Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Because it is Excel, as soon as it can be shown that the ability to manage the Excel files exists, many
people are likely to try it out. So, it is a great stepping stone to getting richer BI controls and solutions
in place. Getting the Excel files working on the server is typically quick and straightforward (often no
harder than simply saving them in SharePoint). This makes it a great choice if you are looking for baby
steps toward introducing a deeper BI solution later, or if you are looking for a quick prototyping/
proof of concept BI solution.
If users want to extend beyond the reach of just the workbook sheet, there is a Web Part that pro-
vides the ability to make more complex dashboards that are more deeply integrated into SharePoint.
This can be used from within SharePoint UI, no extra installation or tool is needed.
It is a great ad hoc tool
One of the strengths of Excel is that it is a fantastic tool for doing quick analysis on the fly. It is fairly
easy to add a new column to a table for a quick calculation, drill down on a PivotTable to go deeper
into the insight, or modify a slicer to change how the data is viewed. This kind of loose, ad hoc data
interactivity and exploration is something that works well on Excel Services, too.
Some other BI tools are great, too, but they might not be great at ad hoc exploration. And, if Excel
Services doesn't support the full level of ad hoc functionality that the user desires, she can always just
click Open In Excel and take the file into the Excel client to do more. This works because Excel Services
is loading Excel files natively and there is nothing converted or special about those files—they can be
opened on the client or server.
It scales Excel files to many users
Because Excel Services is a true server product, it is can be scaled out to many computers or scaled up
to use more resources on a single computer so that it can meet the demands of many users viewing
and interacting with workbooks in the system. Thus, if there are some BI reports that are Excel based
which need to be shared broadly, Excel Services is a natural choice. This is especially true for cases in
which all the people who need to view the data don't have the Excel client installed.
The Data Model in Excel Services
As presented in Chapter 4, “Using PowerPivot in Excel 2013,” the Data Model is a collection of tables
and their relationships that reflects the real-world business. In the desktop version of Excel, the
xVelocity engine is the component that is responsible for handling the Data Model. It runs within the
Excel process in Windows. In the server world, this job is the responsibility of one or more SQL Server
Analysis Services 2012 SP1 instances. SharePoint 2013 is a game changer compared to the PowerPivot
for SharePoint 2010 architecture. At that time, in the 2010 release, the PowerPivot instance of Analysis
Services had to be inside the farm, in a SharePoint Application Server. Now, in 2013 release, there is
no restriction where the SQL Server Analysis Services in SharePoint Mode instance needs to be, and
no one-to-one mapping between SharePoint Application servers and Analysis Services in SharePoint
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