“IT’S ALIVE!!!!”
(Just your average Excel Pro after converting
his first PowerPivot Workbook into a Web App)

I’ve got another article about to go live on CIMA Insight, but I’m gonna jump the gun a bit and post basically the entire thing here ahead of time.

At Pivotstream we recently went live with our first full-time demo site for Hosted PowerPivot.  We’re going to be adding to it over time, but it’s got enough on it already that I think it’s worth looking at – it shows that “spreadsheets have become live web applications” thing that has to be seen, live, to really sink in.

Customizable Homepage

Pretty self-explanatory – customizable content plus a menu of applications.  Link below. 

(OK, one note:  I say “customizable” but customization is only allowed for Authors/Owners of the site.  What you are seeing here in the Consumer experience, and Consumers cannot customize this home page).

https://insights.hostedpowerpivot.com/sites/Demo/Pages/default.aspx 

App #1: Based on Microsoft’s “AdventureWorks” Sample Data Set

This is the workbook from the Budget vs. Actuals Part One and Part Two posts. Here’s a picture of that same workbook after it’s been saved to a SharePoint web server and then accessed in my browser:

Notes on this application:

1. This is just an XLSX file, created with PowerPivot and then saved to the server
2. But it’s rendering in my browser (Firefox in this case), and the XLSX is NOT being downloaded to my computer
3. I do NOT have to have Excel installed on my computer in order for this browser application to function
4. This picture is of the menu page of the app, which is just a worksheet with the gridlines and headers turned off
5. The graphics are two image files inserted into the sheet via Insert.Picture on the ribbon
6. The four hyperlinks are merely links to other worksheets within the workbook

If I click the “Sales vs. Budget” hyperlink, I am taken to the report I built in last month’s article:

Click the slicer – it works

Try this application out here:

https://insights.hostedpowerpivot.com/sites/Demo/Pages/Adventureworks-Sample.aspx

Application #2: Retailer Overlap Competitive Analysis

This application is based on two real-world data sets. One is a list of the addresses of almost every retail food/drug store in the United States. The other is a detailed list of demographic information about every ZIP code (postal code) in the United States.

Blend them together in PowerPivot and you get an application like this:

Note that I have selected the two warmest temperature ranges, circled in orange. If I click the link at the top of the sheet I then see the following analysis:

Notes:

1. I have the application set as if “I” were Walgreens, and evaluating my competitors’ geographic overlap with my Walgreens retail locations
2. The first column indicates to me that CVS competes with me (Walgreens) for 41.5% of the potential customers that I try to reach
3. In other words, 41.5% of the people who live near a Walgreens also live near a CVS
4. The second column reports that Walgreens competes with me for 47.3% of my customers in Warm locations
5. So the first column ignores the slicer selections I made on the menu page, and the second column respects them!
6. The third column represents the delta between columns 1 and 2. Interesting, for instance, that Rite Aid does NOT compete with me at all really in warm locations
7. Try it out, slice away – there are many ways to slice and analyze this data set

Application is located here:

https://insights.hostedpowerpivot.com/sites/Demo/Pages/Retailer%20Overlap%20Analysis.aspx

Application #3: CRM Analyzer

This one is also based off of a sample data set, but it is one pulled from a popular CRM package and therefore represents real-world value.

Note that there are multiple reports in this application as well, plus a menu page, but I’m just showing one here for space reasons.

Application can be tried out here:

https://insights.hostedpowerpivot.com/sites/Demo/Pages/CRM-Analyzer.aspx

Application #4: UFO Sightings

Many of you have seen this one already, on Mr. Excel’s Hosted PowerPivot site, but we put it on this demo site as well.

Application is located here:

https://insights.hostedpowerpivot.com/sites/Demo/Pages/UFO-Sightings-Real-Data,-Humorous-Conclusions.aspx

And now you need to downgrade to v1, so that your workbooks function on your server, or can be opened by other people running v1 on their desktops.

