Tutorials

Power Pivot doesn´t bring any new superb functionality in BI, but brings the know technology to people, who can´t use the traditional, complex tools. And moves BI to well know spreadsheet environment.

Power Pivot is, compared to bigger BI tools, very cheap in both license and implementation.

What does it do

Power Pivot generally controls so called Data Model. So, ehm, what is Data Model? Data Model is a “space” in XLSX file, outside sheets, where data can be stored in relational database. It is used for relational database, enable to process much bigger data then classic XLSX sheet.

Basic features

• Data Model (managed by Power Pivot) uses table relations. These can´t be used in Excel sheets.
• Data Model uses hierarchies to group data on multiple levels
• Power Pivot in Data model uses his own DAX language (quite similar to spreadsheet formulas)
• Power Pivot only works with XLSX files. No installation of server needed…
• The data from Data model are presented by Pivot Tables.