Comments on: To PowerPivot or Not http://www.bp-msbi.com/2010/02/to-powerpivot-or-not/ A practical blog about Microsoft BI tools, techniques and practices written by a developer for other fellow developers. Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:41:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Boyan Penev http://www.bp-msbi.com/2010/02/to-powerpivot-or-not/comment-page-1/#comment-43 Boyan Penev Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:04:07 +0000 http://www.bp-msbi.com/2010/02/to-powerpivot-or-not/#comment-43 Thank you for sharing your experience Vidas. Well, 4mil/min is quite good actually. I should probably test soon with a cube where I have 3-4 million members and a few measures. My concern is that if my cube/database is 200Gb, the PowerPivot file would also be quite large.<br /><br />As for the users - even now the situation is similar - a power user creates reports from a cube and then everyone uses them. If the users need to be even more powerful to create the report, then on the knowledge side they would have to be somewhere between current power-users (who are administering the solutions and using Report Builder with no in-depth knowledge of Analysis Services or relational databases) and me (with such knowledge). Even Report Builder proves to be too hard for some, let alone tackling the complexities around data and extra spicy Excel formulas.<br /><br />I have been thinking on this topic for a while and I can definitely see myself using it for all sorts of things - in example demos, sample reports, and maybe even showing users how changes in their cubes could work (before I actually implement them). Basically, I can imagine myself using PowerPivot where I could not use Excel because of its limitations. However, whether non-IT users would be able to handle it is still an open question for me. I should probably just test it with some and see what they think :) Thank you for sharing your experience Vidas. Well, 4mil/min is quite good actually. I should probably test soon with a cube where I have 3-4 million members and a few measures. My concern is that if my cube/database is 200Gb, the PowerPivot file would also be quite large.

As for the users – even now the situation is similar – a power user creates reports from a cube and then everyone uses them. If the users need to be even more powerful to create the report, then on the knowledge side they would have to be somewhere between current power-users (who are administering the solutions and using Report Builder with no in-depth knowledge of Analysis Services or relational databases) and me (with such knowledge). Even Report Builder proves to be too hard for some, let alone tackling the complexities around data and extra spicy Excel formulas.

I have been thinking on this topic for a while and I can definitely see myself using it for all sorts of things – in example demos, sample reports, and maybe even showing users how changes in their cubes could work (before I actually implement them). Basically, I can imagine myself using PowerPivot where I could not use Excel because of its limitations. However, whether non-IT users would be able to handle it is still an open question for me. I should probably just test it with some and see what they think :)

]]> By: Vidas Matelis http://www.bp-msbi.com/2010/02/to-powerpivot-or-not/comment-page-1/#comment-42 Vidas Matelis Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:14:05 +0000 http://www.bp-msbi.com/2010/02/to-powerpivot-or-not/#comment-42 Actually loading data into PowerPivot is expensive task. Problem is that compression is happening on the client - so you have to first load all the records from server to your machine and just then it will be compressed. I did my tests and found that I was able to load about 4mln records per 1 minute.Of course it will depend on your network, how many columns, etc. My tests were on narrow table. So it took me 5min to load 20mln rows. Also when you work with large data sets it takes time to save spreadsheet - it might take 1 min just to save your data. But performance even on my laptop was amazing. <br />PowerPivots are not just for Power users. Maybe power users will create report, but then all users can use it. Actually loading data into PowerPivot is expensive task. Problem is that compression is happening on the client – so you have to first load all the records from server to your machine and just then it will be compressed. I did my tests and found that I was able to load about 4mln records per 1 minute.Of course it will depend on your network, how many columns, etc. My tests were on narrow table. So it took me 5min to load 20mln rows. Also when you work with large data sets it takes time to save spreadsheet – it might take 1 min just to save your data. But performance even on my laptop was amazing.
PowerPivots are not just for Power users. Maybe power users will create report, but then all users can use it.

]]>