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January 13, 2010

True Story:  One time in my mid-twenties, I was sitting in a meeting with members of the marketing team, and was the only engineer in the room.  We were planning a strategy that impacted the entire Office suite.

One of the marketers suggested that we focus solely on the needs of Word/Outlook/PowerPoint, and not worry about Excel/Access, because “not many people care about those apps, anyway.”

…to which I deadpanned, in my most biting sarcastic tone, “Yeah, totally, only those people who care about numbers.”

In hindsight, that was not my finest moment.  In those days, the marketing org was a bit of a shark tank.  Highly competitive and cliquish, where reputations could turn on a dime.  A dressing-down from the prod-dev org such as the one I delivered, in front of your marketing peers, was not something you could easily recover from.  There was much laughter in the room, by the many, at the expense of the one.

That marketer wasn’t around much longer. 

Like I said, I was in my twenties, and while I believe I am sharper today, I definitely had sharper edges back then.  I hope I would handle that situation more diplomatically today, but I can’t really be certain.  I mean, the nastiness of my reply was exceeded only by the ridiculousness of the original statement :)

OK, that’s a long but hopefully interesting/amusing preamble to the following statement :)

PowerPivot is an international topic

Or…  “Hey look!  People worldwide are interested in numbers!” :)

As always, new MS products get the most initial “noise” in the US, but if you look at a map of recent visitors to this site and the FAQ, you’d never guess that:

PowerPivot is an International Thing

I just thought that was neat.  And if I snapped this picture early in the morning before the US wakes up, it would skew even more international.  My free logging service only keeps the most recent 500 hits.

Anyway, I thought you might want to see that.

…and dear ex-MS marketer:  if you happen to be out there today, reading this blog about numbers, please accept my apologies :)


Not your average PowerPivot report

January 13, 2010

Thats not a PowerPivot Report

“THAT’s not a PivotTable!  Oh wait…”

-Bill Gates

(OK, so I turned it into a movie quote of sorts by using the picture of Anthony Michael Hall playing Bill Gates in “Pirates of Silicon Valley.”  Was that a good casting decision?  I’m torn between “yeah it was OK I guess” and “well it WAS made for TV.”)

Setting that aside, the real Bill Gates DID in fact say that when we first showed him the new PivotTables in Excel 2007.  Prior to that, the appearance of a finished PivotTable was something that the average user found off-putting and geeky.  So we were pretty happy with that response to the new look.

PivotTables (and PivotCharts) have come a long way.  A few clicks and you’ve got a very professional and customized report.  But there are, of course, still cases where you need an even greater level of control than what pivots can give you.  The good news is that if you find yourself in one of those cases, you still have other options.

Excel Pros – Do NOT tune out!

Excel pros are probably thinking “yeah, Rob, I know all about those other options.  You make a PivotTable, you hide it on another sheet, and then build a report sheet using formulas, etc.”

I have a trick up my sleeve today, though.  I bet most Excel pros have NOT seen what I am about to show you :)

Here it is – Not Your Average PowerPivot Report!

(You’ll need to crank your volume up – I got a new mic and need to adjust its sensitivity).

Summary of what’s in that report

  1. PowerPivot-Backed – this report is indeed a PowerPivot report.
  2. No PivotTables anywhere – that’s right, there isn’t a pivot in the entire workbook!
  3. Custom formatting – I split the report body with horizontal and vertical dividers, and could place them wherever I wanted.
  4. Parameterization – users can play “what if” by changing input cells.  A numeric column in the report responds to those changes in realtime.
  5. Sorting – the report is dynamically sorted by that numeric column in #2.  Change a parameter, and the report re-calcs AND re-sorts.
  6. Respects slicers – all columns in the report respect the slicers on the page as well.  This also impacts the sort order of the report.

How it was done

I’m going to go through it step-by-step in the next few posts.  Yes, I am deliberately teasing you :)

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