PowerView for Excel 2013 against OLAP - where to get the addon

Question

Hi All,

I've PowerView in Excel 2013 setup. I can only go against the relational data or may be Tabular SSAS (which I've not tired yet). Most of our company data is in OLAP cubes. Where can I get an install (stand alone) that will get the add on for OLAP that people are talking about. I tried to download the install from the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35822

This offers a new installation of SQL server 2012. If I go this route, the release notes say that it can't be installed side by side to the previous version of SQL 2012. Does anyone has experience with that? If I go this route, which version of SSAS do I install? Tabular or MD - given that I want to use Excel 2013's PowerView with OLAP cubes.

Thanks,

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GBM

Answer 1

Hi GBM,

There are 3 versions of AS Multidimensional used with OLAP, Tabular, and PowerPivot. For Demo Builds I create 3 Instances the default Instance has AS Tabular, and the PowerPivot Instance obviously has AS POWERPIVOT SharePoint Mode, I then create a Multidimensional Instance for OLAP., Each of these can be used with Excel PowerPivot or PowerView and Excel services...

To move your OLAP cubes to SQL 2012 you would use MULTIDENSIONAL

-Ivan

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Ivan Sanders My LinkedIn Profile, My Blog, @iasanders, Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2013.

Answer 2

Thanks for your reply Ivan, I wanted to find out which of these version need to be installed (or all) that would give me a pivot table in Excel 2013 PowerView against an OLAP cube.

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GBM

Answer 3

Hi GBM,

• RS - Reporting Services SharePoint Integrated Mode will enable PowerView Reports in Excel Services
• AS - Analysis Services Multidimensional Mode supports OLAP Cubes
• AS - Analysis Services PowerPivot enables support of PowerPivot in Excel services

There may be a way to repurpose your OLAP cubes in Tabular Mode. However, its only something I have read a couple of sentences in an email where some one mentioned it. But that still wouldn't help you any as the requirements will still be 2 AS instances, and 1 RS instance. Note: RS does not need to be associated with any instance. When you configure the RS Service Application you will need to choose an instance for the RS Databases..

-Ivan

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Ivan Sanders My LinkedIn Profile, My Blog, @iasanders, Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2013.

Answer 4

Hi Ivan,

so there is no way (and will not be in future) to connect from Excel 2013 PowerView directly to a SSAS instance?

Gabriel