PowerPivot for End Users — Lesson 3: Time Intelligence and Business Analysis

Learning Objectives

• Create a complete date table and date relationships
• Calculate period-to-date, prior-period, growth, and variance metrics
• Handle blanks, errors, filters, and calculation validation

Detailed Topics

• Create a complete date table and date relationships: Create a complete date table and date relationships
• Calculate period-to-date: Calculate period-to-date, prior-period, growth, and variance metrics
• Handle blanks: Handle blanks, errors, filters, and calculation validation

Guided Demonstration

1. Review the requirement, environment, dependencies, roles, risks, and expected outcome.
2. Demonstrate the relevant configuration, analysis, code, or administration workflow step by step.
3. Capture settings, outputs, logs, screenshots, calculations, or test evidence.
4. Compare the observed result with the stated acceptance criteria.

Hands-On Activity

Create a time-based performance analysis with validated measures.

• Document assumptions and the planned sequence before making changes.
• Complete the activity and preserve evidence of normal and exception behavior.
• Record issues, corrective actions, and reusable operational or development notes.

Troubleshooting Focus

• Separate symptoms from causes and collect evidence before applying a fix.
• Check configuration, permissions, data, dependencies, capacity, connectivity, and recent changes.
• Validate rollback, recovery, support ownership, and user or business impact.

Validation Checklist

• The requirement and expected outcome are clear.
• The selected configuration, design, query, code, or process is documented.
• Normal, boundary, failure, security, and operational conditions are reviewed.
• The result is supported by evidence and the next improvement is prioritized.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can explain and apply Time Intelligence and Business Analysis in a realistic scenario and validate the result with documented evidence.