Most data analysis involves browsing and comparing over dates and time. Whether you’re aggregating Sales amounts for the past fiscal year, or comparing month-over-month growth, including dates in your reports is essential. One of the coolest things you can do with Power Pivot is give your data model real power for working with dates and time. Use the following resources to learn how you can include dates and time in your Power Pivot solutions.
Date Tables
A date table is essential for working effectively with dates. In most cases, including a date table is as simple as importing a date table from a data source along with your data. In some cases, you might have to create a date table and add it to the data model yourself. Power Pivot makes this easy to do. To learn more, see the following article:
Time Intelligence
The real power in Power Pivot comes with effectively creating and using measures. DAX Time Intelligence functions in measure formulas enable you to manipulate data using date periods; including days, months, quarters, and years, and then build and compare calculations over those periods. To learn more, see:
Other Resources
There are many resources available to help you learn about working with dates and time in Power Pivot. Here are some favorites:
Articles on Office.com
Whitepapers and sample workbooks
Profit and Loss Data Modeling and Analysis with Microsoft PowerPivot in Excel is a whitepaper and sample workbook that provides a great example of how to include a date table and create effective measures using DAX Time Intelligence functions.
