President of Excelguru, founding partner of https://xitter.cf/t.co/85mDjDxAlG, Excel trainer, Microsoft MVP since 2006 Bluesky: https://xitter.cf/t.co/bslVOSHd0H
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ALT (Excelguru logo) Passionate Instruction, Practical Skills Unlocking Your Team's Potential via Industry Leading Training The biggest issue facing corporate efficiency today is not recognizing what you already have and how to leverage it. Our training will help your team expand their knowledge of Excel and Power BI, find solutions, and be more proficient or accomplish certain tasks. Learn more about our in-person and online training options at excelguru.ca (Microsoft Excel and Power BI icons) (Headshot of Ken Puls)
ALT Is your company based in British Columbia? (Government of British Columbia and WorkBC logos) (Image of a woman holding a folder in one hand and reaching out to shake someone's hand with the other) Your company can receive up to $300,000 for skills training from the BC Government! (Microsoft Power BI and Excel icons) The BC Employer Training Grant provides funding to small, medium and large enterprises to support skills training. And both the on-demand and private courses we offer at Skillwave could qualify! Learn more about the program: https://skw-t.com/bctraining View our course catalog at skillwave.training (Skillwave Training logo)
ALT Which tool do you use and when? Prototyping: Excel = Y, Power BI = Y Structured (tabular) analysis: Excel = Y, Power BI = Y Unstructured/ad-hoc analysis: Excel = Easy, Power BI = Difficult Deep data analysis: Excel = Yes, Power BI = Difficult Variety of visuals (tables, matrix, charts, etc..): Excel = Limited, Power BI = Excellent Cross filtering of visuals: Excel = Limited, Power BI = Excellent Drill down capability: Excel = Limited, Power BI = Excellent Suitability for multi-page (single sheet) reports: Excel = Excellent, Power BI = Poor Sharing control: Excel - Poor, Power BI = Excellent Security: Excel = Mediocre, Power BI = Excellent (Copyright Excelguru Consulting Inc.)
ALT Picture of Ken's set-up for teaching at Bulgaria Excel Days 2026, including laptop, tablet, and handout folders for students.
ALT What is a Fact? Something that is aggregated - Could be values or text! Examples - Sum of Amount - Count of Customers Easy to identify - Live in the bottom right corner of the Pivot! (Screenshot of the available PivotTable fields with the Value section at the bottom right highlighted in orange with "It's a Fact!") (copyright Excelguru Consulting Inc.)
ALT What is a Dimension? How we slice our Facts Examples - Account Group - Customer Class - Year, Month, Day Easy to identify - Row, Column or Filter Fields (not Values) - Slicers or Timelines If it won’t be aggregated, then it’s a Dimension (Screenshot of the available PivotTable fields with all of the the Dimension fields highlighted in blue, and the Fact field highlighted in orange with "It's a Fact!") (copyright Excelguru Consulting Inc.)
ALT Monkey Tools Build better data models, faster Developed by Excelguru (Image of a cyborg monkey with its fist up for a fist bump) QuerySleuth This feature indents and beautifies your M code by default, although you can certainly toggle these settings if you prefer Power Query's default display styles! (Screenshot of QuerySleuth with sample M code that is indented and colour-coded) monkeytools.ca
ALT Which Technology Gets Used Where? Depiction of a continuous system that flows between the following steps: 1. Get & Transform Data = Power Query 2. Relate Tables into a “Model” = The Data Model (Power Pivot) 3. Generate Measures & Analytics = DAX Formulas 4. Create Visuals = Tables, Pivots, & Other Visuals 5. Share & Explore = Email, SharePoint & Power BI (copyright Excelguru Consulting Inc.)
ALT Happy Spreadsheet Day Comic of a stick figure sitting at a desk with a laptop in front of them saying, "I started the day with lots of problems. But now, after hours and hours of work, I have lots of problems in a spreadsheet." https://www.xkcd.com/1906
ALT Using Monkey Tools Learn about all of the amazing features of Monkey Tools with our FREE course! "Honestly - it's just so impressive. So many moments of "Wow", or "That's Awesome". Favorite sections were the Biblio Monkey and the slowly changing dimension." John Garnier (5 stars) (Image of a cyborg monkey cheering with its fist raised and eyes closed) Register today at https://mkyt.ca/course
ALT News From the Data Monkey Brought to you by Excelguru and Skillwave October 13, 2026 In This Issue: - From the AKA Sessions - New video blog on understanding and fixing blanks in PivotTables - What's New in Excel - Latest Meet-up Recording and Next Event Information - Upcoming Courses and Conferences - Monkey Tools Updates - Available Training Options Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in Canada, and we just wanted to take a moment to say "thank you" to all of our newsletter subscribers, students, meet-up participants, and those who follow us on social media. YOU are the reason we do what we do, and we absolutely love the Excel and Power BI community! Every course enrollment, event registration, newsletter subscription, and like or comment on our social channels mean the world to us. Thank you for being a part of it!
ALT 'DIY BI' eBook Series 01 Excel 02 Power Query 03 Power Pivot 04 Power BI
ALT Turning Durations Into Hours: A student asked how to compare hours logged in a project management system against data from time-tracking software. Ken Puls’ solution used Power Query to clean and transform the data from both sources into a common data type, which could then be more easily compared! (Screenshot of the Power Query Editor displaying the initial time tracker data in the Screen Time columns as miniscule decimals. The Transform > Duration > Total Hours options from the ribbon are highlighted, which then displays the converted values in Screen Time column.) (Skillwave Training logo)
