PowerPivot For The Data Analyst Chpt 5 Trying To Autodetect Relationships

Hi all,

Using Excel 2010

Trying to work through some of the examples from PowerPivor For The Data Analyst
The tables on 86 are not included in the download sample files, so I recreated them faithfully.

I entered all data the same, selected each range Using Ctrl+t, gave each table a meaningful name and linked the tables to PowerPivot

So far, so good.

I created the pivot table and added Amount from Sales and Name from Rep
The screen shot in the book shows I should get a total of 554000 for each rep, but I am coming up with 33000 which is th total of amount, so I am unsure why the book shows 554000.

I then added the BonusRate from the Rates table to the Pivot Table
I did receive the message in the PowerPivot Field List that "Relationship may be needed"

I tried to click "Create", but no relationship was detected
This agrees with the book exactly

Moving on to page 88, Manually Defining a Relationship

I have followed the instructions 3 time now to create the relationship on the [State] field between table.Reps and table.States and the relationship appears in the Manage Relationship Window.

But when I return to the Pivot Table, It still reads, "Relationship May Be Needed"

I registered the book on informit, but found no help there. I also tried the recommended Youtube Video MrExcel PowerPivot 5 (fyi, The title is actually, "PowerPivot Data Analyst 5 - Creating Relationships")

But the video is not helpful either. It uses only 2 tables, not 3. And the tables used in the video are not the same as the tables used in "Manually Defining a Realtionship"

Has anyone else run into these issues and know to get these relationships to work correctly?

I gave up on this MrExcel book when I reached Chapter 5, because of the lack of sample files - I like to try the examples to get a better understanding. Consequently I didn't come across the problem that you have.
This is probably the only MrExcel book that I would not recommend as it appears to have been 'rushed to Press' without any support files.
Instead I bought "Practical PowerPivot & DAX Formulas for Excel 2010 by Art Tennick " which, although not for the Excel beginner, uses the Microsoft Northwind database in its examples and also provides an Excel version of Northwind for use if you don't have Access installed.
I placed a 'review' on Amazon.co.uk for both books.

I came across this post today (as the result of a more recent post). I do apologize for the trouble. The sample files for Bill's PowerPivot book may be downloaded here: http://www.mrexcel.com/powerpivotbookdata.html

Direct download: http://www.mrexcel.com/SampleData_2010/PowerPivotSampleData.zip

Again my apologies. I do not get to scan the messages often enough to find all of them.

Scott®MrXL said:

I came across this post today (as the result of a more recent post). I do apologize for the trouble. The sample files for Bill's PowerPivot book may be downloaded here: MrExcel.com | Microsoft Excel Tips, Tricks and Support

Direct download: http://www.mrexcel.com/SampleData_2010/PowerPivotSampleData.zip

Again my apologies. I do not get to scan the messages often enough to find all of them.

Click to expand...

I went to that link today, 3/25/2016, and it still does not have a sample file that matches what is shown in Chapter 5.
And the "Relationships May Be Needed" error is appearing for me regardless of what I try to.

This is unfortunate, since I bought this book based on Rob Collie's reference in his DAX Formulas book as a good way to get started.
Now I'm just stuck with knowing I can do stuff, but not having a resource (Rob's book nor this more basic one) that can get me from knowing what I want to do to actually doing it.

I've spent probably an hour trying to figure out the "Relationships" error to no avail. Rob Collie's suggestions on his site are not valid, since this example is not trying to relate numbers, but state abbreviations.

And when I first started reading this book I submitted some "errata" after I registered on the InformIT site, and heard nothing back and have seen no updates to the errata on the web site.

So I guess this book is dead. Hopefully I can find something that works.