Beginning Big Data with Power BI and Excel 2013

Abstract

This book is intended for anyone with a basic knowledge of Excel who wants to analyze and visualize data in order to get results. It focuses on understanding the underlying structure of data, so that the most appropriate tools can be used to analyze it. The early working title of this book was “Big Data for the Masses,” implying that these tools make Business Intelligence (BI) more accessible to the average person who wants to leverage his or her Excel skills to analyze large datasets. As discussed in Chapter 1, big data is more about volume and velocity than inherent complexity. This book works from the premise that many small- to medium-sized organizations can meet most of their data needs with Excel and Power BI. The book demonstrates how to import big data file formats such as JSON, XML, and HDFS and how to filter larger datasets down to thousands or millions of rows instead of billions. This book starts out by showing how to import various data formats into Excel (Chapter 2) and how to use Pivot Tablesto extract summary data from a single table (Chapter 3). Chapter 5demonstrates how to use Structured Query Language (SQL) in Excel. Chapter 10offers a brief introduction to statistical analysis in Excel.