So… how to do that?

The Obvious Thing Works for Most People

Simple:  just uninstall v2 (from Windows Control Panel) and then install v1.

But if you see this error when you try to build a new workbook, or open an old one, well, it’s not working out:

What to do if you get that error?

1) Open Start Menu

2) Find “Command Prompt” – it is under Accessories

3) Right Click on Command Prompt, choose Run as Administrator

4) Once in the cmd window (looks like the old DOS window), type the following:

regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Analysis Services\AS OLEDB\10\msolap100.dll”

You may need to correct for your actual folder location – that’s the location on my machine.  The quotes ARE required.

Still not perfect though, as the v2 link remains first

And since not everyone knows that “2012 RC0” means “test version that won’t work with your servers, or anyone using v1” and that “2008 R2” means “version 1, the one you need for production environments,” well, this could still use some serious clarification. 

So let me make it 100% clear which link is good for what purpose:

First Link is a Test Version of V2, Second Link is Released Version of V1

See Also

Downgrading from V2 to V1

“Danger, Will Robinson!”

I’m seeing this pop up a lot now, both in our hosting business and on forums.

If you have gone to PowerPivot.com lately and downloaded PowerPivot, you downloaded a beta (a release candidate) of PowerPivot v2, and probably didn’t know it.

That’s not a big deal except for:

1. The release candidate likely isn’t as stable as the most up-to-date release of PowerPivot  v1
2. Workbooks created in v2 CANNOT be opened by v1, and that includes v1 server!
3. There is no way to “downgrade” a v2 workbook to v1, so if you want to use a v2 workbook on v1, you have to start over

So be careful – v2 is awesome but using it unknowingly may have side effects you didn’t expect, at least until v2 is official released and the rest of your organization upgrades.

I’ve notified MS of this problem but so far they haven’t fixed it.  Both v1 AND v2 should be available for download, with v1 the default, and both clearly marked.

If you want to download v1, here is the link:

V1 PowerPivot for Excel – Download Here

See Also

Downgrading from V2 to V1

Microsoft Fixes the Download Page…  Sorta

Click Image to Visit the Forum

The other day I suggested to Bill Jelen that he might want to add a PowerPivot-dedicated forum on MrExcel.com.  I wasn’t sure what he would say, to be honest.  I mean, he didn’t have a dedicated forum for really anything else – there wasn’t one for VBA, wasn’t one for formulas, wasn’t one for charts.  Instead basically all of those are combined in one single forum.

I respect that approach, really.  If my question involves formulas, charts, and VBA, where would I put such a question?  If he’d segmented the forums like that, it may have fragmented the discussion and ultimately resulted in an ineffective forum.

So I was perfectly prepared for him to say “good idea Rob but I’d rather not introduce noise with a new forum.”  Grudgingly I would have been forced to accept that.  But I was hoping he’d bend the rules just a bit here and make an exception, since PowerPivot still IS very new to the Excel audience.

I was overthinking it.  He loved the idea.  And the forum is already off to a decent start.

So if you have a question, pop on over there and post it.  Also, feel free to answer questions as well – I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall behind soon.

Oh, and be kind to newcomers.  One of the benefits of this new forum is that the legions of Excel pros who frequent MrExcel.com will undoubtedly notice all the activity and wonder what this whole “PowerPivot” thing is all about.

Here’s the link again:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=29

“I have detailed files.”

A few quick mini-posts today.  First up, I was recently asked if there was a way to see the title of every post and its URL all in one place for reference.  And the answer is…  no, but there should be.

Next week I hope to add a page to the site that provides that sort of index.  In the meantime, here’s a really rough export of all 300+ post titles and URL’s.  It’s not perfect by any stretch but you may find it useful in the meantime.

It is, of course, in Excel format

Click here to download the list of all
300+ posts and their URL’s

“Looks like it’s time for me to get myself a date.”

