That's Why: PowerPivot

With PowerPivot (codename: Gemini) for Excel 2010 users can work with loads of company data as never before. With PowerPivot, as an end user, you can create your “own cube” within Excel and simply slice and dice through these tons of information.

In this exercise, you will learn how to import and prepare data from a SQL Server 2008 R2 database into the Microsoft Project “PowerPivot” Add-in for Microsoft Office Excel 2010 (PowerPivot).

Requisites:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
• PowerPivot module installed
• Excel 2010
• ContosoRetailDW (2008 R2 database, you can download this one from codeplex or Microsoft site.)

Exercise 1: Getting started

By the end of this exercise, you will understand:

·         How to launch PowerPivot

·         How to connect a PowerPivot to an external data source to the PowerPivot

·         How to control what data is imported into PowerPivot

·         How to create a calculated column using a Data Analysis Expression formula

·         Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Excel 2010 (Beta) ·         Click the PowerPivot tab. ·         Click the PowerPivot window button to start the PowerPivot add-in. The add-in loads a new top-level window entitled PowerPivot Client Window.

·         In the PowerPivot Client Window, click the From Database button, and select From SQL Server from the list of data sources. ·         In the Server name field, enter localhost. ·         In the Database name combo-box, select ContosoRetailDW from the list. The wizard automatically creates a Friendly connection name. ·         Click the Next button to continue the running the wizard. ·         On the Choose How to Import the Data page, choose the Select from a list of tables and views to choose the data to import option and click Next. ·         From the list of available tables, scroll down and place a check next to the FactSales table. ·         Click the Select Related Tables button to have the wizard select those tables related to FactSales. The wizard displays a message that “6 related tables were selected”. ·         With the FactSales table still selected, click the Preview and Filter button. The wizard opens a new window where you can filter the data that it imports. ·         Remove the check for the SalesKey column.

·         Scroll to the right until you can see the CurrencyKey column. Remove  the check from the CurrencyKey column.

 

·         Click OK to apply the filter and return to the wizard. Notice that the Filter Details column now shows Applied filters.

·         Click on the table name FactSales in the Friendly Name column and change the name to Sales.

·         Click Finish to start the import and prepare process.

Note: As the import process progresses, the dialog provides you with information about the number of rows transferred.

Note: Notice how PowerPivot has transferred almost four million rows from the Sales table. With more memory, you could work with 100 million row datasets.

·         Once the import process is complete, click the Details button in the Message column to review any status messages. Generally you only need to do this if any errors occurred.

  

·         Click OK, then Click Close to close the wizard and return the PowerPivot Client Window.

·         At the bottom of the window, you will see a tab for each imported table. Right click on the DimChannel tab and choose Rename from the context menu.

·         Change the name to Channel. You can rename the tables to make it easier for you to work with them.

·         Click on the Sales tab.

·         Scroll all the way to the right until you can see the Add Column column.

·         Select Add Column.

·         In the formula bar enter =[SalesAmount] – [TotalCost] and press Enter. PowerPivot creates the new column and updates the screen with your calculation.

 

·         With the new CalculatedColumn1 column selected, right click and select Rename Column from the context menu.

·         Type Profit to change the column name and press Enter.

·         Click the PowerPivot button in the upper left corner of the application window and select Save.

·         Change the path to the desktop and name the file ContosoSales.xlsx and click Save.

·         Once PowerPivot has saved the file, continue to the next exercise.

Exercise 2: Work with data

In this exercise, you create a sales report in Excel 2010 using PowerPivot as your in-memory data source containing almost four million rows.

By the end of this exercise, you will understand:

·         How to create a PivotTable and PivotChart report connected to PowerPivot

·         Use data slicers to filter data

Note: Exercise 2 assumes you have completed Exercise 1 and that Excel 2010 and the PowerPivot Client Window are still open.
 

·         If necessary, click the ContosoSales.xlsx button on the Task Bar to activate the PowerPivot Client Window.

