We were all at the same place once … with many people working on the same problem, one gets exposed to many different thought processes. Don’t worry for a second about how your ideas will compare with others … the real benefit of the challenges is to stretch yourself. Keep it up!
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I feel so over whelmed on the challenges. Looking at the posting how do i ever get there? I go thorough the videos.
Honestly, the key is just jumping in and doing it. Don’t try to learn and do everything at once. For your first one, just focus on getting your process in order - prepping your data, building a good data model, planning out your report, picking a good color theme and then building out some simple analyses and visuals that are responsive to the challenge brief. Keep it one page to start and don’t worry about the cool bells and whistles you see on a lot of the submissions - just focus on building a strong fundamental base. Then in each subsequent challenge, pick a couple of things you want to learn/try and incorporate those into your submission. I guarantee you’ll find you get more confident and skillful with every challenge you participate in.
Watching the videos is great, but will only take you so far. I can’t count the number of times I watched @sam.mckay do something on video and thought “okay, that looks pretty straightforward” and then when I sat down to do it myself I realized I had no idea how to do that and had to rewatch (sometimes multiple times) and incorporate his approach step-by-step. For me at least, until I implement and practice what I see on the videos, it doesn’t ever fully click. And I find the challenges are some of the best opportunities to make that critical link between the theory and practice.
I’m confused when to use power query and how to create to totals in query or do you create them after you load the table?
I find the best rule of thumb is if it’s something I want to be dynamic within the context of a report (i.e., I want it to be able to change w/o having to refresh), then it needs to be done via measure. If not, it’s something I can at least consider doing in PQ.
Don’t let this hold you back - there’s no absolute right or wrong on this question. For a long time, I overused DAX when I probably should have been using PQ and it was fine. Made my DAX more complicated and my models run slower, but they worked. Focus on getting in the pool - perfecting your stroke can come later…
Hope to see your entry in Challenge #6! ( “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”)
- Brian
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@Melissa, your posts are always an opportunity to learn. No doubt your submission could incorporate these highly technical aspects. Well done!
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