Customer Reviews

PowerPivot for the Data Analyst: Microsoft Excel 2010 (MrExcel Library)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The good:
* Excellent information on new features and capabilities of PowerPivot tables. Lots of good examples.
* Good compare & contrast with base PivotTables.
* Good documentation of some of the v1 PowerPivot limitations.
* The prose is very easy to read.

The gaps:
* The book was written before the final product was delivered. It would be good to see some errata/revisions covering changes made in the mean time for early buyers.
* Probably somewhat related to the above, the discussion of DAX is fairly limited. DAX is the real key feature that makes PowerPivot more powerful than base PivotTables. (The best reference source I've seen so far is the MS "Data Analysis Expressions in PowerPivot for Excel 2010" document.)
* It would have been nice to explain some considerations when moving models from PivotTables to PowerPivot. For example, PivotTables by definition have to have everything in one giant table. PowerPivot models end up working better with separated lookup (dimension) tables in my experience so far.

Excerpt from my full review at PowerPivotPro:

My biggest overall conclusion after reading Bill's book is that Excel users will be hard-pressed to find a better place to start their PowerPivot journey. Bill is not a SQL guy and he is not an MS employee - he has been building spreadsheets in the wild since before Pivots even existed. And for many years now he has made his living simply teaching others to get the most out of Excel.

That history and perspective shows through in the book. Reading it is VERY different from reading any of the MS documentation on PowerPivot for instance - that MS content is excellent at describing PowerPivot, but it just isn't written by a multi-decade Excel maestro, so it doesn't tell Excel users, in detail, what will be familiar to them and what will be new.

What the book is NOT

Clocking in at 294 pages, this book doesn't try to do everything, which I think is wise. I don't think any Excel pro wants to pick up, as a starting point, a 1200 page bible. This book is an excellent intro and you will hit the ground running fast, but at some point later, you will eventually go looking for:

- An in-depth guide to high-powered DAX measures
- An in-depth guide to the implications of various table structures and relationships
- Performance-tuning reference
- A how-to reference for deploying PowerPivot for SharePoint
- List of best practices, tips and tricks, workarounds for Excel Services on SharePoint

Like I said, as an Excel pro, you are MUCH better off NOT trying to tackle those up front. You can get incredible mileage out of PowerPivot without once touching those topics. You will want to someday, but you don't NEED to, so I highly recommend Excel pros pick up this book as their starting point.

-Rob Collie
PowerPivotPro

This book examines in detail PowerPivot which is a free add-in for Excel 2010. It makes possible the analysis of very large amounts of data normally beyond the capability of Excel. PowerPivot is not for the faint hearted and is aimed at experienced users of Excel who are familiar and comfortable with lookup functions, pivot tables and databases.

To take full advantage of the book, you will need to download PowerPivot from [...] and also the author's example files from [...] There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions of PowerPivot and it is essential that you choose the one which matches your 32-bit or 64-bit version of Excel 2010.
The introductory chapter is a personal and interesting account which puts PowerPivot into context and shows the enthusiasm that Mr Excel has for his subject. After discussing how to obtain and install PowerPivot the book then begins to go into detail about how and when to use this application. Whilst it is clear that the author is a passionate advocate of PowerPivot, he is also critical of what he sees as shortcomings - for example, not easily being able to sort in month order - and he devotes a whole chapter to explaining the circumstances in which you might decide that a conventional pivot table might be a better approach.

The book gives detailed descriptions of the steps involved in many different tasks clearly illustrated with accompanying diagrams and supported by the exercise files that you can work through yourself. These include:
* Importing data
* Sorting
* Defining relationships between multiple tables
* Creating pivot tables using multiple sources
* Using the new DAX data analysis functions
* Using Slicers
* Creating charts

There are plenty of tips with two whole chapters on "cool tricks" separately devoted to working with conventional pivot tables and those created using PowerPivot. Advice on solving problems caused by "bad data" is included.

There are a few typographical errors in the text but the tasks are very well explained and so it is not difficult to work through the examples using the files provided to arrive at the required result.

