Database Reference
In-Depth Information
use Cases
Excel is often used by a variety of professionals to collect, sift through, and
analyze data in an organized and predictable fashion. The users' activities
include pivoting data to be able to see how numbers or information look
when different filters, parameters, and criteria are applied. The functionality
and design of Excel makes this process very straightforward and painless.
PowerPivot is often used by the same folks who want to work with a much
larger amount of data and need to
persist
the model. In other words, they want
to keep their creations around and continually enhance then with features
like partitioned data, automated data refresh, hierarchies for easier browsing,
and course, much more data than Excel can handle natively. Analysis of tens
of millions of rows of data is possible in PowerPivot, while Excel struggles
above 60K rows in a native Excel table. This is because of the new
column
store
features in PowerPivot that deliver significantly increased compression
and performance when iterating over the data.
These persisted models are then shared and made available for collaboration
by publishing them to SharePoint either through Excel Services or BISM tabular
integrated with SharePoint to enable browsing and collaboration across the
organizations. A typical workflow looks like this:
Create Workbook
a
Enhance in PowerPivot
a
Publish to SharePoint
a
Collaborate
This workflow is illustrated in Figure 5-4.
FIguRe 5-4
A self-service BI model
