Mastering Tabular Video Course

This video course covers tools and techniques to create enterprise-grade Tabular models with Power BI and Analysis Services.

The Tabular semantic model is the core technology that runs Power BI, Azure Analysis Services, and SQL Server Analysis Services. Knowing the features available, understanding their capabilities, and being aware of the limitations is crucial to planning, implementing, and deploying a complete solution in an enterprise environment.

  • Power BI authors can bring their models to the next level, by understanding the details of the model features available in Power BI Desktop and by knowing the additional features available in external tools like Tabular Editor.
  • Business Intelligence developers can learn how to create a model for Analysis Services or Power BI Premium using Visual Studio or Tabular Editor, how to deploy and automate the processing, and how to implement security requirements.
  • Solution architects can understand how the Tabular engine running in Power BI and Analysis Services works. They will better understand all the details needed to choose the right model type depending on latency requirements and on the budget available: Import, DirectQuery, aggregations, composite models, or push datasets.
  • System administrators can learn how to monitor the Tabular engine, how to manage partitions, and how to implement and schedule incremental refresh.

This course is useful to different professionals working with Power BI and Analysis Services. After a first initial review of all the modules, you can use the content as a reference while creating your model. We recommend you review specific modules in depth when working on particular areas of the model, such as security, partitioning, aggregations, deployment, scaling out, and more.

Basic knowledge of DAX is useful to create simple Tabular models. You can follow the free Introducing DAX video course to get acquainted with DAX.

In order to complete your training on Tabular, after the Mastering Tabular video course you should study the Mastering DAX video course. In the Mastering DAX video course, you will learn how to write complex measures and queries using the DAX language, which is not included in the Mastering Tabular video course.

Students have access to a private discussion area where they can interact with the instructors by asking questions related to the lectures and the exercises.

Tabular Editor 3 Enterprise License

Included in your purchase of the Mastering Tabular video course is a license for Tabular Editor 3 Enterprise that is valid for 90 days.
This is to ensure you have time to practice with the more advanced features required in enterprise-level solutions.

Collapse allCurriculum

  • Presentation of Mastering Tabular

    • Analysis Services Tabular overview
      FREE
    • Links to external resources
  • Slides and demos

    • Practice by repeating demos
    • Demos download
    • Slides of the video course
  • Introduction to Tabular models

    • Introduction to Tabular models
      FREE
    • Analysis Services architecture
    • Introduction to TOM
    • Architectural choices
  • Installing the prerequisites

    • Installing the prerequisites
      FREE
    • SQL Server
    • Important notes about SQL Server 2019 and 2022
    • SSMS and the demo database
    • Important notes about Visual Studio 2019 and 2022
    • Visual Studio
    • Power BI Desktop and Excel
    • Tabular development tools
  • Guided tour on Tabular

    • Guided tour on Tabular
      FREE
    • Introducing the workspace database
    • Introducing the guided tour
    • Creating a model with Power BI Desktop
    • Improving the model in Power BI Desktop
    • Getting started with Visual Studio
    • Testing reports with Visual Studio
    • Deploying models from Visual Studio
    • Creating a model with Tabular Editor 2
    • Different ways of working with Tabular Editor
    • Working with Tabular Editor 3
    • Conclusions
  • Understanding model types

    • Understanding model types
      FREE
    • Basic model types
    • DirectQuery model types
    • Conclusions
  • Formula engine and storage engine

    • Formula engine and storage engine
      FREE
    • Introduction to the AS engines
    • Introducing data islands
    • Using multiple data islands
    • Final considerations and conclusions
  • Data sources for Tabular

    • Data sources for Tabular
      FREE
    • Introduction to data sources
    • Power Query data sources
      FREE
    • Authentication and impersonation
    • Data gateway
    • Final considerations
  • Tabular presentation layer

    • Tabular presentation layer
      FREE
    • Introducing the presentation layer
    • Column names and display folders
    • Hierarchies
    • Using format strings
    • Sorting options
    • Summarize by
    • Data category
    • Object visibility and perspectives
    • Grouping columns
    • Grouping columns - additional notes
    • Date table in Tabular and Power BI Desktop
    • Featured tables
    • Detail Rows expression
    • KPI
      FREE
    • Translations
    • Q&A in Power BI
  • Understanding relationships

    • Understanding relationships
      FREE
    • Introducing relationships
    • Types of relationships
    • Special behaviors in relationships
    • The blank row
    • Limited relationships
      FREE
    • Relationships and ambiguity
  • Handling security

    • Handling security
      FREE
    • Introducing security
    • Introducing security architecture
    • Understanding roles
    • Static row-level security
    • Table and column security
    • Dynamic security
    • DirectQuery security
  • Understanding data types

    • Understanding data types
      FREE
    • Introducing data types
    • Data type conversion
    • Floating point rounding errors
    • DateTime
    • Other data types
  • Understanding the VertiPaq engine

    • Understanding the VertiPaq engine
      FREE
    • Row stores and column stores
    • VertiPaq encoding
    • VertiPaq segmentation
    • VertiPaq segmentation update (Power BI Premium)
    • VertiPaq memory usage
    • Best practices
  • Understanding DirectQuery

    • Understanding DirectQuery
      FREE
    • Introducing DirectQuery
    • Using DirectQuery
      FREE
    • DirectQuery and DAX
    • Understanding query limits
    • Real-time and DirectQuery
    • Final considerations
  • Understanding DirectQuery over Analysis Services

