In this post I will review the latest version of SAP Visual Intelligence – 1.08 – and see how it stacks up against the Microsoft self-service BI tools, Excel, PowerPivot and PowerView. In the initial release, Visual Intelligence only supported SAP Hana, but in its latest iteration few other data sources are supported: CSV File … Continue reading SAP Visual Intelligence vs. Microsoft PowerPivot and PowerView
Category: PowerPivot
Microsoft Surface RT review, sort of in a context of Microsoft BI
First, I have to explain why I am writing this review when so many websites have already covered the product – the only thing that I will cover that others haven't is what features of Microsoft BI stack run on Surface and what don't. Let's get through the bad stuff first. I don't know if … Continue reading Microsoft Surface RT review, sort of in a context of Microsoft BI
How to connect Excel PowerView to Analysis Services cube
There are several UI gotchas related to building PowerView visualizations that I wanted to address with this post. First, PowerView is not available in the Ribbon out of the box, in order to enable it, one needs to go to File->Options->Add-ins. Then find Manage Add-Ins drop down box, select "COM Ad-ins" and click Go. That … Continue reading How to connect Excel PowerView to Analysis Services cube
PowerView in Excel 2013 – Business Intelligence – Second Impression
Well, the more time passes, the more I like it... Somehow I have figured out, subconsciously, how not to make it crash quite as often and also how to work around things that don't work very well. So, in no particular order, here are few more observations... Map - like it a lot. There is … Continue reading PowerView in Excel 2013 – Business Intelligence – Second Impression
Excel 2013 – Business Intelligence – First impressions
I have been playing with the new excel for a few weeks now and I think I have finally enough material to share. In general the first impressions can be bucketed in three distinct set of emotions: Wow - a lot of new cool stuff coming out. It is becoming painfully clear that the PerformancePoint … Continue reading Excel 2013 – Business Intelligence – First impressions
More on new features of PowerView in Excel 2013
I started the list of changes here, at some point I will consolidate everything into a single nice master list, but for now I will just keep posing all the new things that I find in individual posts. So, a few other new features: Ability to drill on not only Matrix controls but also charts … Continue reading More on new features of PowerView in Excel 2013
PowerView in Excel 2013
I have been playing around with the newly released Office 2013. I cannot seem to find that many tangible Business Intelligence features in it, other than the PowerView feature that is now available in Excel. This feature has been flaky at best; I am getting all kinds of errors trying to build some visualizations against … Continue reading PowerView in Excel 2013
HTML5 support for PowerView and the rest of the Microsoft BI stack
Had a long conversation with a senior Microsoft executive few days ago. It appears that HTML5 support for PowerView will be released with the Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2012 by the end of this calendar year. A little too late for my taste, but I will take what I can get. My prognostication is … Continue reading HTML5 support for PowerView and the rest of the Microsoft BI stack
Dynamic security in a tabular model for analysis services
The second iteration of the tabular model for analysis services now allows us to implement very sophisticated security scenarios including row-level dynamic security. In order to implement it, first we need the means of finding out the windows credentials of the user. That can be accomplished using the DAX function USERNAME(). Second, we need to map … Continue reading Dynamic security in a tabular model for analysis services
Choosing a Tabular or Multidimensional model in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services
Many great discussions are taking place about the future of the Multidimensional mode for the Analysis Services. It is very clear where the majority of the investment went for the 2012 version (hint... think rows and columns and not multidimensional). At the same time, one might argue that the traditional or Multidimensional set of features is already … Continue reading Choosing a Tabular or Multidimensional model in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services
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