Book Image

PowerPivot for Advanced Reporting and Dashboards

By : Robert Bosco J
Book Image

PowerPivot for Advanced Reporting and Dashboards

By: Robert Bosco J

Overview of this book

<p>Business intelligence technology gives an organization the power to make decisions using large volumes of data. By obtaining an adequate amount of data and integrating data from a variety of sources, a user can get a comprehensive knowledge of their business and business strategies. PowerPivot is a free add-in to the 2010 version of the spreadsheet application MS Excel. It extends the capabilities of the PivotTable data summarization and cross-tabulation feature with new features such as expanded data capacity, advanced calculations, the ability to import data from multiple sources, and the ability to publish workbooks as interactive web applications.</p> <p>PowerPivot for Advanced Reporting and Dashboards will teach you the fundamentals of PowerPivot as well as how to use the different data types available. This book also discusses useful tips and tricks for handling and resolving errors that might pop up while creating your report. With this book, you will be able to create relevant BI reports quickly and efficiently.</p> <p>Moving on from the basics, this book will explain the types of data sources that can be imported into PowerPivot. You will then delve into relationships, hierarchies, and data model creation using imported data. You will also learn how to employ DAX functions to transform unstructured data into structured data. Finally, this book will teach you how to create reports such as Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts, Slicers, KPIs, and Perspective reports using PowerPivot and how to publish them using the SharePoint server.</p>
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Chapter 1. Principles and Installing PowerPivot

The PowerPivot add-in was developed for Microsoft Excel 2010 and supports its later versions. It does not support Microsoft Excel 2007, but in Microsoft Excel 2007, a user can only open the workbook since they are created in the .xlsx format. In Microsoft Excel 2007 users can only do Excel-level changes to the worksheet, such as change the color, font, and styles, but cannot interact with PivotTables and PivotCharts. When users upgrade PowerPivot, they can use the workbooks created in the previous versions but the opposite is not possible.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • The principle of PowerPivot for Excel

  • The benefits of using PowerPivot

  • Installing PowerPivot

  • Verification of the installation