In addition to the book and downloadable resources, there are 13 very watchable and informative You Tube videos in which the author demonstrates a topic from each chapter. These last only a few minutes each but give a good overview and may well be worth watching first before you attempt the exercises.
Overall, this is an excellent introduction to PowerPivot which takes you all the way from importing data to creating dashboards for the boardroom. If you are looking for a stimulating book to guide you towards a good knowledge of PowerPivot, choose this one.

The book is fine one and covers a lot of materials. Many basic PowerPivot functions were explored in certain depth and examples helping you to get your hands dirty.

The downside of the book is it is a too much of a What-to-do book and too much like a manual. It showed you functionality without giving you the proper analysis knowledge in many other books.

Other books gave you a nice substantial piece of work and showed you how, with excel, you are able to draw out the juicy information and put your work as a professional presentation.

I give this book 3-star

I bought another PowerPivot book before I bought this one (because it was the only one available) and it was nothing compared to Bill Mr Excel Jelen's PowerPivot book!! As always Mr Excel's books are easy to follow and teach you all you need to know. I can't believe how great this book is! I can't believe how awesome PowerPivot is! Mr Excel rocks!

This is the first book I have used written by Mr. Jelen. It is obvious he knows his stuff and I can envision that he is very adept at the art of teaching. However, this book is written in a manner similar to other "How To" books in the sense that he describes step-by-step how to achieve a desired result in understanding a concept. Unfortunately the supporting sample files do not lend themselves well to the examples given in the book. First, it took a bit of sluething to even find the files (the link provided in the book was not a valid link) and then after the file was finally discovered, the naming of those files had almost no correlation with the book exercises. After some poking around and guesswork, you can usually find the file you're seeking but it should be much more obvious than it is. Also, the sample files should contain two states, the raw file to use so you can do the exercise and then a solution file. I wonder if everyone involved in this book had the goal to get it out early and just didn't want to take the time to make following the exercises a little more student friendly.

On one other unrelated note.... I have purchased other books that are accompanied by a CD that contain a searchable PDF of the book. This is a very much appreciated and useful companion to the hard copy. If producing a CD is problematic for the publisher for whatever reason they have, perhaps an online version could be made available?

I am an Excel power user and as so I typically learn the new features by myself. However, given the power of this new add-in, this book is an excellent starting point for any data analyst who wants to get all the value from PowerPivot.

Written in a very enjoyable and understandable way, it is clear for an Excel user what to expect from the PowerPivot add-in.

Bill has the ability to provide realistic examples and tips about how to get the desired results from your data.

This book is a must have for whoever needs to analyze or compare million of rows in a few clicks.

Bill Jelen has produced a well-written tutorial on the Power Pivot Add-In for Excel 2010. Even a novice can pick up the book and build a pivot table, producing professional results. The author took a clear and methodical approach explaining the phases of the process. He does a solid job of pointing out potential problems and giving useful tips for the novice as well as the experienced user. I found the sections on the DAX functions to be equally informative with useful tips. My mind was racing through these sections envisioning the potential afforded with the much larger data pool available with PowerPivot.

I would definitely recommend this book!

PowerPivot for the Data Analyst is a well written book. PowerPivot is a new add-in to excel in the 2010 version. With this new functionality, Excel has made analysis available to small businesses without the investment of costly BI tools, and this book is the right coach. The format of this book is clear, easy to read with tips and highlights.

The use of Excel for data analysis has always been limited by the number of rows and columns allowed by the various versions of Excel. On numerous occasions in the past I have moved analytical projects from Excel to Access as their scope and complexity expanded beyond even the most complex pivot table. As many passages in this excellent book point out, the new PowerPivot tool offers the promise of eliminating the need for migration from Excel to Access.

The author has arranged the book in an easy to use manner and offers reasonable examples to illustrate the various features of PowerPivot. As I read through the book I found the reference to various approaches to in Excel to solve the problem at hand a very useful technique for illustrating the features of PowerPivot, I also liked the numerous comments about some of the quirks and possible limitations of PowerPivot. These insights may prove beneficial to those involved in helping less experienced users diagnose problems with their PowerPivot tables.

The extensive discussion of the DAX functions makes this volume both an effective reference book and a book useful for the user as they struggle through the initial implementation of PowerPivot.

Overall, the author did a great job of putting the power of PowerPivot in a context that is easy to follow and will be useful by both light and heavy PowerPivot users