Links

This page contains resources that I have found useful in my personal and professional life. It contains everything from quotes and books that I like to podcasts and videos.

If you don’t want to scroll through the entire list, you can click on one of the links below to filter the resources by specific category.

I will update this list as I discover new resources. If you have a resource you think I should add, please email me.

Seth Godin

Seth’s website is a great resource on marketing and business in general.

He has recently updated it to WordPress and it looks impressive.

Lots of videos, podcasts and his over 7,000 blog posts (yes 7,000).

 

Waterfall charts

2018-05-15

I prefer to call them Bridge charts rather than Waterfall charts, but Waterfall is the common name.

Excel added Waterfalls in Excel 2016.

I think the name Bridge is more descriptive since a bridge takes you from one place to another which is what the chart does with values.

Waterfalls in nature only fall down, whilst a waterfall chart has measures that rise and fall.

This blog post show many examples. Most examples are not done in Excel.

Link to blog post.

 

Gannt Charts in Excel

2018-04-02

Jon Peltier is a legend when it comes to charts in Excel – check out his post on Gannt charts in Excel.

Gannt charts are a project management tool that help you visualise and understand the relationships between tasks and how the project time line is progressing.

 

Comparing Measures

Katherine S. Rowell, M.S., M.H.A.
2017-08-29

If you are ever tempted to start a column (bar) chart at a point other than zero, please read this post.

It also has suggestions for alternative chart types to handle comparisons.

Data Validation Search – Free Add-in

Jon Acampora
2017-04-27

A common Excel request is to be able to type characters and see the in-cell data validation drop down list reduce, based on what you have typed.

This free add-in from Jon Acampora (Excel MVP) does just that. He has recently added a few new features.

If you have long drop down lists this add-in is a great addition to Excel.

This link has a video of how it works and the new features like Auto Open when a data validation list cell is selected.

The R Language

David Iseminger - Microsoft
2017-03-29

If you are into statistics then you probably already know about the R language – but if you don’t it may be worth looking at.

It is open source code that is built to handle statistics and big data. It has some limitations when used with Power BI but it can be used on its own.

This article looks at using visuals created with R in Power BI.

DAX Studio

DAX is the function and query language of PowerPivot and PowerBI. It has been around for a while, but it didn’t really have many editing tools until DAX Studio came around.

DAX Studio has been created by the SQLBI.com guys – the legends in PowerBI.

I saw a demo today at the Perth Modern Excel User Group at Microsoft Perth – its great.

Whilst it is a powerful editor, it is not just a code editor.

There are lots of options to allow you to optimise your DAX code. Lots of output options as well.

You can test and see how long it takes to run your DAX commands.

If you regularly use DAX in Power BI or PowerPivot then DAX Studio is a must have.

 

 

Hacking Power BI

Chris Webb
2017-04-11

Chris Webb’s BI website is a great resource on Power BI, DAX and Power Query and Power Pivot

This post shows how to hack DAX to display characters. Opens up some new possibilities.

 

Finding Those Pesky Links

Bill Manville

Thanks to Bill Manville for sharing the add-in.

This is a free add-in that’s been around for a long time and it finds most of those frustrating links that may have been created by

  • deleted files or folders
  • moved files or folders
  • renamed files or folders
  • sheets copied between files
  • charts copied between files

The add-in has been updated over the years so it now handles Power Query.