Understanding DAX

DAX is a formula and query language that plays a pivotal role in Power BI, helping users of Power BI to perform complex calculations and analysis on their data. It’s a language created by Microsoft for their suite of products and was first introduced in 2009 along with Power Pivot for Excel, something that was then also incorporated into Power BI. Helping to create and define custom calculations and formulas goes beyond the capabilities of traditional Excel functions.

Interestingly, it originated from the need to bridge the gap between relational database systems and traditional spreadsheet tools to help lower the barrier for professionals by providing a formula language that was more user-friendly for business analysts who may not be SQL experts, hence why DAX has been designed to work with tabular data models. Microsoft recognized the limitations of Excel at handling large sets of data and complex calculations, and this then led them to develop DAX, which...