How can I use PowerPivot tables like Excel tables -- printing, etc.?

Question

I can't seem to find any information on this anywhere, and even more surprisingly, no one else seems to have even asked this question...

How can I use tables I create in the Excel PowerPivot window in the same ways I use tables that are in ordinary Excel worksheets, to accomplish tasks such as printing? I am able to use the powerful capabilities of PowerPivot to produce tables with precisely the information I need for reports -- connecting data from multiple tables/sources, filtering, etc. -- but then there doesn't seem to be any way to actually print what I'm seeing, nor can I seem to access cells in these PowerPivot tables from Excel worksheets.

If a PowerPivot table is conceptually an Excel table with additional power in terms of pulling in data and relating it, it would seem appropriate that all the power of Excel could be brought to bear on these PowerPivot tables, but on the contrary, the available operations are limited. if, instead, a PowerPivot table is more correctly viewed as a data source that Excel worksheets can connect to, that would be fine, and indeed, one can use a PowerPivot table as a data source -- except it can't be brought into an Excel worksheet as an ordinary Excel table, unlike most other data sources.

I hope I'm missing something really obvious, and that someone can point out what it is. Thanks.

Answer 1

nor can I seem to access cells in these PowerPivot tables from Excel worksheets.

Hello,

PowerPivot acts as a data source for the PivotTable view of MS Excel. It's not the intention of PowerPivot to use it in an other way; and that wh nobody asked before.

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Olaf Helper
Blog Xing

Answer 2

nor can I seem to access cells in these PowerPivot tables from Excel worksheets.

Hello,

PowerPivot acts as a data source for the PivotTable view of MS Excel. It's not the intention of PowerPivot to use it in an other way; and that wh nobody asked before.

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Olaf Helper
Blog Xing

I find that baffling. Are you saying that PowerPivot tables can be represented using all the analytical and reporting power of the Pivot Table system, but they can't be used as a data source for ordinary Excel tables? If a company had lots of related tabular data in Excel files, and was using that data for reporting with ordinary worksheets as well as Pivot Tables, and then elected to move the data into a database and access it via PowerPivot to take advantage of its ability to manage large tables and to easily relate data, it would retain the ability to report on the data through Pivot Tables but it would lose the ability to work with the data as ordinary Excel tables? I suppose you may be right that this missing functionality was "intentional", but that would make it all the more puzzling.

Answer 3

Kirchh,

PowerPivot addin looks like Excel but it is NOT Excel. That's why it can exceed the 1M row limit of Excel :)

It doesnt support printing task because action is not supported in PowerPivot.

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Answer 4

Kirchh,

PowerPivot addin looks like Excel but it is NOT Excel. That's why it can exceed the 1M row limit of Excel :)

It doesnt support printing task because action is not supported in PowerPivot.

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So the reason PowerPivot can exceed Excel's worksheet row limit is that it doesn't support printing? And the reason an Excel table can't connect to a PowerPivot table as external data is because PowerPivot can support too many rows? And PowerPivot doesn't support printing because...printing is not supported in PowerPivot?

None of that makes any sense at all.

Answer 5

Kirchh,

I am saying that PowerPivot is NOT Excel even though it looks like Excel. There are many Excel features (including the examples you gave) that are not supported in PowerPivot because they are not implemented. For example, to support printing, PowerPivot will have to support 'action' like that in OLAP.

Hope that helps.

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Answer 6

Kirchh,

I am saying that PowerPivot is NOT Excel even though it looks like Excel. There are many Excel features (including the examples you gave) that are not supported in PowerPivot because they are not implemented. For example, to support printing, PowerPivot will have to support 'action' like that in OLAP.

Hope that helps.

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That's fine, but why can't PowerPivot be a data source for Excel?

Answer 7

Kirchh,

That's a design decision.

Chu

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Answer 8

Kirchh,

That's a design decision.

Chu

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Ah, so there's no technical reason. Rather, Microsoft decided that they didn't want users to have all the benefits of being able to access PowerPivot tables from Excel, so they blocked that capability intentionally.

Why did Microsoft decide to deprive users of this huge benefit for which the functionality is already present but blocked?

Answer 9

Kirchh,

I believe you can use PowerPivot workbook as a datasource if you publish it to sharepoint.

Chu

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Answer 10

Kirchh,

I believe you can use PowerPivot workbook as a datasource if you publish it to sharepoint.

Chu

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-- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Why would it have to be published to SharePoint? PowerPivot can be used as a datasource for a Pivot Table; why is it blocked from being used as a datasource for an ordinary Excel table? Everything necessary seems to be there, as you can drill through a value in a Pivot Table and get the backing PowePivot data as an ordinary table (and if you hack the connection, you can get any PowerPivot table). But the user isn't permitted to simply connect an Excel table to PowerPivot. Why would Microsoft decide to block that?

Answer 11

Kirchh,

When PowerPivot was first designed, the decision was to integrate closely to Sharepoint to allow for team sharing. We are constantly evaluating customer feedback to add more features, and this has been one of the feedbacks we have received. We will consider supporting this in the future but with no gurantee.

Chu

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-- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Answer 12

Kirchh,

When PowerPivot was first designed, the decision was to integrate closely to Sharepoint to allow for team sharing. We are constantly evaluating customer feedback to add more features, and this has been one of the feedbacks we have received. We will consider supporting this in the future but with no gurantee.

Chu

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I'm not questioning why PowerPivot is closely integrated with SharePoint. I'm asking why connecting to the PowerPivot model from within Excel was intentionally blocked by Microsoft, when all the functionality to do so appears to be present.

Is creating an OLE DB connection in Excel to PowerPivot as $Embedded$ supported?

Answer 13

Kirchh,

It is not intentionally blocked - it was never developed.

Creating an oledb connection to embedded cube as $Embedded$ is not supported.

Chu

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Answer 14

Kirchh,

It is not intentionally blocked - it was never developed.

Creating an oledb connection to embedded cube as $Embedded$ is not supported.

Chu

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It was developed -- as evidence, I offer the fact that Pivot Table drill-through ("Show Details") pulls PowerPivot table data into an ordinary Excel worksheet table.

If creating an OLE DB connection to $Embedded$ is not supported, does that mean Pivot Table drill-through is not supported, even though it is a listed and operational feature?