-Ace Ventura, PowerPivot Detective

The Importance of a Date/Calendar Table

I get a lot of questions from people who are struggling with the time intelligence functions in DAX.  And nine times out of ten, the answer is that they don’t have a proper date table.

I know it’s tempting.  You’ve got your sales table, and hey, there’s a Date column in there!  So you use it, and pass that column as a parameter to, say, DATESBETWEEN, or DATEADD.

Sometimes that will give you an error.  And other times, it won’t…  but the results will be funky.

You need a separate Dates table, or perhaps you prefer to call it a Calendar table.  A separate table, whose only purpose is to store dates (and the properties of dates, like DayOfWeek, etc.)  And it contains consecutive dates – no “gaps.”  Even if your business is never open on weekends, you need unbroken ranges of dates.

Oh, and then you need to relate it to your Sales table.  (Or whatever fact/measure tables you have).

Much More Than a Single Column

A single-column table that contains merely dates is enough to make the time intelligence DAX functions operate smoothly.  But you will almost certainly want other fields too.  Like Year.  MonthName.  DayOfWeek.  The list goes on.

Maybe something like this:

And yes, you can cobble this together on your own in Excel.  Tedious work though.

Would You Like One for Free?  Try DateStream from Boyan Penev!

Imagine just being able to open up PowerPivot and always having three nice date tables awaiting import:

That’s what Boyan Penev has put together for you.  Three great calendar tables that you can download directly into PowerPivot, for free.

He published them to Azure DataMarket, a service from Microsoft where data providers can actually sell you their data sets – things like weather, demographics, etc.

Boyan did this for free though – I suspect half as a service to the community, and half as a project to learn how to provide a service on DataMarket.

It’s pretty damn cool, and really, the story should end there.  If you’ve used DataMarket before, then it DOES end there.  Go get the date tables and try them out. 

But if this is your first exposure to DataMarket, it takes a few minutes to get it set up.  It’s not bad as long as you don’t make the mistakes I did.

How To Get It – Short Version

Hey, it’s on Azure DataMarket.  The URL is in the next section below, or you can just go to Azure DataMarket and search on “DateStream.”

DataMarket is going to be a wonderful service someday, but right now it has a few warts, so there is a Long Version too.

How To Get It – Long Version with Occasional Snarky Commentary

Step 1:  Go to the DateStream page on DataMarket.

Step 2:  Get confused.  OK, now is where things get choppy, because frankly, the DataMarket site itself has a terrible user interface.  I sent a full page of feedback to the DataMarket team about a month ago and as far as I can tell, they ignored it.  (Which is pure karma – I used to be one of the people at MS who ignored 90% of the feedback coming in, and now I get to be the one who is ignored).

I don’t want this to be a tutorial on how to navigate their website, or even how NOT to design a website.  So let’s just hit the highlights and try to get to Boyan’s date tables as soon as we can.

Step 3:  Get an account.  OK, this isn’t bad.  Another MS site that requires a Live ID.  Most of us have three of those by now.

Step 4a:  Scan the DateStream page looking for the “Download to PowerPivot” button or link.

Yeah that’s right.  There is no such link – you can get to one by navigating a few levels deeper but I’m going to skip that.  Don’t despair though, good things await you!

Step 4:  Find the URL of the DateStream Service

This is NOT the same as the URL of the DateStream page.  But it IS displayed on the page.  Here’s the URL you need:

And here again in text:  https://api.datamarket.azure.com/BoyanPenev/DateStream/

OK, copy that.  You will need it.

Step 5:  Launch PowerPivot, Go Into the PowerPivot Window

And click this button:

If you don’t have that button, you need a newer version of PowerPivot.  Go get that from PowerPivot.com and resume the next step.

Step 6:  Fill in the Dataset URL From Step 5

Step 7:  Account Key

See that last text box in the picture above?  The one with the long code in it that I’ve partly blurred?  That’s my account key.  I highly recommend clicking that Find button.  It’s actually pretty damn useful.

