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)

Adding a data source in a single worksheet from a variety of data sources


In this chapter, we've been looking at the preparation of data for analyses and creation of advanced powerful reports in more detail. This will give the readers a general idea about the preparation of data analysis.

This topic will show the readers how to import that data from a variety of data sources in the PowerPivot interface; analysis of two types of industry data will be done—one is of e-commerce customer activities and another one is of sales analysis data—which was provided by Microsoft for training.

For a better understanding of the users, a brief explanation of some of the terms that will be used from here on is given as follows:

  • PowerPivot interface/workspace: This is a user interface/workspace of the PowerPivot application that will be visible to the user.

  • PowerPivot workbook: This is a space where all the tasks are done in PowerPivot.

  • PowerPivot table: Everything that is imported from different data sources...