·         Select the PivotTable button and from the drop-down menu, choose the Chart and Table (Vertical) menu option. PowerPivot will return you to Excel window.

·         In the Insert PivotTable dialog, choose the Existing Worksheet option and click OK.

·         In the PowerPivot Task Pane, scroll to the bottom of the list of tables until you find the Sales table. Then find the Profit field and place a check next to it.

·         Next, find the ClassName field in the DimProduct table. Drag and drop it into the Axis Fields box.

·         Now find the ChannelName field in the Channel table. Drag and drop it into the Row Labels box.

·         Place a check next to the TotalCost field in the Sales table. You should note that Excel adds it under the existing Profit field in the Values box and to the right of the Sum of Profit column in the PivotTable.

·         Click the drop-down menu on the Sum of Profit field in the Values box and select Move Down.

·         Click on the chart, and then place a check next to the SalesAmount field in the Sales table.

·         Click the drop-down menu on the Sum of SalesAmount field in the Values box and select Move to Beginning.

·         On the PivotTable, select the cell with the text Row Labels (it should be cell A1). Change the value to Class / Channel.

·         Change the Sum of SalesAmount column header to Sales Amount.

·         Change the Sum of TotalCost column header to Total Cost.

·         Change the Sum of Profit column header to Profit. The headers should now all be changed.

·         Highlight all of the cells in the PivotTable that contain numeric figures.

·         Click the Home tab on the Ribbon followed by the $ symbol to format the selected values.

·         Next, click the Format button and from the drop-down menu, choose the AutoFit Column Width command.

·         Select the Sheet1.

·         On the PivotChart, select the Y Axis label, then right click and select Format Axis.

·         In the Format Axis dialog, change the Display units to Thousands.

·         Choose the Number option from the list of pages.

·         Choose Currency from the Category list.

·         Change the Decimal places to 0 and click Close.

·         Choose the Number option from the list of pages.

·         Choose Currency from the Category list.

·         Change the Decimal places to 0 and click Close.

·         If you would like to resize the chart. Click the right side of the charge on the grab handle. Drag to left until it is the width that you desire.

·         In the Gemini Task Pane, locate the GeographyKey field under the DimStore table. Drag and drop it to the Slicers Horizontal box.

·         Find the PromotionName field in the DimPromotion table. Drag and drop it to the Slicers Vertical box.

·         Finally, locate the Manufacturer field in the DimProduct table. Drag and drop it to the Slicers Vertical box.

·         Right click on the Horizontal Slicer: GeographyKey, and select Slicer Settings.

·         Change the Caption from GeographyKey to Country and click OK.

·         Repeat the process and change the title of the first Vertical Slicer from PromotionName to Promotion.

·         In the Country slicer, select only one of the fields such as 731. Notice how the PivotChart and PivotTable update in real time. Play around with other slicers to get a feel for how the real time analysis works.

·         Close Excel by clicking the File and select Exit.

·         If prompted to save your changes, do so. Excel will close the PowerPivot Client Window. 

Performance Services 2010: Monitor, Analyse, Plan!

Building Performance Point Dashboards.

Within a few days the new RTM version of SharePoint 2010 (SP2010) will finally be launched! As we already know from the Beta and RC version: SP2010 will bring us a lot of new and cool stuff!

One of these  new things is: Microsoft Performance Point Services 2010 (PPS2010). In the 12 Wave it was a separate product called: Performance Point Server 2007. Within the 14 wave it is integrated in the SP2010 product stack as a separate Service Application.

With PPS2010 you can do your performance management based on underlying datasources. PPS2010 can be split into three parts:

• Monitoring; What is happening and what is happened?
• Analysis; Why has it happened?
• Plan/forecast; What is going to happen/next steps, what do I want to happen?

To answer the above questions you can generate PPS2010 functionalities like:
(Balanced) Scorecards, KPI's, analytical reports (with drilldown) and trend analysis.

Example
Withing this blog we will show you an example of the easyness of creating a
Performance Point dashboard within PPS2010/SP2010.