Be careful – the DataMarket site has TWO long nasty codes like that for you.  One of them is the one you want, and the Find button takes you to that one:

THIS is Your Account Key

Do NOT, under any circumstances, do what I did, and confuse Account Key with Customer ID:

This is NOT Your Account Key.
Do NOT Be Tempted to Use This!

Step 8:  Click Next, and Pick Your Table or Tables

NOW we are on familiar ground.

Last Note:  Parameterization?

One thing I have not yet figured out is how to limit the date range I import.  The table starts in the year 1900, which goes back a bit far for my needs, and makes the dataset take a long time to download.

You’ll notice that when importing from DataMarket, the Preview and Filter UI lacks the filter dropdown buttons:

No Filter Dropdowns, Just Checkboxes

But the DateStream homepage DOES indicated that parameterization is possible:

So if you’ve got that figured out, drop me a note

Yes, I know that the 2011 Summit was weeks ago, and I’m overdue on my observations.  And no, I did not attend in person this year.  But the keynote tends to be the vehicle for the big news, and it was available via streaming.  So I watched it later the same day.

It’s a couple hours long, vast stretches of it are dry wooden rhetoric, you can’t really fast forward it, and I don’t recommend watching the whole thing even though the highlights were worth it.  I’ll share those here to the best of my ability.

Point 1:  Denali Release Date “First Half of 2012”

OK, this means we will get the final production version of PowerPivot v2, the new Tabular BISM, and Crescent in first half of 2012.  I was kinda expecting them to say first quarter of 2012, so I was a little surprised.  I guess this means there is still time to get real feedback submitted

Points 2-4:  Cloud and Big Data

A very distinctly “cutting edge” feel to this year’s keynote.  And honestly, there appears to be substance to it, not merely hype.  I would say that the SQL team is one of the most nimble orgs at Microsoft, and one of the most responsive to changing customer needs.

2) “The cloud world is a hybrid of your data center and the cloud”
      -SQL VP Ted Kummert

This was a very deliberate and prominent statement.  It’s very interesting (and encouraging) that they said this – a sharp contrast to the MS reputation of “our offerings are the only things in the universe and are only designed to work with themselves.”  (BTW – that reputation, while deserved, derives from the academic mindset of MS employees rather than from arrogance, but at times that’s a fine line).

The meaning here is that we will be able to opt in “a la carte” rather than being forced to convert completely to Azure in order to make use of service X.  I like that a lot, because I expect some services to mature faster than others.

OK, maybe that’s not a big deal.  That’s just good business strategy and perhaps obvious.  But there’s a big difference between them stating this as a prominent theme (as they did) versus mentioning it as a detail, or merely bringing it up in Q&A (which is often the case).  They were NOT saying this last year.  So I call this a very positive development.

3) “Reporting Services Will Be Available in Azure Sometime Next Year”
       (…and then nothing was said about Analysis Services)

I forget who said this – it was either Ted or Amir, or maybe both.

The real information for me here was what was NOT said.  They said nothing about Analysis Services (SSAS), and the omission simply cannot be an oversight.  It was too obvious, the void in the next sentence was tangible.

That means they either already know that it will be 2013, or they are trying for 2012 but aren’t sure enough yet to promise it.  Either way, we can safely assume we won’t see SSAS Azure until late 2012 at the earliest.

Since PowerPivot is built on Analysis Services, that also means we won’t see any PowerPivot in the cloud until late 2012 at the earliest.  Furthermore, Office 365 won’t support PowerPivot until late 2012, or probably 2013.  That’s not a fact, but it’s a very safe guess.

4) Hadoop Support in PowerPivot!

Do you use Hadoop?  I don’t either, at least not yet, but a number of our clients at Pivotstream do.  So my ears definitely perked up when they said that we will soon have an ODBC driver that connects directly to Hadoop sources.  And as a bonus, our boy Denny Lee got some stage time giving the demo.

