It is a known fact that a low rate of user adoption is a major issue in less than successful BI implementations. The most significant cause could arguably be the lack of simple, intuitive and flexible tools at the reporting/presentation layer. With PowerPivot, Microsoft gave us an easy way to mash-up data models, create Excel reports and surface them through Sharepoint.Now, with Power View in SQL 2012 we have an easy, sexy and compelling way for true business users visualise and present this information. With interactive demos you will learn about Power View, understand its dependencies, learn data model design tips and be made aware of any pitfalls and limitations.

1. Accelerated BI Growth with
Power View and PowerPivot
Bhavik Merchant
Bhavik.merchant@csg.com.au
@BhavikMerchant
my other passions
• Cricket (Watching), Squash (Playing)
• Travelling.. Anywhere
• Whisky

2. Agenda
 Speaker Intro
 Goals
 Rationale
 Groundwork
 Solutions and Demonstrations
 Tips/Caveats
 Q&A

3. Did I hear a chirp?
@BhavikMerchant
#SQLSAT138

4. A little about me..
 Background
 I’m from Zimbabwe (explains the accent?)
 BI Team Manager and Lead MSBI Consultant at CSG
 Certified End-to-End Microsoft BI practitioner
 Microsoft vTSP for BI
 Trainer (SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, PowerPivot, Sharepoint BI)
 Experience
 Started in Web Development and SysAdmin
 Thereafter, been in BI for about 7 years. SQL 2000 to 2012;
MOSS 2007 to SP2010

5. Presentation Goals
 Identify a major issue in BI
 Understand problem/solution domains
 Learn about new paradigms/tools in SQL 2012
 See them in action
 Learn some tips
 Identify shortcomings and pitfalls

6. Audience Poll
 Roles
 IT/Infrastructure
 Data Analyst/Power user
 Information Worker/End(ish) User
 BI Professional
 Exposure
 Traditional SSAS
 PowerPivot (v1, v2)
 SSAS Tabular
 Non Microsoft Visual Tools – Tableau, QlikView, BO
Explorer etc

7. Lets get started...
“If you build it, he will come”

8. Q: How do you measure BI success?
“Overall adoption has been static since 2008, with
under 30% of potential users making use of BI.”
Gartner BI Adoption Trends, 2011
 Why? Both approach and tools
 Low buy-in
 Bottom-up approach
 Lack of agility in traditional architectures

9. Adoption Smadoption! What are the trends?
Source: Gartner (August 2011) [2995 respondents]

10. Just throw smart new tech at users, right?
In-memory Social BI
Data Discovery
Visual Analysis
Columnar DB
Self-Service

11. Deliver Us From Evil…

12. Got superpowers?
PowerPivot Power View Power Point

13. BISM - The BI Semantic Model
Client Tools
Data model
Business logic Personal BI Team BI Organizational BI
PowerPivot for PowerPivot for Analysis
and queries Excel SharePoint Services
Data access

14. Guises…
 Its all SSAS! 3 modes, at INSTANCE level:
 Multidimensional
 Tabular
 PowerPivot

15. Scenario
 Assume we are an end(ish) user
 We have data models accessible from Sharepoint
 We want an intuitive, ad-hoc way to visualise data
1. Toy Sales Data
2. OECD data
 Demographics such as mortality, fertility rates
 Big thanks to Cathy Dumas for this model

16. Ok I get it, Power View! Where to Start?
 We need one of these in SharePoint to kick off a
Power View Report
 PowerPivot workbook
 .BISM connection (i.e. to Tabular SSAS or PPVT). Note
bypass Kerberos 
 .RSDS connection to Tabular SSAS or PPVT
 These are (or point to) tabular models, implying
Power View ONLY works on tabular models

17. DEMO – Start your engines…
 Table, Matrix, Chart, Card
 New Views

18. DEMO – Put your foot on it…
 Linked filtering, View/Object Filtering, Slicers
 Tiling
 Multiples (Trellis Charts)

19. DEMO – Speeding!
 Scatter Plot Animation
 Life Expectancy vs Fertility
 Life Expectancy vs Infant Mortality
 Export to PowerPoint
 Can Print too!

20. Development Tips
 Power View
 Explore! Options grey out/appear
 Cant convert back from Slicer or Tile
 Use Textbox to hack chart title (text, style)
 Tabular/PPVT
 Mark your date table
 Use views to reduce dev model size
 Workspace db for Tabular (set in workspace). No local
storage like PPVT
 Excel Advanced Mode

21. Model Design Tips
 Usability
 Name fields meaningfully, hide keys and intermediate calcs
 Format numbers in model – saves time later
 Use Default Columns for Power View consumption
 Use dummy tables to group calcs
 Setup Unique Identifier
 Use Perspectives
 Performance
 Don’t include unneeded columns in model - Go deep, not wide
 Limit column width = less memory use
 Avoid high cardinality columns and large strings
 Pre-sort your table keys where possible
 General
 Binary data and URLs work for images

22. Architecture/Maintenance Tips
 For In-memory, have memory = 2x size of model
 Can restore from PPVT to Tabular SSAS via SSMS
Restore, or convert via SSDT
 Use BISM Normalizer from CodePlex to diff and
merge models into one SSAS database
 Tabular databases are processed on a schedule like
classic SSAS
 DirectQuery is an option similar to ROLAP
conceptually. Consider with ColumnStore indexes.
BUT, there are hybrid modes and complications

23. Limitations and Pitfalls
 Cant change speed of Play axis
 Beware of Interpolation (Cyprus 1960-1970)
 Cant change anything in slicers
 No custom colour, logos, fonts (except textbox)
 View Filters sorted alphabetically by title
 Calculated Columns cant be View Filters
 Cant control partitions, roles from Excel

24. Technical Requirements
 SQL Server 2012
 Tabular SSAS instance
 Sharepoint 2010 (at least SP1). Enterprise features
turned on
 PowerPivot Services
 Reporting Services Integration
 Power View Integration
 PowerPivot 2012 RTM Client
 SQL Server Data Tools (Standalone  )

25. Tying it all back together .. !
 New tools like Tabular Power View are great and will
help increase agility and adoption, but they augment
sound BI processes
 I think dimensional models are still important
(debated)
 Prototype heavily
 Balance needed: Formal warehouse (centralisation,
security) vs total empowerment
 Plan, Plan, Plan!
 Understand user base and requirements before choosing
the tools

26. Resources
 Dan English: http://denglishbi.wordpress.com
 Marco Russo:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/marco_russo/
 Kasper de Jonge: www.powerpivotblog.nl
 Cathy Dumas on Hans Rosling:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cathyk/archive/2011/12/2
1/the-hans-rosling-project.aspx
 DirectQuery White Paper:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/hh965743.aspx
 Data Viz people: Stephen Few, Edward Tufte, Jen
Stirrup

27. Questions?
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