    • Understanding DirectQuery over Analysis Services
      FREE
    • Introduction to DirectQuery over AS
    • Architecture of DirectQuery over AS
    • Query resolution in DirectQuery over AS
    • Calculated columns
    • Limitations
    • Security and use cases
  • Aggregations

    • Aggregations
      FREE
    • Introducing aggregations
    • Composite models
    • Dual tables
      FREE
    • Aggregation and granularity
    • Aggregation with custom formulas
    • Aggregation precedence
    • Updating aggregations
    • Conclusions
  • Push Datasets

    • Push Datasets
      FREE
    • Introducing push datasets
    • Implementing real-time solutions with push datasets
  • Hardware considerations

    • Hardware considerations
      FREE
    • Basic hardware considerations
    • NUMA and virtual machines
    • Hardware in the cloud
  • Architectural choices

    • Architectural choices
      FREE
    • Introduction to architectural choices
    • Data modeling constraints and requirements
    • Performance and latency requirements
    • Business logic requirements
    • Conclusions
  • Managing Tabular

    • Managing Tabular
      FREE
    • What's next?
  • Interfacing with Tabular

    • Interfacing with Tabular
      FREE
    • Connections
    • Libraries
    • Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL)
    • REST APIs for cloud services
    • Choosing between TMSL and TOM
    • Conclusions
  • Deploying Tabular models

    • Deploying Tabular models
      FREE
    • Deploying and processing in production
    • Deploying from Visual Studio
    • Deploying from Tabular Editor
      FREE
    • Other deployment techniques
    • Power BI deployment
  • Processing and partitioning Tabular models

    • Processing and partitioning Tabular models
      FREE
    • Processing and partitioning
    • Partitions in Tabular models
      FREE
    • Partitioning strategies
    • Processing options
    • Executing process commands
    • Processing strategies
  • Monitoring Tabular

    • Monitoring Tabular
      FREE
    • Introduction to monitoring Tabular
    • Memory configuration
    • Diagnostic events and tools
  • Backup and restore strategies

    • Backup and restore strategies
      FREE
    • Database storage architecture
    • Executing attach, detach, backup, and restore
  • Scaling out

    • Scaling out
      FREE
    • Scaling-out Analysis Services
  • Conclusion

    • Conclusion
Student Rating
4.9
97 ratings
92%
6%
0%
1%
1%
Student Reviews (58)
  • Sakiko Stickley (Aug 25, 2023)

    Thank you, Alberto and Marco for preparing this comprehensive course material.

  • Nicolas Rojas (Jul 30, 2023)

    Es completo, donde se aprende a profundidad el funcionamiento de tabular y tambien herramientas que ayudan a mejorar tanto el armado del modelo, como la mantencion y la escalabilidad. recomiendo este curso en todos los casos ya que se aprende a realizar modelos en visual estudio, tabular editor y power bi. por lo que es realmente util si trabajas con power bi o power pivot en excel.

  • Vilmantas Lialko (Jul 25, 2023)

    It was a very useful training and learned a lot. It raised my knowledge about the TABULAR by the order of magnitude. Thanks a lot !!!

  • Michael Mertens (Jul 10, 2023)

    Excellent, especially the amount of details you find nowhere else

  • Jarosław Choduń (Jul 5, 2023)

    Very good and detailed course

  • Marco A. Bajana B. (May 30, 2023)

    Excellent Course some time ago I wanted to finish and reinforce it. Tabular models have helped me a lot in my career in conjunction with Power BI. Now with the launch of Fabric, how is Azure Analysis Services in the world Microsoft of data? Regards and Success Marco Bajana

  • Simon Kennaugh (May 28, 2023)

    Extremely well presented and thorough course.

  • Rafael Santos (May 8, 2023)

    very good

  • Farlyn Akerboom (Apr 30, 2023)

    Amazing, so extensive and complete. I've learned so much and there is alot more material to go deeper. It would have taken me years to figure out all the knowledge being shared. Can totally recommend this to anyone who is serious about tabular development.

  • Ben Ferry (Mar 22, 2023)

    Amazing course. A lot of work, and it took me a while to get through it, but absolutely worth it. Excellent value for money. 100% recommended!

  • Bernat Agulló Roselló (Mar 19, 2023)

    This is a truly comprehensive course on tabular models. I like that is so systematic and that you get first the theory and then the demo, also from both Alberto and Marco so you get both views, which is nice. Probably I should have taken this course a bit earlier as half of it was material that I already knew, but at the same time there was another half I did not know, and more importantly I did not know that I did not know that part. I think it's particularly useful for those that have to deal with AS and AAS, but still very useful for those dealing with Power BI premium. In Power BI Pro you have less control on just about anything. But then again, for small models you do not need that much control. Great course overall.

  • rogers.mendonca (Mar 14, 2023)

    Wonderful course! An excellent opportunity to know in detail the insides of the architecture behind Power BI and how to handle this architecture through different interfaces and tools. Thanks and congratulations to Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo for the didactics and quality of the classes.

  • Jan Maarten van den Boogaart (Mar 2, 2023)

    Excellent course! Very thorough. And very time-consuming... (completed in 18 months 😅).

  • Anton Kostov (Jan 16, 2023)

    Thanks it was and extensive and well explained course. You two are great charismatic lectors. The only issue I have is that at 2x speed the stream output cannot catch up (no matter the quality setting). It not due to my internet speed also because it is quite high. Anyways, thanks again.

  • Liz Bellinghoven (Dec 27, 2022)

    Great course!