Publishing Your BI Tools to SharePoint - Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools for Excel Analysts - page 291

➤ Excel Web Access: This component allows users to interact with Excel through a Web server.
➤ Excel Web Services: This component is hosted in SharePoint Services and provides develop-
ers with an application programming interface (API) to build custom applications based on
the Excel workbook.
When you publish a workbook to Excel Services, your audience can interact with your Excel file in
several ways:
➤ View workbooks that contain a Data Model and Power View reports
➤ Navigate between worksheets
➤ Sort and filter data
➤ Work with PivotTables
➤ Use slicers and PivotTable report filters
➤ Refresh data for embedded data connections
Limitations of Excel Services
It's important to understand that workbooks on the Web are running in an environment that is quite
different from the Excel client application you have on your PC. Excel Services has limitations on the
features it can render on the Web browser. Some limitations are due to security issues, while others
are simply because Microsoft hasn't had time to evolve Excel Services to include the broad set of fea-
tures that come with standard Excel.
Limitations include the following:
➤ Data validation does not work on the Web. This feature is simply ignored when you publish
your workbook to the Web.
➤ No form of VBA, including macros, runs in the Excel Web App. Your VBA procedures simply do
not transfer with the workbook.
➤ Worksheet protection does not work on the Web. Instead, you need to use the options
shown in the Browser View Options dialog box (look ahead to Figure 15-2).
➤ Links to external workbooks no longer work after publishing to the Web.
➤ You can use any PivotTables with full fidelity on the Web, but you cannot create any new
PivotTables while your workbook is on the Web. You need to create any PivotTables in the
desktop version of Excel on your PC before publishing on the Web.
➤ OfficeArt, including Shapes, WordArt, SmartArt, diagrams, signature lines, and ink annota-
tions, doesn't render on the Web.