There are a lot of really smart people that work with Excel and share their ideas on how to solve particular problems. This is a page of links that I have found that solve particular problems. I am sharing them here so others can use them, but also so I can find them again next time I need them.
Power Pivot Links
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Which versions of Office have Power Pivot? | https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Where-is-Power-Pivot-aa64e217-4b6e-410b-8337-20b87e1c2a4b?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1 |
| Combine more than one file of identical structure into a single table in PowerPivot by editing the Data Source | www.contextures.com/PowerPivot-Identical-Excel-Files.htm/ |
| What is eating up my memory the PowerPivot / Excel edition | www.powerpivotblog.nl/what-is-eating-up-my-memory-powerpivot-excel-edition/ |
| DAX Formatter. This is a great tool to format your DAX code using spacing and new lines to make it easier to read | www.daxformatter.com/ |
| DAX Patterns. This is an interesting website that explains different DAX concepts and 'how' they can be reused to get particular outcomes | www.daxpatterns.com/ |
| PowerPivot and SharePoint This is a very good article that talks about the limitations of hosting PowerPivot Workbooks on SharePoint. | whitepages.unlimitedviz.com/2013/08/power-bi-office-365-and-file-size-limits-be-careful/ |
| Power Pivot Broken? Recently I had an issue where PowerPivot for Excel 2013 just stopped working. I tried all the normal tricks of disabling the addin and re-enabling it. This time it was really broken. I found this link; ran the automatic repair tool for PowerPivot (there is one for Power View too) and all fixed. Another option to try is first to run Excel in Safe mode (goto run and type "Excel.exe /safe" without the quotes); then turn off all Com Addins; then shut down Excel; restart in normal mode and turn them back on. | blogs.technet.com/ |
| Memory Consumption. A colleague of mine Scott Senkeresty at Tiny Lizard recently did some investigation into Kasper de Jong's PowerPivot Workbook Memory VBA code. He has enhanced that code and made a new more complete version available. You can find it at the provided link. | tinylizard.com/2014/09/26/script-update-what-is-eating-up-my-memory-in-power-pivot/ |
| Nested Filters in Measures I was doing some work for a client and need to work out how to refer to an Earlier row context in a Measure. Quick search found this | javierguillen.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/can-earlier-be-used-in-dax-measures/ |
| VBA Data Model for PowerPivot There was a very good blog post by Dany Hoter on Rob's blog that explains how to use the VBA data model for PowerPivot v 2013. Here is the link | www.powerpivotpro.com/2014/07/adding-tables-to-a-model-from-vba-in-excel-2013/ |
| DAX As a Query Language This is a good blog post I found that covers the basics of DAX as a query language | www.simple-talk.com/sql/reporting-services/using-dax-to-retrieve-tabular-data/ |
| DAX Black Magic This is a good blog post I found that explains how "black magic" works where the data table filters the lookup table. Warning; you really need to have some understanding of SQL and DB design to understand this. | mdxdax.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/logic-behind-magic-of-dax-cross-table.html/ |
| Unnofficial Memory Patch for 32 bit Excel | ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php/ |
| Official Microsoft Memory Patch for 32 bit Excel | support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3160741/ |
| Excel 2016 losing data model on save? There's a fix for that. | support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3114297/ |
| OLAP Pivot Table Extensions for Excel 2016. | olappivottableextend.codeplex.com/ |
| Chart of Accounts/Income Statement – Derek Rickard YouTube Video | www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojHZkWkEY7Q/ |
| Connect to the Power Pivot Data Model from an External Program (Marco Russo) | sqlblog.com/blogs/marco_russo/archive/2014/02/26/connecting-to-powerpivot-from-an-external-program-such-as-tableau.aspx/ |
| Migrating from SSAS Tabular to Power Pivot. Nice article from Gerhard Brueckl | blog.gbrueckl.at/2014/05/restoring-a-ssas-tabular-model-to-power-pivot/ |
Power Query Links
Power BI Links
Excel/VBA Links
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| An excellent learning resource for learning VBA | www.vbaexceltutorial.com |
| Count unique values in a list using the VBA Collection Object. Look for the solution referencing the Collection Object | stackoverflow.com/questions/23035511/count-the-unique-values-in-one-column-in-excel-2010-or-r-with-1-million-rows |
| A great resource with lots of samples of how to work with Pivot Tables using VBA | www.contextures.com/xlPivot11.html |
| Ever want to give Microsoft feedback about Excel; or influence a new feature? This is the site you need. | excel.uservoice.com/ |
| Need help from Microsoft to get Power Pivot working with your version of Office? Go to this link and select "Office" | support.microsoft.com/en-us or answers.microsoft.com |
| A nice way to provide a list of values in an Excel workbook; and then apply that list as a filter in a Pivot Table. | www.thebiccountant.com/2015/08/21/want-to-filter-a-pivottable-based-on-an-external-range-or-list/ |
Interesting Free Data Sets
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| NSW Crime Stats | data.gov.au/dataset/nsw-crime-data |
| Various World Stats – Hans Rosling site | www.gapminder.org/ |
| Good free calendar for PowerPivot from the Azure Marketplace | datamarket.azure.com/dataset/boyanpenev/datestream |