Prerequisites
• SharePoint 2010 Enterprise
• SQL Server 2008 (x64)
• Contoso Retail DW SQL2008 Example DB (see: codeplex.com or Microsoft.com)
• Business intelligence center template created in SharePoint 2010, from this
   site you can start the Performance Point Dashboard Designer
• A Secure Store Service Application with a master key and application key set.
• A PPS2010 target application ID in Secure Store service application with the
   the credentials set for this target application ID

Steps
1:
From the business intelligence center start the Dashboard Designer. Click on
create dashboards and then click start using performance point services.(see picture below).

2:
Click on the button "Run dashboard designer". The Performance Point service will now download and open the designer application from the SharePoint Server.

3:
The next time you can open the dashboard designer from the Start-menu.

4:
The Dashboard designer start page will look like this:

5:
Make sure that you first created a connection to the Contoso Retail DW in the dashboard designer. This will not be shown in this example.

6:
The next step is to create the scorecard where the KPI's will be integrated. On the create tab click Scorecard. Choose for Microsoft - Analysis Services

7:
Choose the Contoso Retail DW Datasource and click next

8:
Select Create KPI's from SQL Server Analysis Services measures and click Next

9:
Click Add KPI (this will give you the possibility to add an existing KPI from the cube. If you choose for Select KPI you can choose a KPI you created in this workspace. Rename the name of the KPI to: Sample_KPI

10:
In the next screen select a dimension, choose Sales Territory country

11:
Next, choose a measure filter for the target and the actual of the KPI, Choose Greater China as actual and India as target.

12:
In the Add member columns screen, check <Add column members> and choose the date.calender Year field in the dimension textbox. In the member textbox select the years 2008 and 2009

13:
Choose the location in SharePoint (document library) where you want to place your Dashboard content, click Next.

14:
Click Finish and rename the scorecard to: Sample_Scorecard. Your scorecard should look like this:

15:
In the details pane (right) open the dimensions group and pick the field <Category Name> and move it to the right hand side of the <Sample KPI> in the scorecard.

16:
A Screen opens, right click <All Products> and choose Autoselect members --> Select Children. All the underlying categories will dynamically be shown in the scorecard.

17:
Click update in the edit-tab and the scorecard should look like the following:

18:
When you created your first scorecard, we will go further by creating an analytic report, click on the create-tab on analytic chart. You can see that you can also choose an Excel Report or Reporting Services Report.

19:
Choose the Contoso Retail DW Datasource and click finish

20:
Rename the report to: Sample_Pie

21:
Drag the dimensions, measures or named sets you want on to the report designer as shown in the picture below:

22:
Now you can change your report type to: Pie Chart by right clicking on the report

23:
Create another Analytic chart with report type: Line Chart. Choose the dimensions and measures that areshown below:

24:
Call the chart: Sample_Line

24:
On the Create-tab, click KPI details. Rename this one to Sample_KPIDetails.

25:
The last step is to create a dashboard and drag and drop all the items we just created on the dashboard. On the Create-tab click Dashboard and choose 2 zone dashboard. In fact: you're now are going to create a SharePoint site with some webparts in two webpart zones.

26:
Give the page a name, e.g.: Sample_Dashboard. Right click on the dashboard and choose add below. You now will create a zone below, after that click in the new zone and choose: split zone. You now have created a four webpart site.

27:
Now drag and drop your items from the details pane to the dashboard until your screen looks like the following:

28:
Keep your mouse on the scorecard part of the dashboard and drag the Member Unique Name to the Piechart part, you've now created a connection between the both parts.

29:
Drag the Cells context field to the KPI details part of the dashboard, after you've done with this you're dashboard should look like the following:

30:
The most exiting part!! Right click on the dashboard in the workspace browser and choose: Deploy to SharePoint. You're new dashboard will now be uploaded to SharePoint (it creates a new page, with the necessary webparts and publishes all your items to SharePoint). You're Dashboard should look like this:

31:
If you click on Performance Point Content you can see the items you've just created.

Congratulations! You've just had you're first PPS2010 experience!