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Advanced 7 hours of video 44 lessons Exercise files included Certificate of completion

Power Pivot & Data Modelling

Relationships, star schemas and DAX measures — the data model behind every serious Excel report.

About this course

Power Pivot is where Excel stops being a spreadsheet and starts being a reporting tool. Instead of one enormous flat table stitched together with lookups, you build a proper model: facts, dimensions, relationships, and measures written once and reused everywhere.

What you will be able to do

  • Load millions of rows into the data model without the workbook collapsing
  • Design a star schema: fact tables, dimension tables and a date table
  • Create and manage relationships, and recognise when one is wrong
  • Write DAX measures: SUM, CALCULATE, FILTER, ALL and time intelligence
  • Understand row context versus filter context — the concept most people skip
  • Build KPI reporting with year-on-year, year-to-date and moving averages
  • Replace fragile lookup chains with measures that stay correct
  • Connect PivotTables and cube functions to the model for flexible reporting

Course content

8 modules · 44 lessons · approximately 7 hours of video

Module 1 — From sheets to a model

Why lookups stop scaling. Loading tables into the data model, and the compression that makes it fast.

Module 2 — Star schema design

Facts and dimensions, granularity, surrogate keys, and the date table you should never skip.

Module 3 — Relationships

One-to-many, cardinality, filter direction, inactive relationships and role-playing dimensions.

Module 4 — DAX foundations

Calculated columns versus measures. SUM, SUMX, and the discipline of writing measures instead of columns.

Module 5 — Context — the core idea

Row context, filter context, and CALCULATE as the function that lets you change context deliberately.

Module 6 — Time intelligence

Year-to-date, prior year, moving averages, and the pitfalls of a badly-built date table.

Module 7 — Reporting on the model

PivotTables against the model, slicers, KPIs, and cube functions for free-form layouts.

Module 8 — Performance and maintenance

Model size, column cardinality, unused columns, and documenting measures for the next person.

Requirements

  • A computer with Microsoft Excel installed. Microsoft 365 is recommended; where a feature is version-dependent, the lesson states this and shows the alternative approach.
  • No software is provided with this course. Learners must hold their own licence for any Microsoft product used.
  • Roughly 7 hours of study time, which you can spread over as long as you like — access does not expire.

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