for PBI either version would be good as the basics probably havent changed all that much.
Not so much books to recommend but a site - http://www.packtpub.com
order ebooks, print books and videos but the best part -
black friday (at least the past few years) - every ebook/video $5.
The sales usually lasts through the start of the new year.
They also have a club with access to all e-material - $10/month, $99/year
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Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross co-authored the third edition of Ralph’s classic guide to dimensional modeling. It provides a complete collection of modeling techniques, beginning with fundamentals and gradually progressing through increasingly complex real-world case studies.
The book significantly enhances and expands upon the concepts and examples presented in the earlier editions of The Data Warehouse Toolkit.
New chapter with the “official” library of the Kimball dimensional modeling techniques
Expanded coverage of advanced dimensional modeling patterns for more complex real-world scenarios, including bridge tables for ragged variable depth hierarchies and multivalued attributes
Sample data warehouse bus matrices for 12 case studies
Enhanced slowly changing dimension techniques type 0 through 7
Recommended best practices for big data analytics
Guidance regarding collaborative, interactive dimensional modeling design sessions with business stakeholders
Updated overview of the Kimball DW/BI project lifecycle methodology
Comprehensive review of extract, transformation, and load (ETL) systems and design considerations, including 34 subsystems and techniques to populate dimensional models
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Fantastic book
@BrianJ
Just received the first 2 books but couldn’t find the third one in Amazon Canada . Time to dive into the world of Statistics.
Third book is still just available only as an e-book. Publication expected in hardcopy later this month. I subscribe to his newsletter, so will post a message on the thread when the third book becomes available.
Please let me know what you think of the first two. I hope you enjoy them.
- Brian
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Also not books, but your post about the Packt Black Friday sale (which I did not know about) reminded me of two other big Black Friday sales.
For those of you looking to supplement the eDNA training, SQLBi and Power Query Academy both run incredible discounts the week of Thanksgiving/Black Friday. Last year, I picked up both the full SQLBi DAX series and the full PQA series for a fraction of the original total cost.
- Brian
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@MudassirAli and others interested,
Just got an update from Jim Frost that his third book in the series discussed above is now available in hardcopy through Amazon:
Regression Analysis: An Intuitive Guide for Using and Interpreting Linear Models , Jim Frost, October 2020
- Brian
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@BrianJ
That’s awesome. I will have to buy the book now because
"I want to play in everyone else’s backyard"
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Just my two cents here - What I liked about Kimball’s book are the chapters on different industries or business processes and the specific challenges they present to data warehouse designers. When I was taking data warehousing courses back in mid-2001 (when reporting via corporate data warehouses were hitting their stride), we used this book as part of the program. I still pick it up today when I’m trying to solve for specific modeling issues either in Power BI or Power Pivot. I would like to believe the updated version deals with the advanced topics of snowflaking (there’s a bit of that in my book version but more warnings than examples) a star schema or how and when to use a double star schema.
–Teresa B.
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The Greg Deckler book is pretty outstanding, some of his DAX gives me a sore head as I try to follow it haha! I love how the book is set up.
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. Got my hardcopy late last week. What did you think of the first two?@BrianJ
I haven’t started the 2nd one yet. I liked the first one as it helped in building the foundation in Statistics. Starting the 2nd one from today and I know I will keep peeking into the 3rd one often.
FYI – just wanted to make everyone aware that Amazon has slashed the price on the hard copy of The Definitive Guide to DAX 2nd ed. - was $55, now $31.
Absolutely essential resource to have if you do any significant Power BI report development.
- Brian
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I would offer the following books:
1 - Supercharge Power BI. Power BI is better when you learn to write DAX - by Matt Allington
2 - M is for (Data) Monkey - by Ken Puls & Miguel Escobar
3 - Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User’s Guide to DAX, Power Query, Power BI
& Power Pivot in Excel 2010-2016 - by Rob Collie & Avi Singh
4 - The Absolute Guide to Dashboarding & Reporting with Power BI - by Kasper de Jonge
5 - Book_Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star Series - By Reza Rad (RADACAD)
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And away we go! Not sure how long this sale lasts so load up.
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I need to brush up on my statistics. Thanks for the recommendations!
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Mastering power bi brett powell is best as know.
All,
I’d like to revise my earlier recommendation for the best book to start with if you’re interested in using R within Power BI. The R for Data Science book by Wickham that I recommended is still excellent. However, it is heavily oriented toward data prep and management within R. The more I use R within Power BI, the more I realize that you can skip learning a large percentage of this, and simply call R scripts from within Power Query, taking advantage of the techniques you already know to do the vast majority of your data prep and postprocessing within PQ. As a result, I now recommend:
R in Action: Data Analysis and Graphics with R 2nd Edition by Dr. Robert Kabacoff
This book covers the basics of data prep and management, but is very heavily focused on the two main areas likely of greatest interest to Power BI users: intermediate and advanced statistical methods, and the use of the ggplot2 package to create all sorts of highly customizable visuals not found within the Power BI native visual types, or even in many cases not available as a Power BI custom visual. Kabacoff writes in a very clear, easy to understand style with a lot of examples and pictures. He also maintains the Quick-R site, one of my go-to sites for R info.
I’m currently working on a full Enterprise DNA portal course on R for Power BI Users to be released this summer, but also plan to do a few YouTube videos sooner to introduce the topic.
– Brian
PS – I just found an ongoing 40% off promotion from the publisher on all of their R books including the one recommended above.
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