1 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

SAP LUMIRA VS.

MICROSOFT

POWERPIVOT

2 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 3

Data Sources ............................................................................................................. 3

Look and Feel ............................................................................................................ 3

Data Acquisition Steps ............................................................................................... 5

SAP Lumira ............................................................................................................. 5

Microsoft PowerPivot .............................................................................................. 7

SAP Lumira ........................................................................................................... 10

Microsoft PowerPivot ............................................................................................ 11

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 11

About De Villiers Walton ........................................................................................... 12

3 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

INTRODUCTION

In our recent blogs, we’ve been banging the drum for Microsoft PowerPivot as a

cost-effective enabler of flexible reporting and self-service BI. As an SAP consulting

partner that specializes in SAP Business Intelligence it would be remiss of us to

ignore SAP Lumira, the latest incarnation of the data visualisation tool formerly

known as SAP Visual Intelligence.

In this article then, we will compare the features offered within Lumira with those

offered in PowerPivot.

DATA SOURCES

The table below shows that SAP Lumira and Microsoft PowerPivot provide access to

similar datasets.

Out of the box, Lumira does offer better connection to SAP data, providing it is either

in HANA or accessible via a Business Objects Universe. Other SAP databases have

to be accessed via the Freehand SQL option.

While PowerPivot does not offer out of box integration with SAP this can easily be

resolved using tools such as the DVW PowerPivot Connector for SAP.

SAP Lumira Microsoft Excel PowerPivot

.CSV .CSV

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel

All Relational Databases via Freehand SQL (this includes SAP databases)

All Relational Databases (specific links for Microsoft)

SAP HANA Analysis Services

SAP Business Objects Universe Reporting Services

Azure DataMarket

Text Files

SAP – via PPCS (includes BW query data)

LOOK AND FEEL

SAP Lumira is an HTML5 based tool and, as such, the user interface is in our

opinion more pleasing than that of the Microsoft Excel based PowerPivot. Having

said that Excel is Excel and is so well established with business users globally that

the look and feel is probably irrelevant.

4 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

The SAP Lumira welcome screen is shown in the next screenshot:

The Microsoft PowerPivot add-in window is follows:

5 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

DATA ACQUISITION STEPS

SAP LUMIRA

In SAP Lumira, the steps to import data are logical and are explained on the

welcome screen so the user is clear on what to do. First, click the

button, which presents the choices for which Data Source is to be used as follows:

Click on the choice, in this example MS Excel, and browse for the file to be imported.

Once the file is located, you are presented with the following information.

6 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

The selections can be fine-tuned before clicking the button to import the

data to SAP Lumira. In this example the acquisition of 29,216 rows of 10 columns

from a local workstation took 13 seconds. The data is initially presented as follows:

7 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

MICROSOFT POWERPIVOT

In Microsoft PowerPivot, the initial selection of data source is from the ‘Get External

Data’ section of the toolbar.

To import a new Excel file click the icon. You are then able to

select which data source to be imported via the table import wizard.

8 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

Click the option to Import data from an Excel file and you are then asked to browse

for the file. Once found and selected the wizard presents you with a selection screen

where you select which files relating to the Excel file should be imported. You can

also preview the data prior to importing it by clicking the button.

9 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

The following is the Preview and Filter screen.

Once you have selected the columns click OK and return to the selection screen

where clicking the wizard continues to the final screen and clicking finish will start the

data acquisition. Note that at this stage, unlike SAP Lumira, you are not advised how

much data will be imported.

In this example, the acquisition of 29,216 rows of 10 columns from a local

workstation took 6 seconds, which is twice as fast as SAP Lumira.

The data is initially presented as follows:

10 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

SAP LUMIRA

The data imported did not have any measures so in order to obtain the required

analysis the column medal was converted to allow a count. This was a simple

exercise using manipulation tools provided on the right side of the screen. Filtering

allowed the drilldown to the required level and a split screen option allowed the

results to be displayed in tabular and graphical format.

11 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

MICROSOFT POWERPIVOT

The data was taken into an Excel Pivot Table and standard pivot table functionality

was utilised to filter and drill the data to the appropriate level.

A graph was added in the same view. We were able to add a further graph in the

same window, which was not possible with SAP Lumira.

CONCLUSION

Both tools offer excellent data analysis capability albeit through different user

interface approaches. For users who are used to pivot tables in Excel then

PowerPivot offers a friendly and familiar interface. The look and feel of Lumira

however, is much more contemporary. Lumira also offers some additional graph

options that are not available in PowerPivot.

Microsoft PowerPivot is a free add-in to Microsoft Excel 2010. So, if your business is

already invested in Microsoft then PowerPivot seems a very logical choice. For SAP

and Microsoft customers the key weakness is easy access to SAP data within

PowerPivot. There are a few methods to enable this. We recommend you consider

the PowerPivot Connector for SAP.

SAP Lumira offers a free personal edition, which allows connectivity to Excel and

.CSV files. A licence is required for a standard edition, which allows database

connections. We do feel that SAP HANA customers are best placed to get the most

out of SAP Lumira at this stage. Take a look at the SAP website for current pricing.

12 © De Villiers Walton Limited 2014

ABOUT DE VILLIERS WALTON

De Villiers Walton is an SAP services partner. We design, implement, and integrate

SAP solutions; optimize business processes; and provide strategic business

consultation for our customers.

We have proven expertise in SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Business Intelligence,

SAP Customer for Cloud, SAP Customer Relationship Management, SAP E-

Commerce, and SAP HANA.

Visit our website: www.dvwsolutions.com

Read our blog: http://www.dvwsolutions.com/blog.html

Contact us: http://www.dvwsolutions.com/contact-us.html

Email us: enquiries@dvwsolutions.com