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PowerPivot Calendar Table Question

C

cubs610

Member
Hello All,

I just started studying PowerPivot and for the most part can grasp the data modeling since it's similar to Access. The one question I have pertains to calendar (date) tables.

The one thing I really don't understand is why do you need to create a separate calendar table in the first place? From what I've read dates are different in PowerPivot models. I think it has to do with creating measures, but not sure.

If someone can help me understand why you need to create them I'd be most appreciative.

Thanks,
-Dave
 
Calendar table, or date dimension table is used for time intelligence.

Why use date dimension table?
1. Many organization report by; fiscal year, quarter, month, week etc. Having date dimension table allows relationship to be built with fact table, and allows for flexible control over which segmentation to use.

2. As you have speculated, for use with measure. Many time intelligence functions will result in erroneous result without date dimension table.

3. For efficiency in DAX, you'd not want to compute special dates each time, but simply look it up in the dimension table.

Following link has more detailed info on this topic.
http://radacad.com/do-you-need-a-date-dimension
 
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