When I give a Power Pivot training, this is one of the harder concepts to explain.  It’s not something easy for a complete Power Pivot beginner to understand… but there is a general pattern you can use anyway, without completely understanding it.  Good thing, because it a SUPER useful function.  By the end of this post, you will better understand Row Context, the EARLIER() function… and have the absolute worst stock analysis ever. Row Context Before we really dig into this bad boy, the first Continue Reading

I’m guessing my posts on Performance will continue to be the most popular for some time, but I’m trying to start filling out some posts on the the Fundamentals now. Last time I talked about Calculated Columns vs Calculated Fields (Measures), today we are going to discuss “Relationships”. Two Flavors of Tables There are not actually two flavors of tables.  It’s not that black and white.  But I think it can be useful to think of tables in this way. There are “lookup” tables (probably called Continue Reading

How do you feel about honesty?  Me… I’m a total fan! So, here goes… the only reason I am writing this post is so that I can link to it… from over on the Mr Excel Forums.  While a bunch of my posts have been very not targeted at brand new folks, the people asking questions on the forum tend to be completely new to Power Pivot.  They ask for a formula to do such and such… then, I have to ask if they mean a “Calculated FIeld” or a “Calculated Column”… and then they gimme the ol’ Ron Weasley look.  Continue Reading