Dashboarding and Reporting with Power Pivot and Excel: How to Design and Create a Financial Dashboard with PowerPivot – End to End

Pivot tables on steroids. Get reports from multiple data sources and combine them in powerful pivot tables. Book is well written and well laid out for Excel users

I already own Bill Jelen's book, PowerPivot Alchemy: Patterns and Techniques for Excel, as well as Rob Collie's book, DAX Formulas for PowerPivot: A Simple Guide to the Excel Revolution, so I preordered this one on May 1st.Apparently I forgot that I preordered it on May 1st because I received two copies of this book earlier this week and the second invoice says I placed another order on May 4th for the same book. Cool! Alzheimers kicking in before age 30, this is going to be fun! Oh well, double the nerdyness - my wife is so proud.Reading through the introductory portions of the book, you get a sense that Kasper is drinking the Power Pivot kool-aid. I'm not doggin' on Kasper at all. It's that the capabilities of Excel are so boundless and exhaustive that most of Excel's user base wouldn't have a clue that excel can do this kind of reporting. I imagine that the average excel user wouldn't realize that the columns and rows they use to make their company picnic assignment list is the same tool that can provide C-Level execs with the actionable insights that keep the entire company solvent. (Yes Karen, I put you down as bringing paper plates and napkins, you frugal nut!)It's actually pretty cool to be reminded of the opportunities that exist out there for us rare breed of Excel Power Users. Even for those who are not yet-excel power users I would say that this book bridges the gap between (1) the HOW-to info that you expect from a technical book about building reports off of large data sets and (2) the "WHY-to" info that you REALLY REALLY NEED because the nerdyness doesn't matter if the resulting work doesn't convey useful information.(1) Yes - the book shows you the DAX formulas that soon become your best friends in your quest to manage/manipulate and massage your raw data into USEFUL relational tables.(1) Yes - the book has longevity in mind, meaning that Kasper teaches you to setup these reports and dashboards in a way that refreshing your data feeds/imports/cubes/etc. in the future won't be fraught with tedious data cleanup. He does this so you can achieve that magical level of automation you've been bragging about to your coworkers--they're tired of hearing you yap on about efficiency/effectiveness gains and can't decide whether they would prefer your spiel about how 'cool' your Pivot Tables are with their calculated fields and junk... so just setup the report correctly the first time and enjoy the rest of the day off would ya?(2) No - your pretty reports aren't just pretty, they have to be useful. Built into this book's core is the understanding that the end-users of the dashboards and reports aren't going to be very technically minded. Kasper will educate you as to the ways you can allow the decision makers who use your reports and dashboards to customize what they see in front of them so they can leave you alone and stop asking you to show them 40 angles of the data. You can create your dashboards with those whiny managers in mind, all in the interest of making your reports and dashboards easier to use, more relevant to those decision makers and more reason not to fire you even though you secretly want out anyway.So then, if it's true that your job is to create dashboards and reports from large data sets and you want to do it in a way that makes you an automation hero, buy this book. As far as comparisons go... and well, as an ADHD guy, I liked Bill Jelen's book, PowerPivot Alchemy, more because the possibility of applying the bag of tricks I've picked up from that book was just more stimulating. (not a small theme in my life)Why buy this book? Pick up on best practices for report building and formulating DAX expressions that stand the test of time (refreshed data). This is also a better choice for noobs than Rob Collie's 'DAX formulas for PowerPivot' because of this book's narrative style and also because of it having less technical explanations (you know... the kind that requires you to read slowly over the same paragraph multiple times with intentional focus before you realize you're starting to fall asleep? no? just me?)Why not buy this book? you bought an iPhone. -or- You like the mindless work of building the same reports and set of financials week after week. after all, it's "job security" right?...."Hello poverty", ought to be your family motto. Pick up this book, open your mind to the possibilities and go create some value.

Beautifully crafted, concise and simple to follow. One of the best learning sources for Power Pivot I have see around.

Some valuable insight, but hard to follow. Many of the diagrams and examples don't flow correctly.

Stay away - how do you follow along without sample data. Wish I could return

Great information, but it's told like a story and hearing what "Jim" did next gets old quick.

I like the way it is written.

Just started using this book and so far....love it!!!