DEMYSTIFYING POWERPIVOT FROM THE SHAREPOINT ADMIN’S PERSPECTIVE

David Peterson – SharePoint Administrator – Trek Bicycles Corp.

David_Peterson@trekbikes.com - @sprookie1 – sharepointrookie.com

• Hi, I’m David– SharePoint Administrator with

8+ years experience – Trek Bicycle Corporation

• Aug ‘11-present– State Farm Insurance

• Aug ‘08-Aug ‘11• Largest SharePoint

deployment ever– MS Professional Writing –

Illinois State University – Married to Dawn with 2 children

ABOUT ME

• Trek Bicycle Corporation – Waterloo, WI

– One of the leading bicycle manufacturers in the world

– Sold in over 90 countries– Variety of subsidiary businesses

• Ascend – POS software• Ray’s – Mountain Bike Park• Trek Travel – Travel Company• Mansion Hill Inn – Hotel• B-cycle – Bicycle Ride

Sharing

ABOUT TREK

• What is PowerPivot• PowerPivot in SharePoint• Setting it up• Setting up the Refresh• Example Scenario• Add’l Ways to Use PowerPivot• Questions

AGENDA

WHO’S USED PIVOTTABLES OR PIVOTCHARTS?

• Visualize DataPIVOTCHARTS

WHAT IS POWERPIVOT

• PivotTables only allow you to connect to 1 datasource

• PowerPivot can connect to many datasrouces

• With the familiarity of Excel in an Add-on

TAKES EXCEL FROM…

• Takes BI (Business Intelligence) and puts it in the hands of decision makers

– Now your Business Analysts, Managers, Directors, anyone really, can build meaningful reports and views into org data (mundane, boring day-to-day content)

– …Leaving you to build the more complex reports/views and manage the datasource(s) (fun, challenging content)

• PowerPivot is your desktop solution for BI if you have an understaffed/non-existent BI team

BUSINESS CASE

ARCHITECTURE

Click icon to add picture

• Old, outdated data– Manual Refresh– Users may encounter old, stale

data and are not aware of this– Each user must have access to

the data source – Must install Excel and

PowerPivot on everyone’s machine = $$$

POWERPIVOT WITHOUTSHAREPOINT

• Takes the Processing and automates it server –side

– No more manual refreshes of PowerPivot and Excel

– One-time or Schedule based– Not all users need access to data

source– Adds in collaboration and document

management features of SharePoint– Easily create online dashboards for

mass consumption– No need for Excel client-side if

Office Web Apps deployed = less $$$

POWERPIVOT WITHSHAREPOINT

ARCHITECTURE

SETTING IT UP

• What’s it gonna take?– Minimum

• 64-bit dual core proc• 8GB RAM• 80GB Storage

– Recommended• 4 quad-core servers• 64GB RAM• 80GB Storage or more

• Bottom Line . . . the more, the better to ensure a consistent user experience

HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

• Assumptions:– SQL 2012 deployment, although

SQL 2008 R2 isn’t much different

• What you’ll need: – SQL 2012 Resource Disc or .iso– SharePoint SP1– ADO.NET Data Services Update

for .NET 3.5 SP1– Existing Site Collection

• Place resource Disc in server or mount .iso and initialize setup

LAYING DOWN THE BITS

OPTIONS

Click icon to add picture

• Prepare yourself to hit Next…a lot– Remember the Service Account

used for the Analysis cube

BITS CONT.

• Now for the easy part– I’m the lazy SharePoint Admin– Open the PowerPivot

Configuration Tool– Couldn’t be simpler– Will register necessary

components, deploy solutions, create service applications, & validate that everything is done correctly

– Will even create the refresh account

CONFIGURATION

• Unattended Account needs an AD Account

– Central Admin > Manage Service Applications > Secure Store Service

SET UNATTENDED ACCOUNT CREDENTIALS

ADD CREDENTIALS

Click icon to add picture

• Group Policy– Will need to update group policy– Accounts need rights to:

• Allow Log on Locally• Log on as a Service

– Set in Group Policy– Run gpupdate

• Kerberos– Unattended still required when

Kerberos is enabled on Farm– Who else is going to update the

PowerPivot?• Unattended account will need contribute

rights to the site you enable the refresh on• Same for SSAS if you are going to use

SharePoint list data in a PowerPivot

NOTES ABOUT SSAS AND UNATTENDED ACCOUNTS

• Someone’s gotta keep watch– Plenty of reports/information in

Central Admin– Important to watch resource

usage– Can be automated via SSRS

report (i.e. e-mailed daily)– LINK

MONITORING REFRESH

SSRS REPORT

Click icon to add picture

ENOUGH TALKING! LET’S SEE THIS IN ACTION

WAYS TO USE POWERPIVOT IN SHAREPOINT

• Similar to SSRS’s subscription and alerting capabilities

• Users can create alerts; notified after a refresh

• Create a SPD workflow to e-mail specific link(s); good for Web App links since alerts send links directly to Excel file

ALERTING/WORKFLOWS

• Web Part Pages with Office Web App links

– Dictate where/how users see specific content

• Excel Services Web Part– Control what sheets are seen

and how they’re consumed• Excel Service REST API

– Full, granular control over workbook content

– “Security through obscurity”– Trade-off – much more

administration

DASHBOARDS

POWERPIVOT VS. PERFORMANCEPOINT VS. SSRS

Source: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg537617.aspx

QUESTIONS?

David Peterson

Trek Bicycles Corp.

david_peterson@trekbikes.com

@sprookie1

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-peterson/8/910/859

CONTACT INFO