Seems like a natural fit – PowerPivot’s ability to crunch large volumes of data coming together with the world’s most popular system for collecting massive amounts of web data.  And again, a departure from the MS norm.  I would typically expect MS to hastily invent a Hadoop competitor and rush it to market, then take five years to make it a credible competitor.  Maybe that’s still a long term goal, but to embrace something with open source and Google roots like this so prominently is again a very novel and mature move that we should salute.

I’m actually getting a more in-depth demo and update today, so I hope to report back with more detail soon.

5) Introducing Data Explorer!

How often do we get something 100% brand new?  Data Explorer allows you to take basically any collection of data sources – like an Excel file on my desktop, a sales data set in SQL Azure, and a demographics data source on DataMarket – and mash them together into a single table.

Even better, it then allows me to publish the resulting data set, in Azure, so that others can consume it.

I have a LOT of questions about this new offering, but very little time to explore it.  I have asked a member of the Data Explorer product team if I can interview them on the blog.  If that doesn’t work out, maybe one of you out there would like to investigate it and submit a review to the blog.

Point 6:  Crescent is now named Power View

Just like PowerPivot was known as Gemini until late 2009, we knew Crescent would eventually get a real name.  And that real name is Power View.  Yes, the space is official.

Point 6a:  Live interactivity in PowerPoint (yes, the slides app) is going to be included in the Denali release after seeming like it was going to get cut.  Pretty cool.

Point 6b:  Purely my opinion, but Power View seems aimed at putting a more glamorous face on traditional BI scenarios – it’s a very “field list oriented” tool which in my experience means that only “data people” will take to it initially.

But I also DO believe that as Excel pros get more and more comfortable with publishing PowerPivot models to SharePoint, they will start opportunistically exploring what Power View can do for them, since Power View can be connected directly to a PowerPivot model and used as an alternative front end (or complement to) Excel Services.

Dave Boylan asked me a question the other day, and that triggered it:  I have been neglecting it, and it could use an infusion of new content and contributors.

Submitting items to the FAQ is quite easy, quick, and straight to the point.  A great place to gain some experience with the community without committing to writing full blog posts.

Even the FAQ Page here on the blog is piling up unanswered questions in comments. Answering one or two of those and adding it to the FAQ is a great place to start.

And you always get public credit for everything you submit.  You also get to add yourself to the Contributors/Moderators list.  (I think there are some people in that list who never submitted anything, and I’m going to trim them out at some point, muhaha).

Dave Boylan and David Churchward both recently signed up.  Dave B then submitted this entry on the EARLIER function.  (And another on market basket analysis). 

If you are interested in becoming a FAQ contributor, drop me a note:  info@pivotstream.com

CIMA Part Three:  PowerPivot ROI Comparison
CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW ARTICLE

It’s that time of the month again folks…  you know… for the next installment in my series for CIMA Insight! 

The overwhelming request from the CIMA crowd after they read Part One was to ask for proof of ROI.  These are accountants, after all, and it’s a fair question.

Some of Pivotstream’s customers would be the most “neutral” source for this kind of evidence, but it is difficult to convince folks to take time out of their day to explain to the world what a great competitive advantage they have discovered  

So I think we are going to explore some additional joint case studies with Microsoft, including a more vivid writeup of the Duane Reade case study (Pivotstream and DuaneReade  jointly authored a 25-page whitepaper jammed with quotes, images, and a specific focus on PowerPivot, and the MS marketing machine distilled it to…  something I don’t even recognize).

So Part Two, and now Part Three, are still very much informed by my experiences with all of our clients, but is grounded specifically in a project I have implemented both the traditional way and the PowerPivot way, which is, of course, The Great Football Project.

CIMA readers, I’m very hungry for feedback on part three – particularly on the topic of “should I continue  with more ROI detail in part four, or should I start explaining the basics of how to quickly get started, from an Excel veterans’ point of view?”

Leave comments, send me email, whatever you are comfortable with.  I want to know what would be the next best step, the most useful material for you.