Major Update to Power Pivot - Excelerator BI

Major Update to Power Pivot

I have been blogging about DAX since before Power BI was a product; I started back in 2014 and Power BI was first released as generally available in mid 2015.  Until about 2017, the only way you could build a commercially viable production reporting tool that used DAX was via Power Pivot.  Unfortunately, as they years progressed, Power Pivot fell into a state of disrepair.  It got to a point where I simply stopped using it because it was too unreliable.  Read my articles here. https://exceleratorbi.com.au/?s=power+pivot+update

Today I read that Microsoft has announced a major update to Power Pivot for Excel.  It is bringing 92 new DAX functions into Power Pivot for Excel.  I hope that they also deliver improvements in the Measure writing UI (right click a table, add measure is terrible) and maybe also an update allowing bi-directional relationships – let’s wait and see.  Personally, I would upgrade just to get access to SELECTEDVALUE( )!

If you are using Power Pivot for Excel, it might be time to ask the IT department to push through an update to your organisation.

https://insider.office.com/en-us/blog/new-dax-functions-in-excel-data-models-and-power-pivot

 

18 thoughts on “Major Update to Power Pivot”

      1. I asked him as well 🙂 !!! and he replied saying MS has confirmed that this is an issue and has given the below registry fix till they release an update
        • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentEcs\Overrides
        • Create a new String Value called Microsoft.Office.Excel.EnablePowerPivotASEngineV16
        • Set the value to ‘true’
        • Restart Excel

        Cheers
        Sam

  1. Thanks for the power pIvot update post.

    Beta versions, power bi report refresh time is very slow(more than 30 minutes) that have more than 1 lac or more rows. I have tested with it on two PC’s and got the same result.

    I don’t know, anyone observed the same behavior or not.

    Regards

    Rais

  2. ThX for the information
    I hope it’s a turning point.
    I go on using Power Pivot as a major reporting tool. For my use I do not see Power BI as a better substitute.
    I envy Power BI users, every month, when they get an update and I see the gap widen. So, it gives me hope.
    However, other than that I wonder how useful for me are these new functions in Power Pivot in Excel ,as long as they come without the option to create a new table in the model using DAX.
    I looked at some of them (not all), I did not find the use of SELECTEDVALUE that useful for me and would love to see an example what am I missing?
    I deal with finance, so I should have been exited about all the finance functions. However, as I can understand why they can be needed in Power BI, I think these kind of functions (PMT, PV, RII, extra) are better used in Excel outside the Pivot Table, (what is so easy and nice in Excel-Pivot Table-Power Pivot) and therefor do not add much.

    What do you think?
    Am I missing something?

    1. I use selectedvalue a lot when writing more complex DAX. You can see some use in this article
      https://exceleratorbi.com.au/build-a-pl-with-power-bi/

      I think the release of these functions is a good sign for the future of Power Pivot, but time will tell if MS releases broader functionality like calculated tables and bi-directional relationships. The reason I have felt Power Pivot would die is because I can’t see MS maintaining 2 code bases moving forward. If they can work out a way to deploy the PBI code base within Excel somehow, then there may be a path forward. Time will tell.

  3. Finally !!, Probably the PBI Team now feels Excel is no longer a threat to their market share are are sharing the goodies with them – or may be there is once again a strong leadership in the Excel Team

    I saw NAMEOF – does this mean we can create Field Parameter Tables may also be supported ?

    Cheers
    Sam

    1. Very good question, Sam. Alas, no. I’ve been chatting with some people in the know, and the speculation is they release all the new functions, because they can, without giving consideration to how they can be used, if at all. The stuff related to calc groups and field parameters should not be there as there is no way to use them at this time. I don’t know if that will change in the future.

      1. @ Has there been an increase in the Compatibility level of the Model with this upgrade.
        Is it possible to coax Daniel to let Tabular editor connect to the Data Model in Excel 🙂
        so that we can create Calculated Groups, Field Parameter etc.

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