Using PowerPivot for SharePoint 2013 - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 189

CHAPTER 7

Using PowerPivot for
SharePoint 2013

There are many tools that the business user, or the information worker, can reach to, but by far it

is Microsoft Excel that is used most often. A great deal of today's business decisions are based on
an Excel workbook. However, there are some drawbacks inherent to this approach, and a few caveats
must be issued:

■ It's fairly common to share those workbooks by email or in a file share. This can potentially
raise security issues.

It's hard to assure that everybody working with a given workbook is using the same version,
because access to that workbook is neither monitored nor controlled.

■

Refreshing the workbooks with new data can be a lot of work, and potentially, it's a chore that
needs to be done frequently.

■

Often, the data sources for those workbooks is used without the knowledge IT personnel.

■

Therefore, a natural yet inevitable mild tension exists between the users (who want to get things
done quickly) and the IT department (which wants control). There is nothing wrong with the position
of either side. It's just how things are.

To address the needs from the business user's perspective but at the same time not forget about
the legitimate concerns of IT, Microsoft developed PowerPivot for Excel, PowerPivot for SharePoint,
and Power View. Together, they are Microsoft's core implementation of Self-Service Business
Intelligence.

PowerPivot might not solve all the problems, but it is a paradigm-shifter that is bringing business
intelligence (BI) to the business analyst. Here are just a few of the benefits that PowerPivot brings to
the table:

A secure mechanism for sharing the reports You can publish the workbook to SharePoint,
where it becomes an interactive web application through the Excel Services. Users have to
download the workbook; they can open and interact with it in the browser. There is less risk
to sensitive data, and when you publish a new version, everyone receives it the next time they
visit the site.

■